HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN WHALE FISHERY. 115 



corded accidents (not previously mentioned in this work) was the one 

 which befel the ship Union, of Nantucket, Ca.pt. Edmund Gardner, 

 master, which sailed from Nantucket on the 19th of September, 1807, 

 for Brazil Banks. When twelve days out, running along at the rate of 

 about seven miles an hour, she struck on a sperm whale with sufficient 

 force to break two timbers on the starboard bow.* The pumps were 

 immediately manned, but the water came in through the break so 

 rapidly that it became evident that the certain destruction of the ship 

 was only being briefly postponed, and preparations were made by Cap- 

 tain Gardner, who was a young man and this his first voyage as com- 

 mander, to leave her. The boats were lowered, and provisions, water, 

 fireworks, books, and nautical instruments, whatever, in fact, they could 

 safely carry, and which would be of use, were stowed away in them. 

 By midnight — only two brief hours after the accident — the water was 

 up between decks, and an immediate departure was inevitable. This 

 was accomplished, though with much difficulty and danger, as a heavy 

 swell was running. The crew, sixteen in number, left the ship in three 

 boats, but the increased risk of separation led them to divide them- 

 selves between two boats and abandon the third. The course of the 

 prevailing wind, which was northwest, and the lateness of the season, 

 made it imperative upon them to steer, not for Newfoundland, which 

 was perhaps the nearest, but for one of the Azores, which was the most 

 easily accessible laud. 



On the morning of the 2d of October the meu rigged sails for the 

 boats, and thus not ouly progressed with greater speed, but relieved 

 themselves of the fatigue of rowing. During the nights of the 2d and 

 3d the wind blew a gale, and during a portion of the time they were 

 compelled to lash the boats together and let them drift. By the 4th of 

 October they were obliged to allowance themselves to three quarts of 

 water and sixteen cakes for the whole company for twenty-four hours. 



* Quite a number of similar instances are upon record. Marco Paulo mentions, as 

 long ago as 1298, that many of the Chinese junks have as many as thirteen compart- 

 ments in the hold " to guard agaiust accidents which may cause the vessel to leak, 

 such as striking a rock, or being attacked by a whale. This last circumstance is not 

 unusual ; for during the night the motion of the ship through the waves raises a foam 

 that invites the hungry animal, which, hoping to find food, rushes violently against 

 the hull, and often forces out a part of the bottom." Sir William Monson also says the 

 same kind of accident happeued to the ship in which he was taken prisoner off the 

 Burlings in 1791, a week before his capture, " the ship giving stem to a whale that lay 

 asleep on her back above the water. The accident was so strange and rare that it 

 amazed the company, who gave a sudden shriek, thinking the ship had foundered upon 

 a rock ; but looking overboard they beheld the sea all bloody, which comforted them, 

 conceiviug it to be, as they found it was, a stem upon a whale." He also mentions the 

 foundering of a ship from the same cause. Wiuthrop (ii, p. 7) says, " One of the ships, 

 which came this summer (1640), struck upon a whale with a full gale, which put the 

 ship a stays ; the whale struck the ship on her bow, with her tail a little above water, 

 & brake the planks and six timbers and a beam, and staved two hogsheads of vinegar." 

 In March, 1796, the ship Harmony, of Rochester, Capt. George Blankenship, ran upon 

 a whale off the coast of Brazil, and was stove and sunk. The crew were saved, but 



