134 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



shocking calamity was brought to the island. The most diabolical, 

 cold-blooded mutiny ever perpetrated upon the deck of any whaleship 

 was that on board the Globe, of Nantucket, in the month of January, 

 1824, and this it was that thrilled the minds of the islanders and eclipsed 

 the terrible details of the loss of the Essex. 



The Globe, Thomas Worth commander, sailed from Nantucket in the 

 latter part of December, 1822, and when she again entered that port in 

 November, 1821, her decks were stained with the life-blood of her cap- 

 tain and her three mates. On the night of January 25, 1824, four of 

 the crew, headed by Samuel B. Comstock, a boat-steerer, mutinied, and 

 killing their superior officers, took the ship into the Mulgrave Islands, 

 intending to destroy her. Arrived there, they proceeded to strip the 

 vessel, and while doing so a quarrel arose among themselves, and it 

 culiniuated in the death of Comstock. Soon after this, before the work 

 of demolition had further progressed, six of the men, most of whom had 

 taken no part in the mutiny, and simply remained quiet to avoid the 

 fate that had overtaken the captain and mates, having been sent to 

 guard the ship, cut the cable aud escaped from the islands, arriving at 

 Valparaiso after a long aud boisterous passage. Here the vessel was 

 taken in charge by the American consul, and the men confined pending 

 their examination, after which they were restored to the Globe, which 



was put in charge of Captain King and sent to Nantucket. Ten 



men had been left at the Mulgraves,* but repeated injuries to the natives 

 on the part of Silas Payne (the second in command of the mutineers at 

 the time of the outbreak, and the murderer of his associate conspirator, 

 Comstock), so incensed them that one after another of the crew were 

 slain, the innocent perishing with the guilty, until on the arrival of a 

 United States vessel, which had been sent there to rescue the survivors, 

 but two remained alive.t 



In an account of this sad affair, published by Messrs. Lay aud Hussey 

 immediately after their rescue, is related the following incident as show- 

 ing the gross brutality of Comstock, the chief of the mutineers,- and the 

 miserably slight pretexts by which they justified to themselves their dia- 

 bolical plot and its carrying out. Some time previously to the mutiny 

 Comstock, who was a boat-steerer, had desired a friendly wrestle with 

 the third mate, Nathaniel Fisher. Mr. Fisher, being the more athletic, 

 handled him with so much ease that Comstock, enraged at Fisher's 

 superiority, struck him, whereupon the third mate laid him on deck 

 several times quite severely. Comstock at the time made threats of 

 vengeance upon Mr. Fisher, to which he paid no attention. 



After murdering the captain and first mate, who were both asleep 

 at the time of the assault, the mutineers proceeded to attack the second 

 and third mates, who were in the cabin. Comstock had loaded two 

 muskets, and on reaching the cabin-door he fired one of them in the 



*Odo man was bung by tbe mutineers. 



t William Lay, of New Loudon, and Cyrus Hussey, of Nantucket. 



