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MOBY DICK; OR 
with a copy of Blackstone under his arm ; and laying it upon the whale’s 
head, he says — “Hands off! this fish, my masters, is a Fast-Fish. I 
seise it as the Lord Warden’s.” Upon this the poor mariners in their 
respectful consternation — so truly English — knowing not what to say, 
fall to vigorously scratching their heads all round ; meanwhile ruefully 
glancing from the whale to the stranger. But that did in nowise mend 
the matter, or at all soften the hard heart of the learned gentleman with 
the copy of Blackstone. At length one of them, after long scratching 
about for his ideas, made hold to speak. 
“Please, sir, who is the Lord Warden ?” 
“The Duke.” 
“But the Duke had nothing to do with taking this fish ?” 
“It is his.” 
“We have been at great trouble, and peril, and some expence, and is 
all that to go to the Duke’s benefit; we getting nothing at all for our 
pains but our blisters ?” 
“It is his.” 
“Is the Duke so very poor as to be forced to this desperate mode of 
getting a livelihood ?” 
“It is his.” 
“I thought to relieve my old bedridden mother by part of my share of 
this whale.” 
“It is his.” 
“Won’t the Duke be content with a quarter or a half ?” 
“It is his.” 
In a word, the whale was seized and sold, and his Grace the Duke of 
Wellington received the money. Thinking that viewed in some particu- 
lar lights, the case might by a hare possibility in some small degree be 
deemed, under the circumstances, a rather hard one, an honest clergyman 
of the town respectfully addressed a note to his Grace, begging him to 
take the case of those unfortunate mariners into full consideration. To 
which my Lord Duke in substance replied (both letters were published) 
that he had already done so, and received the money, and would be 
obliged to the reverend gentleman if for the future he (the reverend 
gentleman) would decline meddling with other people’s business. 
It will readily he seen that in this case the alleged right of the Duke 
to the whale was a delegated one from the Sovereign. We must needs 
