Leviathan. 
227 
a small quantity of whalebone, is never attacked 
by boats, for it will tow a boat for thirty miles 
before it can be killed. While the shipmasters 
were agreed as to the vast number of whales, 
they considered that the bad weather and strong 
currents were obstacles too great to be over¬ 
come. However, they made other attempts 
along the Australian coast and then returned 
to England. 
These same vessels, with many others, now 
became regular traders to New South Wales, 
bringing out convicts under charge of a military 
guard, and returning to England sometimes via 
China, would make a cruise to the “ Fishery ” 
before leaving the coast. Strange indeed were 
the adventures that befell the crews of some of 
these ships as they sailed northward through the 
islet-studded waters of the north-west Pacific, and 
no history of the sea would ever be complete that 
failed to tell these old and now almost forgotten 
tales of the mutinies, attacks by pirates, cuttings 
off by South Sea Islanders, and wrecks and disas¬ 
ters that are interwoven with the story of the 
British merchant marine in the Pacific from 
1788 to 1850. Some of these wandering ships, 
unsuccessful in whaling, turned to sealing on 
