MY FATHER. * THE name of Scoresby is familiarly known in
connexion with Arctic research and navigation ; but those who are familiar with the author upon the Whale Fishery and the Northern regions, who combines extensive knowledge with practical experienee, may not know that the sailor-author and the reverend doctor of divinity are identical. The celebrated Arctic seaman and suc- cessful whale-fisher was the father of the divine, and his parent• in more senses than one. He not only gave him life, but made a sailor of him, by carrying him when• a mere child into the frozen regions for a holyday treat; and probably the deep unaffected piety which the elder Scoresby possessed may have been the origin of those feelings that subsequently led his son to the ministry, of the church.
Itfy Father is rather memorials of the career and character of William Scoresby the elder, than a formal biography. Notwith- standing some passages that smack of the sermon, the volume is a graceful tribute to the memory of a parent, as well as an in- teresting and informing book. In describing the exploits of his father, Dr. Scoresby gives an agreeable aneedotical account of Arctic navigation, and the peculiarities of the .whale-fishery; adding thereto information as to the trade, in. the shape of statistics touching the produce, the outlay, and the profit. All these things, too, are well connected with the main subject ; they illustrate the character and doings of William Scoresby, while they inform the reader about the adventurous vocation in which his life was passed. The elder Scoresby was born in 1760, at Cropton, near Whitby; where his father cultivated a small farm. The boy received a scanty education at the village school ; but this advantage ceased at nine years old, when he was set to the usual agricultural em- ployments adapted to his age. As he grew, older he entered into occasional service with some of the neighbouring farmers ; but an. indignity he received disgusted him with the pursuit and its fol- lowers, and at the age of nineteen he went to Whitby and appren- ticed himself to the sea. A robust and powerful frame, with a strong constitution, made the hardships light to him; by a care- ful economy of time and a resolute perseverance, in spite of all obstacles from duty and his companions, he acquired a knowledge of navigation, chiefly from the few books he could procure ; and this knowledge was turned to account in saving the ship on one oc- casion during his apprenticeship. At an early period, and over the heads of others, he was promoted to the command of a Greenland whaler ; and soon effected a revolution in the trade, not merely by
• Memorials of the Sea : My Father : being Records of the Adventurous Life of the late William Scoresby, Esq., of Whitby. By his Son, the Reverend William Scoresby, D.D., &c. &c. Published by Longman.
improving the mode of navigating among the ice, and in different technical arrangements, but by results more intelligible Ile to his em- ployers and the trade at large, in the shape of vastly increased re- turns. Several captains trained under ,him, and others profiting by his example, equalled Scoresby on single voyages, but none came near him on average of the whole. The following is a summary of the more remarkable results.
" The total number of voyages in which he held the command in the fishery, from first to last, was just thirty. The entire cargoes obtained under this personal guidance comprised the produce of 533 whales, • • • • with that of many thousands of seals, some hundreds of walruses, very many nar- wale, and probably not less than sixty bears. The quantity of oil yielded by this produce was 4664 tuns, of whalebone about 240 tons weight, besides the skins of the seals, bears, and walruses taken.
"From hence we derive a general average, during the thirty voyages, of eighteen whales, yielding 155.5 tuna of oil per voyage ; or, omitting the first voyage, which, for reasons stated in Chapter II, ought fairly, to be ex- cluded, the average would be 18.4 whales, yiekling 160 tuns of oil for each
voyage.
"In comparison of the general average of the British whale-fishery, this, no doubt, stands singularly high. But not having the materials for the exact determination of this general comparison, we may take the )lull whale- fishery for our guidance, which, from the large number of ships regularly engaged therein, will, it is believed, afford a fair estimate. And this section of the fishery, we find, comprised, betwixt the years 1791 and 1822 inclusive, an average of twenty-two ships annually ; the cargoes of which, during that period, averaged 84.5 tuna of oil a voyage per ship. Compared with this, it is seen that my father's yearly average was almost double the quantity.
"It is not possible, because of the lack of accounts as to several of my father's ships, to ascertain, except proximately, the actual value of the pro- duce now determined ; but from the variety of information now before me as to the marketable value of Greenland produce during a considerable majority of the years corresponding with these voyages, I have been enabled to cal- culate the gross proceeds of the whole thirty years' adventures in money at 196,5911., or possibly a full 200,0001. • "On this estimate we should have the value of, say, seventy-five tuna of oil and four tons of whalebone for the clear profit ; or out of a gross annual produce of the value of 66001., a residue calculated to yield about 30001. of voyage profit. "This estimate would give the sum of 90,0001., or, omitting the first voy- age, 87,0001. for the amount of this individual skill and enterprise, divided, in the shape of profits, among the owners embarked in the general enter- prise ! On another ground of calculation, guided by the proportion of ex- penses in certain known cases, the expenses were taken at two-fifths the produce ; which would reduce the profits (probably too low) to about 80,0001.
"In setting forth this result as very remarkable, it is with reference, it should be observed, to the instrumentality and capital employed. It is no uncommon thing for a sum like this, or much greater than this, to be real- ized in commercial enterprises ; but such cases there are generally many instruments and a large capital employed in the business. But here, under the one individual direction, there was butone ship employed, involving an investment of capital of from 60001. to 12,700/., or on an average not exceed- ing 90001. ; and this small investment yielding through a series of about thirty years no less a sum than 3000/. a,year, being at the rate of 331- per cent per annum on the capital employed."
Striking figures, no doubt ; but, considering the risks run, the hardships encountered, and the time consumed, nothing when compared with less hazardous speculations. When we look at the numbers amongst whom the whole sum is to be divided, and the small share that comes to the captain as captain, the gain is not so wonderful after all. Practitioners in law and physic, who discover nothing and improve nothing, make as much in one year as William Scoresby the whaler in ten. An unscrupulous adventurer, by a total disregard of common shame and common honesty, and a confident rather than a clever reliance on the gullibility of man- kind, shall clear as much in a short time as the gross produce of the hardy adventurer's thirty voyages. The chief improvements in Arctic navigation made by Scoresby were, a different mode of trimming the sails in working through the ice, and liberating the ship when fixed by swaying her from side to side by a movement of the sailors, so as to have the power of the wedge. The description is interesting, but long. The fre- quent result is shown in the following passage ; for when the principles were known it required the master to apply them suc- cessfully.
" Within my own experience, whilst I accompanied him during nine voyages from a, mere child to adult age, I had perpetual opportunities of dis- cerning his superiority over all the competitors we met with ; and during the same experience I had repeated occasions for noticing with proud admiration his wonderful skill in beating to windward amongst intricate ices, so as to leave every ship that we found near us in succession behind. In the morn- ing, perhaps at the commencement of a progress amid encumbering ices, I have seen around the Resolution, in various positions to windward as well as to leeward, a considerable fleet of companion whalers; and in the evening of the same day, after twelve or fourteen hours' efforts in getting to windward, I have been able to see no ship whatever within the limits of vision from the level of the deck. On ascending then to the topmast-head, where the extent of vision became vastly increased, I have generally found the pursuing fleet, bent on the same course, to be far away from us ; some ships being left so much behind perhaps as to have disappeared, not from fog or darkness but from mere distance to leeward.
"The voyage of 1806, described in Chapter IV. Section VII., exhibited a striking example of the successful application of this talent ; and in that of 1809 the same result was interestingly realized.
" We had taken the ice, in the latter case, with the view of penetrating the barrier betwixt the free Northern ocean and the fishing stations in the seventy-ninth and eightieth degree of latitude, along with a large fleet of other whalers. For some days, whilst no material progress could be made, we remained in varying relative positions presenting but little decided ad- vantage. At length, when circumstances gave room for the due exercise of talent and perseverance, we made a progress so much beyond that of our as- sociates, that we gradually left them farther and farther behind us, until the whole of the fleet were out of sight. We thus gained the 'Northern water' considerably before the others ; and, falling in with whales in abun- dance, soon commenced a most encouraging fishery. By and by, others of the fleet began to make their appearance ; and I well remember the astonish- ment of the captains and men of three ships which came close up to us on the 5th of June, just as we had taken in our fourteenth whale, whilst they had only obtained six amongst them." Instances of skilful daring and hairbreadth escapes are recorded in the volume, mingled with sketches of the habits of the whale and other Arctic animals The following is an example of the thoughtful adaptation of means to an apparently contrary end. "Another example of the application of the principles of natural science may be adduced with respect to my father's practice in the capture of cer- tain harpooned whales. In the most usual habits of the mysticetus, when struck in the Greenland seas, it descends to a considerable depth, generally 600 or 700 fathoms, and, after an interval of about half an hour or so re- turns spontaneously to the surface for respiration. But sometimes, especially when a taught strain has been held on the line, the whale continues to press so determinately into the depths of the ocean that it dies by a process similar to drowning. In that case, the heaving up of the capture becomes a matter of great labour and difficulty, and, because of the liability of the harpoon to draw, or of the lines to part, of much uncertainty as to the result. It is a matter, therefore, of much importance to avoid the possible contingency of a harpooned whale 'dying down.' The process ordinarily adopted for in- ducing the return of the fish to the surface, after the downward course is suspended, is to haul on the lines as soon as any impression can be produced, so as to stimulate to action and urge en ascending motion. In very many cases this process is effective, but by no means in all. For sometimes so des- perate and continuous is the effort to get down, that, when necessity might urge a return to the surface for respiration, the power to return no longer re- mains, and the helpless monster dies at its utmost depression. "My father, with his peculiar felicity of consideration and device, as- sumed a measure of proceeding as apparently unfitting as it was novel in its character. When the usual processes for the obtaining of the fish's return to the surface had failed, and no prospect remainedbut that itmust die where it was, he would throw off the turns of hie line round the stem or logger- . head' of the boat, and allow an extent of fifty or a hundred fathoms more to run freely out and sink in the water. "The meaning of the device was this : the entangled whale had no doubt descended deep in the water, as its ordinary mode of escaping from its natural enemies ; but the attachment and restraint of the line it could not escape from. It was an instinct with it, therefore, as he conceived,—as in the ease of some well-known quadrupeds, which may be driven but will not be led,—to resist the restraining force and to struggle to distance the point from which the restraint proceeds. The untoward effect of this instinct, my father supposed, might be diverted by rapidly slacking out a large extent of the entangling line, so that it might sink below the place of the fish, and so draw downward; for the same instinct which had incited it so perseveringly to dive, might naturally be expected to urge it, under this change of circum- stances, to an upward course. "The experiment on being tried proved, in different cases, successful. The whale, stimulated to a new course by a new direction being given to the re- straining line, returned to the surface, where it was received by its waiting assailants, and, when deprived of its life, became a prompt and easy prize, instead of an uncertain, hard-earned object of pursuit."
William Scoresby reached the ne plus ultra of Arctic navigation in his lifetime ; and his son is of opinion that no later navigator, with " all appliances and means to boot," has approached the Pole more nearly in a ship. During his voyage of 1806, he sailed from 8 degrees of West longitude to 19 degrees East longitude, on about the 80th and 81st degrees of latitude, and touched 81° 30' North within 510 miles of the Pole, and with an open sea.
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