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1First: In the year 1820 the ship Essex, Captain Pollard, of Nantucket, was cruising in the Pacific Ocean. One day she
2saw spouts, lowered her boats, and gave chase to a shoal of sperm whales. Ere long, several of the whales were wounded;
3when, suddenly, a very large whale escaping from the boats, issued from the shoal, and bore directly down upon the ship.
4Dashing his forehead against her hull, he so stove her in, that in less than "ten minutes" she settled down and fell
5over. Not a surviving plank of her has been seen since. After the severest exposure, part of the crew reached the land
6in their boats. Being returned home at last, Captain Pollard once more sailed for the Pacific in command of another
7ship, but the gods shipwrecked him again upon unknown rocks and breakers; for the second time his ship was utterly lost,
8and forthwith forswearing the sea, he has never tempted it since. At this day Captain Pollard is a resident of
9Nantucket. I have seen Owen Chace, who was chief mate of the Essex at the time of the tragedy; I have read his plain and
10faithful narrative; I have conversed with his son; and all this within a few miles of the scene of the catastrophe. *The
11following are extracts from Chace's narrative: "Every fact seemed to warrant me in concluding that it was anything but
12chance which directed his operations; he made two several attacks upon the ship, at a short interval between them, both
13of which, according to their direction, were calculated to do us the most injury, by being made ahead, and thereby
14combining the speed of the two objects for the shock; to effect which, the exact manœuvres which he made were necessary.
15His aspect was most horrible, and such as indicated resentment and fury. He came directly from the shoal which we had
16just before entered, and in which we had struck three of his companions, as if fired with revenge for their sufferings."
17Again: "At all events, the whole circumstances taken together, all happening before my own eyes, and producing, at the
18time, impressions in my mind of decided, calculating mischief, on the part of the whale (many of which impressions I
19cannot now recall), induce me to be satisfied that I am correct in my opinion." Here are his reflections some time after
20quitting the ship, during a black night in an open boat, when almost despairing of reaching any hospitable shore. "The
21dark ocean and swelling waters were nothing; the fears of being swallowed up by some dreadful tempest, or dashed upon
22hidden rocks, with all the other ordinary subjects of fearful contemplation, seemed scarcely entitled to a moment's
23thought; the dismal looking wreck, and the horrid aspect and revenge of the whale, wholly engrossed my reflections,
24until day again made its appearance." In another place--p. 45,--he speaks of "the mysterious and mortal attack of the
25animal." Secondly: The ship Union, also of Nantucket, was in the year 1807 totally lost off the Azores by a similar
26onset, but the authentic particulars of this catastrophe I have never chanced to encounter, though from the whale
27hunters I have now and then heard casual allusions to it. Thirdly: Some eighteen or twenty years ago Commodore J----,
28then commanding an American sloop-of-war of the first class, happened to be dining with a party of whaling captains, on
29board a Nantucket ship in the harbor of Oahu, Sandwich Islands. Conversation turning upon whales, the Commodore was
30pleased to be sceptical touching the amazing strength ascribed to them by the professional gentlemen present. He
31peremptorily denied for example, that any whale could so smite his stout sloop-of-war as to cause her to leak so much as
32a thimbleful. Very good; but there is more coming. Some weeks after, the Commodore set sail in this impregnable craft
33for Valparaiso. But he was stopped on the way by a portly sperm whale, that begged a few moments' confidential business
34with him. That business consisted in fetching the Commodore's craft such a thwack, that with all his pumps going he made
35straight for the nearest port to heave down and repair. I am not superstitious, but I consider the Commodore's interview
36with that whale as providential. Was not Saul of Tarsus converted from unbelief by a similar fright? I tell you, the
37sperm whale will stand no nonsense. I will now refer you to Langsdorff's Voyages for a little circumstance in point,
38peculiarly interesting to the writer hereof. Langsdorff, you must know by the way, was attached to the Russian Admiral
39Krusenstern's famous Discovery Expedition in the beginning of the present century. Captain Langsdorff thus begins his
40seventeenth chapter: "By the thirteenth of May our ship was ready to sail, and the next day we were out in the open sea,
41on our way to Ochotsh. The weather was very clear and fine, but so intolerably cold that we were obliged to keep on our
42fur clothing. For some days we had very little wind; it was not till the nineteenth that a brisk gale from the northwest
43sprang up. An uncommon large whale, the body of which was larger than the ship itself, lay almost at the surface of the
44water, but was not perceived by any one on board till the moment when the ship, which was in full sail, was almost upon
45him, so that it was impossible to prevent its striking against him. We were thus placed in the most imminent danger, as
46this gigantic creature, setting up its back, raised the ship three feet at least out of the water. The masts reeled, and
47the sails fell altogether, while we who were below all sprang instantly upon the deck, concluding that we had struck
48upon some rock; instead of this we saw the monster sailing off with the utmost gravity and solemnity. Captain D'Wolf
49applied immediately to the pumps to examine whether or not the vessel had received any damage from the shock, but we
50found that very happily it had escaped entirely uninjured." Now, the Captain D'Wolf here alluded to as commanding the
51ship in question, is a New Englander, who, after a long life of unusual adventures as a sea-captain, this day resides in
52the village of Dorchester near Boston. I have the honor of being a nephew of his. I have particularly questioned him
53concerning this passage in Langsdorff. He substantiates every word. The ship, however, was by no means a large one: a
54Russian craft built on the Siberian coast, and purchased by my uncle after bartering away the vessel in which he sailed
55from home. In that up and down manly book of old-fashioned adventure, so full, too, of honest wonders--the voyage of
56Lionel Wafer, one of ancient Dampier's old chums--I found a little matter set down so like that just quoted from
57Langsdorff, that I cannot forbear inserting it here for a corroborative example, if such be needed. Lionel, it seems,
58was on his way to "John Ferdinando," as he calls the modern Juan Fernandes. "In our way thither," he says, "about four
59o'clock in the morning, when we were about one hundred and fifty leagues from the Main of America, our ship felt a
60terrible shock, which put our men in such consternation that they could hardly tell where they were or what to think;
61but every one began to prepare for death. And, indeed, the shock was so sudden and violent, that we took it for granted
62the ship had struck against a rock; but when the amazement was a little over, we cast the lead, and sounded, but found
63no ground. The suddenness of the shock made the guns leap in their carriages, and several of the men were shaken out of
64their hammocks. Captain Davis, who lay with his head on a gun, was thrown out of his cabin!" Lionel then goes on to
65impute the shock to an earthquake, and seems to substantiate the imputation by stating that a great earthquake,
66somewhere about that time, did actually do great mischief along the Spanish land. But I should not much wonder if, in
67the darkness of that early hour of the morning, the shock was after all caused by an unseen whale vertically bumping the
68hull from beneath.
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