Chapter XIV: In the Southern Seas

By the year 1849 British whaling had reached a very low level, ship after ship having given up, and only fourteen vessels under that flag being so employed. But then Charles Enderby, a British merchant, a Fellow of the Royal Society, and the greatest authority in the country on the southern whaling industry, made a big effort to remedy this.

Enderby’s family name is, like other pioneers in the whaling enterprise, connected with exploration, and perpetuated by that Antarctic, desolate district known as Enderby Land, which was visited in 1831 by Captain Biscoe in one of the ships owned by Enderby’s firm. It was this same Biscoe, by the way, who visited in 1832 the west coast of Graham Land, which to-day is such an important whaling neighbourhood. Now in the years from 1839 to 1843 Sir James Clark Ross (nephew of Sir John Ross who explored Baffin’s Bay) was in command of that _Erebus_ and _Terror_ expedition into the Antarctic Seas, and in 1847 he published his _Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Seas_.

It was in the same year this volume appeared that Charles Enderby published his pamphlet, which caused a great deal of interest in England. Ross had made a lengthy stay at the Auckland Islands in 1840 and reported that “in the whole range of the vast Southern Ocean no spot could be found combining so completely the essential requisites for a fixed whaling station.” Enderby seized on this idea, and formed a corporation called the Southern Whale Fishery Company. The object was partly commercial, and partly patriotic. For the British whaling industry was moribund. Between 1838 and 1845 the produce of the American whale fishery had, on the contrary, averaged 37,459 tuns, but during 1845 it had risen to 43,064 tuns or the equivalent of £1,420,447, whereas in that year the entire British whaling whether in the north or in the South Seas did not amount to more than 5,564 tuns, or £249,181: and there was the further point that those eighteen thousand seamen in American vessels were a very fine national asset. Enderby’s attitude was, therefore, this: If we can only believe Ross we can revive the southern whaling industry, we can cease depending on America for our whale produce, and at the same time we shall be raising up a fine seamanhood, which is very much to be desired on patriotic grounds.

The arguments, therefore, were almost identical with those of Elking in regard to the Dutch a hundred and twenty-five years previously. Just as then Holland possessed almost the monopoly, so now it was in the hands of America. Such arguments as these not infrequently succeed in obtaining support, and because Britain owned but fourteen whalers, and the good feeling which to-day exists between the two countries was then largely that of suspicion and jealousy, Enderby’s proposition was well received by statesmen, the peerage, the Royal Navy, and by the leading merchants of the City of London. His plan was to have a whaling station formed at those uninhabited Auckland Islands which lie a hundred and eighty miles south of New Zealand, and had been discovered only as recently as 1806. A small fleet of whalers should be built and sailed out, Enderby’s plan being to create a settlement at that out-of-the-way spot. Obviously it would be impossible for the whaling fleet to bring back the produce, but the intention was that these ships should operate solely in those southern waters, land their oil at Auckland Islands, refit, and then go off on a further cruise. For transportation of the produce from here they would rely on those sailing ships visiting Australia and New Zealand, which would be glad of the oil freight to take back to England.

The British Government became more than interested, gave their full approval, and in fact granted in 1849 a Royal Charter of Incorporation to the company which Enderby formed, the capital being fixed at £100,000. This national undertaking, which was to prevent the nation’s dependence on America for its whale produce, and to employ so many seamen, somehow appealed very strongly to the early Victorians. A big public dinner was given to Enderby in April of that year, presided over by Rear-Admiral J. W. D. Dundas, C.B., M.P., attended by Government Ministers, merchants of the City of London, ship-owners and so on. The usual laudatory speeches were made, and Enderby was spoken of as about to make what was really a voyage of discovery. “Whoever had paid attention to the commerce of this country,” said Mr. Labouchere in his speech, “could not but regret that so important a branch of trade as the Southern Whale Fisheries should have been suffered by this country to decline, and to be almost entirely transferred to the United States of America.”

It showed Enderby’s own belief in the scheme that he elected to go out with that expedition personally, and he was sure that if the British Whaling Industry was to be re-established, this was the means of doing it. The old-fashioned method of a vessel going on a three-and-a-half years’ cruise and carrying her accumulated cargo about with her seemed to Enderby disadvantageous. So the Southern Whale Fishery Company was given a good send-off, the Government had made a grant of these Auckland Islands to Enderby and his two brothers, he himself being made Lieutenant-Governor. Two ships, the _Samuel Enderby_ of 395 registered tons, and the _Fancy_ of 321 tons, set forth from England in August 1849, Charles Enderby himself being in one of them, and reached the Auckland Islands in December. In the former was a crew of picked men, but in the other ships no such precaution was taken. The _Brisk_ of 265 tons sailed soon after these two, and among the fleet eventually got out there were the _Sir Edward Parry_, _Sir James Ross_, _The Earl of Hardwicke_, _Lord Nelson_ and _Lord Duncan_.

But in spite of all that enthusiasm of the public dinner, in spite of all that had been prophesied, this scheme turned out a failure and the whaling was eventually abandoned, not without a certain amount of bad feeling and recrimination between Enderby and the Court of Directors, who eventually sent out a couple of representatives to supersede Enderby. There were mutual charges of mismanagement, the company exhausted the whole of its capital and the Aucklands station was abandoned after twenty months’ occupation. Port Ross had been this pioneer’s headquarters, and he had taken out thirty-seven men and eighteen women, and set to work to cultivate the ground, make roads and erect dwellings. But we need not stop to inquire as to which party was responsible for the failure of the plan: it is sufficient to emphasize that it never succeeded either as a settlement or as a fishery.

A certain amount of cruising was done, and sperm whales were sighted; but only a few were ever taken by the ships. Enderby complained that in this respect the loss was owing to the company’s mismanagement on two counts. Firstly, the whalers had been built in such a way that they could carry not more than 115 tuns of oil, whereas they ought to have been able to contain 185 tuns. Secondly, the company had paid £8,200 each for ships which could have been built and equipped in America for £5,000 each. But thirdly, the whole success of the whaling enterprise depended on the personnel. By 1847 there were practically no men in England expert in hunting the “common” whale, since this occupation had been long abandoned.

But in North America plenty of these men would have been available, and have made all the difference between success and failure; for a bad “headsman” in a boat would always spoil the morale of fresh, green hands, and in the end ruin all prospects of the voyage. The directors of the company, Enderby complained, had sent out only four of these experts, who were not enough for the boats of one vessel, let alone eight. The chief ability of a whaling master--his supreme recommendation--should be his capacity for killing whales. This duty demanded both courage and activity, and such endowments were to be found usually only in men of the age of twenty to twenty-eight. These men could always obtain high wages, and a good young captain with a reputation had never any difficulty in picking the best officers and crew: consequently, where every whaling voyage was a separate adventure, it paid to obtain only the finest whaling masters. And it was just because these did not at that time exist in Britain that the Company should have gone to America for them, where they could have been found in abundance without the slightest difficulty. There was another matter that caused trouble in this Auckland settlement. Drink, that curse of so many otherwise happy ships, became one of the problems with which Enderby had to wrestle until he was compelled to destroy all spirits except those kept for medicinal purposes. American whalers, with a few exceptions, were run on temperance principles.

Thus this Auckland whaling venture turned out hopelessly, and its failure was due chiefly to the plain fact of the British lack of expert leaders in this highly specialized work. There was this in common between the northern and the southern whaling: the amount of physical risk though different in kind was similar in degree. The true whales in the north were not usually combative, but there was always the great risk of ice and heavy weather. The sperm whaling in the southern seas was bereft of ice danger until right down in the approach to the Antarctic: but the cachalot is a bolder, more mischievous, fighting animal, threatening that destruction to boats and ships which we have already noticed. In the attempts to make whaling flourish, British effort in the warmer seas, such as the Pacific for example, has never rivalled all those generations of effort which were made in the Arctic areas. But to-day whatever future whaling may seem to possess rests on that Antarctic part of the world which we shall discuss in due place.

It is characteristic of some sperm whales that they prefer to use their dangerous jaws, when attacked, rather than employ their tail. The mammal turns on his back, keeping its jaw suspended ominously over the boat. Sometimes this used to put such fear into a boat’s crew that they would all take a leap into the water and remain there till the danger passed. In 1836 an American whaler in the South Seas had one of her boats in this manner nipped right in two, but fortunately none of the crew on this occasion was injured. Incidentally it may be mentioned that during the early part of the nineteenth century there had come a change in the building of the carvel whaling boats, the wood being sawn out of straight-grained oak, and then bent by steam or boiling water, being thus rendered more elastic than when sawn. At the same time they were stronger and lighter. This practice had been for a long time employed for the clinker-built boats, but not for the carvel, and its introduction was made by Thomas Brodrick, a Whitby shipbuilder.

The whalers in the Greenland Sea or Baffin’s Bay well realized that their greatest enemy was not the whale but the ice. In the warm southern seas every boat-launching might lead to a fatal risk. Thus, for example, in the year 1835 the whaler _Pusie Hall’s_ boats, four in number, were out after a whale which chased them back to the ship, killed one of the boat’s hands, bit one of the officers, and for quite a time resisted all the lances hurled at it from the bows of the ship. One particularly notorious fighting whale was an individual who used to cruise off the New Zealand coast, and was easily recognized by his white hump. He was well known to the crews and went by the name of “New Zealand Tom.” Another celebrated fighter used to inhabit the Straits of Timor, and he was at last killed only after he had nipped off with his jaws a boat’s bows.

During the year 1836 the South Sea whaler _Arabella_ was cruising off the Society Islands when the whale, after being harpooned, turned suddenly round, hit the boat with his head, broke it in two and then swam through it. In such circumstances as these the experience, the coolness and skill of the man in charge of the boat meant all that Enderby insisted. One nipped boat, one incident of raw hands being left to swim about looking up at those threatening jaws, was quite enough to make the crew nervous for the rest of the ship’s voyage. But a good man with knowledge and courage, vigorous and determined, could make light of these incidents and inspire his men to further efforts.

In the throwing of the harpoon lay the great skill, but if through nervousness or lack of experience the line became entangled, the boat might be drawn below the water almost instantaneously: and there are instances on record where boats mysteriously and rapidly disappeared from what was surmised to be this cause. A smart man of course was on the look-out for such an occurrence, and some officers always used to have an axe ready in the hand while the line was running out: for a quick, sharp blow and the immediate severance of the line were the only things which could save lives and boat.

Yes: a novice in charge was too dangerous. Perhaps the ideal was a man of about twenty-six years of age, who had been brought up in whalers since he was a lad. He had been out in boats under experts, he had learned all the tricks which an angry whale could play, and he was young enough to enjoy fighting yet old enough to know how. We all understand how dangerous in a small sailing craft is a raw landsman, who has not yet learned the importance of ropes running clear through blocks and fairleads: most accidents come through that neglect. It was the same with the harpoon line. The third mate of the whaler _Melantho_ lost his life through the harpoon line suddenly getting out of the fairlead and carrying him right out of the boat; and notwithstanding that the line was forthwith cut, allowing the whale to escape, before the mate could be picked up he had been grabbed by a shark and had disappeared.

Or, again, take the case of the whaler _Seringapatam_ in the Straits of Timor. A whale had been fastened, but the creature came so close that one of his flukes actually grazed on the chest the boy who was pulling the after oar. Owing to the collision against the whale some coils of harpoon line were thrown over the shoulders also of the man at the tub-oar, and whilst the whale hurried on, the unfortunate fellow was pulled overboard. His body was at length rescued, but found to be lifeless, entangled in the line. His shipmates could do nothing for him.

Accidents such as these were the risks which might happen to any boat, on any occasion: and they tended to ruin the enterprise for the whole three years that remained. This, in turn, meant a loss of dividends, and a reluctance on the part of the owners to finance any more whaling cruises. Thus, the prizes went to the survivals of the fittest and most experienced young men who had been able to avoid such dispiriting disasters.