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5: Customary Education and Employment of the Inhabitants of Nantucket
<< 4: Description of the Island of Nantucket, with the Manners, Customs, Policy, and Trade of the Inhabitants || 6: Description of the Island of Martha's Vineyard; and of the Whale Fishery >>
The easiest way of becoming acquainted with the modes of thinking,
the rules of conduct, and the prevailing manners of any people, is
to examine what sort of education they give their children; how they
treat them at home, and what they are taught in their places of
public worship. At home their tender minds must be early struck with
the gravity, the serious though cheerful deportment of their
parents; they are inured to a principle of subordination, arising
neither from sudden passions nor inconsiderate pleasure; they are
gently held by an uniform silk cord, which unites softness and
strength. A perfect equanimity prevails in most of their families,
and bad example hardly ever sows in their hearts the seeds of future
and similar faults. They are corrected with tenderness, nursed with
the most affectionate care, clad with that decent plainness, from
which they observe their parents never to depart: in short, by the
force of example, which is superior even to the strongest instinct
of nature, more than by precepts, they learn to follow the steps of
their parents, to despise ostentatiousness as being sinful. They
acquire a taste for neatness for which their fathers are so
conspicuous; they learn to be prudent and saving; the very tone of
voice with which they are always addressed, establishes in them that
softness of diction, which ever after becomes habitual. Frugal,
sober, orderly parents, attached to their business, constantly
following some useful occupation, never guilty of riot, dissipation,
or other irregularities, cannot fail of training up children to the
same uniformity of life and manners. If they are left with fortunes,
they are taught how to save them, and how to enjoy them with
moderation and decency; if they have none, they know how to venture,
how to work and toil as their fathers have done before them. If they
fail of success, there are always in this island (and wherever this
society prevails) established resources, founded on the most
benevolent principles. At their meetings they are taught the few,
the simple tenets of their sect; tenets as fit to render men sober,
industrious, just, and merciful, as those delivered in the most
magnificent churches and cathedrals: they are instructed in the most
essential duties of Christianity, so as not to offend the Divinity
by the commission of evil deeds; to dread his wrath and the
punishments he has denounced; they are taught at the same time to
have a proper confidence in his mercy while they deprecate his
justice. As every sect, from their different modes of worship, and
their different interpretations of some parts of the Scriptures,
necessarily have various opinions and prejudices, which contribute
something in forming their characters in society; so those of the
Friends are well known: obedience to the laws, even to non-
resistance, justice, goodwill to all, benevolence at home, sobriety,
meekness, neatness, love of order, fondness and appetite for
commerce. They are as remarkable here for those virtues as at
Philadelphia, which is their American cradle, and the boast of that
society. At schools they learn to read, and to write a good hand,
until they are twelve years old; they are then in general put
apprentices to the cooper's trade, which is the second essential
branch of business followed here; at fourteen they are sent to sea,
where in their leisure hours their companions teach them the art of
navigation, which they have an opportunity of practising on the
spot. They learn the great and useful art of working a ship in all
the different situations which the sea and wind so often require;
and surely there cannot be a better or a more useful school of that
kind in the world. Then they go gradually through every station of
rowers, steersmen, and harpooners; thus they learn to attack, to
pursue, to overtake, to cut, to dress their huge game: and after
having performed several such voyages, and perfected themselves in
this business, they are fit either for the counting house or the
chase.
The first proprietors of this island, or rather the first founders
of this town, began their career of industry with a single whale-
boat, with which they went to fish for cod; the small distance from
their shores at which they caught it, enabled them soon to increase
their business, and those early successes first led them to conceive
that they might likewise catch the whales, which hitherto sported
undisturbed on their banks. After many trials and several
miscarriages, they succeeded; thus they proceeded, step by step; the
profits of one successful enterprise helped them to purchase and
prepare better materials for a more extensive one: as these were
attended with little costs, their profits grew greater. The south
sides of the island from east to west, were divided into four equal
parts, and each part was assigned to a company of six, which though
thus separated, still carried on their business in common. In the
middle of this distance, they erected a mast, provided with a
sufficient number of rounds, and near it they built a temporary hut,
where five of the associates lived, whilst the sixth from his high
station carefully looked toward the sea, in order to observe the
spouting of the whales. As soon as any were discovered, the sentinel
descended, the whale-boat was launched, and the company went forth
in quest of their game. It may appear strange to you, that so
slender a vessel as an American whale-boat, containing six
diminutive beings, should dare to pursue and to attack, in its
native element, the largest and strongest fish that nature has
created. Yet by the exertions of an admirable dexterity, improved by
a long practice, in which these people are become superior to any
other whale-men; by knowing the temper of the whale after her first
movement, and by many other useful observations; they seldom failed
to harpoon it, and to bring the huge leviathan on the shores. Thus
they went on until the profits they made, enabled them to purchase
larger vessels, and to pursue them farther, when the whales quitted
their coasts; those who failed in their enterprises, returned to the
cod-fisheries, which had been their first school, and their first
resource; they even began to visit the banks of Cape Breton, the
isle of Sable, and all the other fishing places, with which this
coast of America abounds. By degrees they went a-whaling to
Newfoundland, to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, to the Straits of
Belleisle, the coast of Labrador, Davis's Straits, even to Cape
Desolation, in 70 degrees of latitude; where the Danes carry on some
fisheries in spite of the perpetual severities of the inhospitable
climate. In process of time they visited the western islands, the
latitude of 34 degrees famous for that fish, the Brazils, the coast
of Guinea. Would you believe that they have already gone to the
Falkland Islands, and that I have heard several of them talk of
going to the South Sea! Their confidence is so great, and their
knowledge of this branch of business so superior to that of any
other people, that they have acquired a monopoly of this commodity.
Such were their feeble beginnings, such the infancy and the progress
of their maritime schemes; such is now the degree of boldness and
activity to which they are arrived in their manhood. After their
examples several companies have been formed in many of our capitals,
where every necessary article of provisions, implements, and timber,
are to be found. But the industry exerted by the people of
Nantucket, hath hitherto enabled them to rival all their
competitors; consequently this is the greatest mart for oil,
whalebone, and spermaceti, on the continent. It does not follow
however that they are always successful, this would be an
extraordinary field indeed, where the crops should never fail; many
voyages do not repay the original cost of fitting out: they bear
such misfortunes like true merchants, and as they never venture
their all like gamesters, they try their fortunes again; the latter
hope to win by chance alone, the former by industry, well judged
speculation, and some hazard. I was there when Mr.——had missed one
of his vessels; she had been given over for lost by everybody, but
happily arrived before I came away, after an absence of thirteen
months. She had met with a variety of disappointments on the station
she was ordered to, and rather than return empty, the people steered
for the coast of Guinea, where they fortunately fell in with several
whales, and brought home upward of 600 barrels of oil, beside bone.
Those returns are sometimes disposed of in the towns on the
continent, where they are exchanged for such commodities as are
wanted; but they are most commonly sent to England, where they
always sell for cash. When this is intended, a vessel larger than
the rest is fitted out to be filled with oil on the spot where it is
found and made, and thence she sails immediately for London. This
expedient saves time, freight, and expense; and from that capital
they bring back whatever they want. They employ also several vessels
in transporting lumber to the West Indian Islands, from whence they
procure in return the various productions of the country, which they
afterwards exchange wherever they can hear of an advantageous
market. Being extremely acute they well know how to improve all the
advantages which the combination of so many branches of business
constantly affords; the spirit of commerce, which is the simple art
of a reciprocal supply of wants, is well understood here by
everybody. They possess, like the generality of Americans, a large
share of native penetration, activity, and good sense, which lead
them to a variety of other secondary schemes too tedious to mention:
they are well acquainted with the cheapest method of procuring
lumber from Kennebeck river, Penobscot, etc., pitch and tar, from
North Carolina; flour and biscuit, from Philadelphia; beef and pork,
from Connecticut. They know how to exchange their cod fish and West-
Indian produce, for those articles which they are continually either
bringing to their island, or sending off to other places where they
are wanted. By means of all these commercial negotiations, they have
greatly cheapened the fitting out of their whaling fleets, and
therefore much improved their fisheries. They are indebted for all
these advantages not only to their national genius but to the
poverty of their soil; and as proof of what I have so often
advanced, look at the Vineyard (their neighbouring island) which is
inhabited by a set of people as keen and as sagacious as themselves.
Their soil being in general extremely fertile, they have fewer
navigators; though they are equally well situated for the fishing
business. As in my way back to Falmouth on the main, I visited this
sister island, permit me to give you as concisely as I can, a short
but true description of it; I am not so limited in the principal
object of this journey, as to wish to confine myself to the single
spot of Nantucket.
<< 4: Description of the Island of Nantucket, with the Manners, Customs, Policy, and Trade of the Inhabitants || 6: Description of the Island of Martha's Vineyard; and of the Whale Fishery >>
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