of
swimming, were drowned before assistance could arrive. The four men on
the boat being rescued and conveyed to the ship, the attack on the
whale was continued and two more harpoons struck.--But the whale
irritated, instead of being enervated by its wounds, recommenced its
furious conduct. The sea was in a foam. Its tail and fins wore in
awful play; and in a short time, harpoon after harpoon drew out, the
fish was loosened from its entanglements and escaped.

In the fishery of 1812, the Henrietta of Whitby suffered a similar
loss. A fish which was struck very near the ship, by a blow of its
tail, stove a small hole in the boat's bow. Every individual shrinking
from the side on which the blow was impressed, aided the influence of
the stroke, and upset the boat. They all clung to it while it was
bottom up; but the line having got entangled among the thwarts,
suddenly drew the boat under water, and with it part of the crew.
Excessive anxiety among the people in the ship, occasioned delay in
sending assistance, so that when the first boat arrived at the spot,
two survivors only out of six men were found.

During a fresh gale of wind in the season of 1809, one of the
Resolution's harpooners struck a sucking whale. Its mother being near,
all the other boats were disposed around, with the hope of entangling
it. The old whale pursued a circular route round its cub, and was
followed by the boats; but its velocity was so considerable, that they
were unable to keep pace with it. Being in the capacity of harpooner
on this occasion myself, I proceeded to the chase, after having
carefully marked the proceedings of the fish. I selected a situation,
in which I conceived the whale would make its appearance, and was in
the act of directing my crew to cease rowing, when a terrible blow was
struck on the boat. The whale I never saw, but the effect of the blow
was too important to be overlooked. About fifteen square feet of the
bottom of the boat were driven in; it filled, sunk, and upset in a
moment. Assistance was providentially at hand, so that we were all
taken up without injury, after being but a few minutes in the water.
The whale escaped; the boat's lines fell out and were lost, but the
boat was recovered.

A remarkable instance of the power which the whale possesses in its
tail, was exhibited within my own observation, in the year 1807. On
the 29th of May, a whale was harpooned by an officer belonging to the
Resolution. It desc