d by the islanders for their skill in the distillation
of deleterious intoxicating drinks from the dragon-tree, kava, or
sugar-cane. They are a class of persons, who, if not naturally
unprincipled, are driven by harsh usage to desert from the whalers, and
the contrast of the indolent voluptuous life of the islands, with the
hardships and disease of shipboard, is more than sufficient to reconcile
them to the change.

The whaling interests of the United States have now attained so vast a
magnitude, that it is high time our government should take measures
exclusively for their protection in these seas. The enterprise of our
hardy fishermen has driven the ships of all other nations almost
entirely off the ground of competition. In the Pacific, and its
continental seas alone, we have a mighty fleet of more than five hundred
whale ships, manned in the aggregate by twenty thousand seamen. The
larger portion of these vessels are fitted for the right whale, and seek
their prey on the northern coasts of America or Asia, in high southern
latitudes, and latterly, with extraordinary success, on the shores of
Japan and sea of Okokts. The sperm fishermen cruise near the equator,
and not only are frequently surrounded by dangerous navigation, amidst
islands or reefs little known, but have also to guard against surprise,
and the treachery of savages of the uncounted groups of Polynesia;
unavailingly at times, for, in addition to the long catalogue of crimes
committed in this ocean, was that of the capture of the ship Triton, in
December of '47, by the natives of Sydenham Island--one of the King's
Mill cluster--a number of whose crew were inhumanly massacred.

It does not necessarily follow that the natives are always to
blame--gross outrages sometimes demand prompt vengeance;--but yet a
small squadron of double-decked corvettes, of light draught, and ample
stowage, constantly cruising, and touching among these groups, would
tend in a great degree to shield our whalers from harm, and the natives
themselves from the imposition and injustice so commonly practised upon
them.

Again, if there were stringent laws for the internal government of this
branch of our marine--were masters not allowed under any circumstances
to keep the sea beyond the usual period comprised in a fishing season,
before visiting port, and the scurvy considered a capital offense, we
should meet with fewer instances of desertions or mutiny, and fewer
diseased, viciou