tageous offers of a London firm
to command the _Dundee_. It was on his third voyage in that ship that,
having called at Whitby as usual to say good-bye to his wife and children,
Scoresby allowed his third child, William, to go on board the ship as she
lay in the roads. When the time came for him to go ashore he was nowhere
to be found, for having taken into his head the idea of going the voyage
with his father the little fellow had hidden himself. The shouts for
"Master William," however, brought him to the top of the companion at the
last moment, but his father, understanding the boy's great desire to stay
in the ship, decided to take him.

The voyage was notable on account of a very exciting incident on meeting
with a foreign privateer. The _Dundee_ was armed with twelve guns and was
manned by a crew of between fifty and sixty men, so that if brought to
extremities the ship could have made a good defence. Scoresby, however,
had every reason for avoiding a conflict, so keeping his ship in an
apparently defenceless state, with all the ports closed, he sent the men
to their quarters to prepare the guns for immediate action. No sign of
excitement or commotion was allowed to appear on deck so that when the
privateer came within shouting distance Scoresby walking the quarter deck
and the helmsmen steering were the only living beings visible to the
stranger. Suddenly, however, the six gun ports on each side of the
_Dundee_ are raised and a row of untompioned cannon are seen pointing
towards the enemy's broadside. The stratagem, according to the account
given by the younger Scoresby,[1] was such a huge surprise for the enemy
that he suddenly hauled off under full sail and not a shot was fired on
either side.

[Footnote 1: Scoresby, the Rev. William, D.D., "My Father," p. 108.]

After this voyage young Scoresby went back to school again until 1803 when
he became an apprentice on board the _Resolution_, a new ship of Whitby,
commanded and partly owned by his father. For several years he made the
Greenland voyage in the _Resolution_ and was chief officer when, in the
year 1806, his father forced the ship through the pack ice, as far north
as 81 deg. 3O'. This was for long the highest point reached by any vessel and
the ship's cargo was completed in thirty-two days with twenty-four whales,
two seals, two walruses, two bears and a narwhal. The elder Scoresby who
was about six feet in height was a man of extraordinary muscular pow