score of years previous (ever since 1726) our valiant Coffins and Maceys of Nantucket and the Vineyard had in large fleets pursued the Leviathan, but only in the North and South Atlantic:  not elsewhere.  Be it distinctly recorded here, that the Nantucketers were the first among mankind to harpoon with civilized steel the great Sperm Whale; and that for half a century they were the only people of the whole globe who so harpooned him.

In 1778, a fine ship, the Amelia, fitted out for the express purpose, and at the sole charge of the vigorous Enderbys, boldly rounded Cape Horn, and was the first among the nations to lower a whale-boat of any sort in the great South Sea.  The voyage was a skilful and lucky one; and returning to her berth with her hold full of the precious sperm, the Amelia’s example was soon followed by other ships, English and American, and thus the vast Sperm Whale grounds of the Pacific were thrown open.  But not content with this good deed, the indefatigable house again bestirred itself:  Samuel and all his Sons—­how many, their mother only knows—­and under their immediate auspices, and partly, I think, at their expense, the British government was induced to send the sloop-of-war Rattler on a whaling voyage of discovery into the South Sea.  Commanded by a naval Post-Captain, the Rattler made a rattling voyage of it, and did some service; how much does not appear.  But this is not all.  In 1819, the same house fitted out a discovery whale ship of their own, to go on a tasting cruise to the remote waters of Japan.  That ship—­ well called the “Syren”—­made a noble experimental cruise; and it was thus that the great Japanese Whaling Ground first became generally known.  The Syren in this famous voyage was commanded by a Captain Coffin, a Nantucketer.

All honor to the Enderbies, therefore, whose house, I think, exists to the present day; though doubtless the original Samuel must long ago have slipped his cable for the great South Sea of the other world.

The ship named after him was worthy of the honor, being a very fast sailer and a noble craft every way.  I boarded her once at midnight somewhere off the Patagonian coast, and drank good flip down in the forecastle.  It was a fine gam we had, and they were all trumps—­every soul on board.  A short life to them, and a jolly death.  And that fine gam I had—­ long, very long after old Ahab touched her planks with his ivory heel—­ it minds me of the noble, solid, Saxon hospitality of that ship; and may my parson forget me, and the devil remember me, if I ever lose sight of it.  Flip?  Did I say we had flip?  Yes, and we flipped it at the rate of ten gallons the hour; and when the squall came (for it’s squally off there by Patagonia), and all hands—­ visitors and all—­were called to reef topsails, we were so top-heavy that we had to swing each other aloft in bowlines; and we ignorantly furled the skirts of our jackets into the sails, so that we hung there, reefed fast in the howling gale, a warning example to all drunken tars.  However, the masts did not go overboard; and by and by we scrambled down, so sober, that we had to pass the flip again, though the savage salt spray bursting down the forecastle scuttle, rather too much diluted and pickled it for my taste.