A crisp, bright copy of this rare narrative. Dexter himself notes the small number of the first edition, which is borne out by the low institutional holdings.
The William and Joseph departed Holmes’ Hole on August 2, 1840 in search of sperm whales. After some early success, they stopped briefly at the Azores and Capre Verde islands, both of which Dexter describes in some detail - the geography, soil, climate and inhabitants. The crew then made for the West Indies where they restocked the ship and spent time recuperating. In September 1841, they made for home with just 200 barrels of oil.
They encountered poor weather on October 20, which continued to press into the following morning, stripping the sails and kept the ship “about one third over” before it finally capsized and, ten minutes later, righted itself with the loss of both masts. Two men were lost during the wreck and following seven days at sea. Dexter recounts both in great detail. The narrative is interspersed with informative, not to mention amusing, asides - “I will here observe that nine-tenths of the time this ‘hard luck’ is nothing more than bad management. The excuses are endless…[b]ut a good whalemen is known by his having few excuses.”
The author had a financial interest in the brig and, on returning home, discovered that it was uninsured. In a bid to recoup some of his losses, he produced this narrative. This second edition, “enlarged and improved”, is an altogether more generous production than the first. The woodcuts are present as plates rather than illustrations to the text and in addition to the account of the wreck, Dexter has added a six page appendix not present in the first edition.
The appendix discusses the size of crews necessary to man a whaler, changes in how ships have been fitted out over the years, provides a detailed description of the method of disposing of a sperm whale once taken alongside a ship, comments on the demise of the whaling grounds in the North Atlantic and Greenland seas (noting that long haul Pacific whaling voyages are more profitable than shorter, Atlantic ones) and provides data on the number of whalers operating between Long Island and Bedford Mass.
Huntress, 357C; Jenkins, p94.
