Page:Journal of a Voyage to Greenland, in the Year 1821.djvu/275

Rh from a service of twenty-two years in the fishery, is entitled to much respect.

Deptford, Dec. 18, 1821.



"Having been eleven years master of Greenland Ships, and received a premium from the Honourable Society of Arts and Sciences, for shooting whales, I was induced to come on board the Baffin, when in sight of the west land of Greenland, to be introduced to you, for the purpose of seeing your improved implement for the fishery, which have my fullest approbation, and are, as I stated to you when we met in Greenland, better adapted to the purposes intended, than those already known.

"When your hand-harpoon, were once well fast in a fish, it would from its construction, I should conceive, be impossible to draw it; nor could the withers upset, from the combined strength given to them.

"The harpoons to be discharged from a gun, I should also imagine must fly in a true and point blank direction, and having the same mechanical principle, as the hand-harpoon must possess the like important advantages.

"The shell for firing into whales from a gun, is the best invention with which I am acquainted, for the aid of the fishery, for a shell bursting in the body of a fish, will, no doubt, instantly destroy its power; and when used in attacking wicked fish, will be invaluable.

"You may, Sir, remember seeing the corpse of the boat-steerer of the Vigilant, who was killed while lancing a fish, not far from us; his life, as well as that of many others I have known, would have certainly been saved by such means.

"To Captain Manby."