Master Mariner

THE LIFE AND VOYAGES OF

AMASA DELANO

Captain Amasa Delano, 1763-1823



BY
JAMES B. CONNOLLY

1943

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CHAPTER XVII

Rough Work off New Holland

AMASA SETTLED DOWN for sealing off New Holland in March. He moored the Perseverance off King's Island and held her at moorings there until late October. Between times he used the schooner Pilgrim in cruises off Van Diemen's Land for signs of seal. While he was off with the Pilgrim, boat crews from the Perseverance were hunting seal in the waters adjacent to King's Island.

In his cruisings Amasa met with English sealers, and they had told him that no foreigners had any right to operate in what they said was their territory. Amasa's rejoinder to that, when told of it, was: "Your territory! The sea is anybody's territory."

Amasa wasn't fooling himself that his snappy retort would end the discussion of right or no right to hunt New Holland waters. One day, after his return from a cruise in the Pilgrim, six boatloads of English sealers rowed alongside and reported themselves out of food. Amasa suspected them of overstating their stress, but the law of the sea allowed no denial to seafarers who hailed a ship with a story of distress. In such cases it was also customary to make out a bill to the ship's owners for the supplies furnished. Amasa supplied them with food, and he made out the usual bill and sent it along to the owners, who were in the city of Sydney. The bill was paid in good time; but the visitors had learned that Amasa's boats were away and that he was shorthanded aboardship. They set out to cripple him:

"They practised many impositions, such as stealing from me, enticing my men to run away, conspiring to steal my boats, and to cut my vessels adrift. They would go on to an island where my people were waiting for an opportunity to take the seals that were about it; and if not able to take them themselves do something to frighten them away. They would say and do all in their power to irritate and vex my people, in order to cause them to do something that was reprehensible."

Tough men, they; and Amasa's men could see no other way out than to go tough with them. Amasa preached patience to his boat men. They had come half around the world to get a cargo of seals, and their duty lay in getting seals and not in going to war with strangers. Patience and discipline prevailed for a time. But, "because my men would not be tied down to such close orders as to be obliged to put up with any insults from such villains," Amasa knew that they would be breaking loose before long.

The English prison colony in Van Diemen's Land was hard by the sealing grounds, and here was the entire investment of capital of the Delano clan. The prospect had Amasa worried:

"I entered into a contract that had a powerful effect on my feelings; and moreover I found myself less active in body and mind than when I was 25 years of age. I considered the responsibilities. Convicts escaping from prison were taking refuge with English sealers in the islands off the coast. Judging by their behavior, they held the fixed idea that the Americans would be frightened away by their desperate reputation."

Some of Amasa's men went timid, but there were those who did not, and Amasa certainly did not. Learning that two of his men were secreted on the vessel commanded by a particularly tough sealing captain named Morrill, Amasa boarded Morrill's vessel and, finding two of his men aboard, took them off. No battle followed--at least, not then.

Being in need of ship's stores, Amasa dispatched the Pilgrim, brother Samuel still in command, to Port Jackson for the necessary supplies. He also gave Samuel a letter to Governor King and a draft of four hundred pounds sterling, the same given by Lieutenant Bowen on Governor King for the service rendered His Majesty's cutter Integrity.

Amasa opened the letter with a bald account of the rescue of the cutter, a statement of the time lost in the trip to Port Jackson, and went on to say:

I came to King's Island with the hope of procuring a cargo of seal skins. I have instructed my brother Samuel, in command of the Pilgrim, to inform your Excellency that I am growing weary of putting up with the insults and reprehensible doings of the English sealers off the Van Diemen coast, and especially weary of the villainies of the crew led by one Joseph Morrill, who has taken it into his head that we have no right to procure seals in these straits, and has been for a long time trying to drive us out of them, and I believe that the man would have accomplished his design if it had not been in the winter season, and myself something of an old weather beaten sailor. This Morrill made interest with so many of my people to run away from me, that it has distressed me very much. He has carried six of my men out of this bay at one time, notwithstanding I had forbid him receiving or harbouring them in the presence of several respectable witnesses. I took two of them out of his vessel one morning after they had been some weeks absent. He still hides a number of them and articles that have been stolen from me, or I am very much deceived. I think it is a very delicate affair to commence a quarrel between the subjects of any two nations, but I will candidly say, that I do not think one of my countrymen out of a hundred would pass over so many insults and injuries as I have done under similar circumstances, purely from motives of delicacy, on account of his being of another nation. I beg you will make me acquainted with your Excellency's opinion on the subject. By your Excellency's most obedient, and very Humble Servant, AMASA DELANO. To His Excellency Governor Philip Gedney King Port Jackson New South Wales

His Excellency honored the draft for the four hundred pounds. He may have been marveling while reading the letter how so meek a person as this American captain portrayed himself had ventured on a sealing voyage in uncharted seas ten thousand miles from home. He gave brother Samuel permission to purchase any provisions or necessaries he might want; but he gave him no reply to Amasa's letter. Brother Samuel grew weary of being stood off by the lackeys in His Excellency's anterooms and sailed back to report no action on Amasa's letter. Amasa thereupon dumped his meekness over the side and ordered brother Samuel to sail back to Port Jackson and tell the governor general that he desired a reply to his letter.

While the schooner was gone the second time the gentry of the convict coast went into real rough action. A boat's crew of Amasa's men had stationed themselves on a small island that was well away from the ship. They were waiting for an easterly wind to drive a herd of seals higher up on the island, the seals being then too near the water to be rushed. Morrill came along with fifteen of his ex-convicts to where a lad from the Perseverance had been left in charge of the boat. Morrill was swinging a cutlass, and several of his gang carried muskets. In the boat was a grindstone, the same being used to sharpen the sealing lances. Morrill made use of the grindstone to put a sharper edge on his cutlass. Three men with him then cleaned and loaded their muskets. To the lad in charge of the boat Morrill said: "I shall make this blade's sweet lips do their duty on the present occasion." He kissed his cutlass and moved on to where Amasa's men were keeping watch over their herd of seals.

Amasa's officer asked Morrill what he wanted. He put the question politely, as Amasa had instructed him.

Morrill answered: "What we want here is our business."

Now Amasa's men had been camped there several days, sleeping on the rocks at night, waiting for an easterly wind to drive the seals well up on land and so enable them to get between the seals and the water. Amasa's officer knew that Morrill could have no other business than to frighten the seals away and so lose them to Captain Delano; and so he now reminded Morrill that it was the law of the coast, a law of English making and one enforced against American crews frequently before this, that no party of men should land on an island where other men had already placed themselves for the purpose of sealing.

Morrill's response to that was to close in on Amasa's men. The battle was on. Morrill had his cutlass, several of his men had muskets, the others had sealing clubs. Amasa's men had only their sealing clubs.

Morrill's musketeers snapped their guns, but they failed to go off. The reaction of Amasa's men to the empty musket snapping was a suddenly created belief that Morrill's toughies hoped to bluff them without having to fire a single shot. There would be something to brag about! So? Amasa's men went at them with a rush. They knocked the muskets out of the enemy hands with their clubs. A sealing club is heavy, like a baseball bat. A single blow on the nose from one will knock a seven-hundred-pound seal cold as a haddock. It is a noble weapon for hearty men in battle, demanding no finesse in the use of it. You swing on your target, and there you are, getting instant results.

The convicts from Van Diemen's Land may have rated themselves as rough, tough hombres, but these seafarers of Amasa's were of those who refused from the beginning to be frightened of the reputation of Van Diemen convicts. They gave Morrill's gang a fine beating; and then to Amasa's amazement--and indignation--Morrill came to him with the complaint that his men were ruffians who should be punished. Morrill submitted five of his men with heads bandaged and legs and arms black and blue in proof of the ruffianly treatment Captain Delano's boat crew had given his men.

"What do you wish me to do?" asked Amasa.

Morrill answered: "If you will order your men not to do the like again, we will be satisfied."

Amasa promised him that thereafter his people would use Morrill's people as well as Morrill's people used his people.

There was a truce, but it did not last. Some of Morrill's men caught an isolated two of Amasa's men ashore and gave them a fine beating.

Amasa's men had to do something about that; and next morning a detail of them went on shore early to see what they could see. They caught Morrill and three of his men--the three being of the musketeers of the first battle--gave Morrill a beating, tied the three others to a tree and gave them one to two dozen lashes--according to their respective deserts--with a cat-o'-nine-tails. Amasa had no suspicion of what they had in mind to do when they left the ship, and he upbraided them for their action when he learned of it. Their answer was that every one of the people they punished was a convict who had been transported for crimes committed in England.

When Amasa went on shore again Morrill met him and showed where the flesh of his arm was bruised and broken. Amasa's reply was to ask him what he expected from men who had been insulted and assaulted as his men had been. He then led Morrill to his ship, dressed his arm with a healing lotion from his medicine chest, and put him ashore with a supply of the fine healing lotions for further dressing of his arm.

After that flogging incident Amasa wasn't surprised to hear that even high officials in Port Jackson were proclaiming him a ruffianly American sealing captain.

This March to October was the winter season in New Holland, and it held dangers apart from sealing operations. One July day, while a piercing winter wind was blowing from the southeast, the cold quarter for a wind in that region, Amasa undertook to take a boatload of fish which his men had seined to a smokehouse he had caused to be erected on the near-by shore. It was a rough day to be playing around in an open boat; but smoked fish made a welcome change of diet from salt beef, and Amasa was for getting on with the smoking. He took five men with him in the boat. The Perseverance and the Pilgrim at this time were both moored about two thirds of a mile from the shore. Both vessels had their sails unbent, their yards and topmasts down. Most of the crews of the two vessels were away at the time hunting seals.

Midway between the anchored vessels and the shore the boat was caught in a horse market (a sailor's phrase for a rough sea caused by two tides meeting in rough water and piling high up). The boat was overwhelmed. She filled and immediately went gunnel under. All but Amasa were washed out of the boat. Amasa stood with one foot on a thwart and the other on the gunnel until the water was up to his neck. He was then floated clear of the sunken boat. Now his duty as captain was to consider the perilous situation of the five men in the water and then the possibility of salvaging the fish. Men's lives came first, of course. His first thought was to bind together the oars and thwarts that were floating loose from the boat and make a raft of them. His five men were swimming for the shore, which was three hundred yards away. He called to them, but only one answered; and his answer was that his best chance lay in swimming ashore. Amasa yelled again, but all five continued going for the shore.

In that rough wind and sea Amasa was already doubting that a single one, including himself, would make the shore. No boat was left on the Perseverance or the Pilgrim to come to their aid. Amasa yelled again that the shore was a long way off. He got no answer.

A Mr. Vose had a boat lying in a creek near where Amasa's boat was to land. Amasa hallooed for Vose, calling his name over and over, and not sparing his lungs, and he had a pair of capacious lungs. Vose and his gang were at breakfast in their hut, and they heard the loud hallooing but without attaching any special significance to it, loud yells from men on sealing being no rare sound.

After two minutes or so it occurred to Vose that the yelling might mean more than some exuberant sealer exercising his voice. He looked out to the two vessels at anchor. They were making signals of distress and pointing toward the men swimming in the water. At first the rough sea served to hide the heads of the swimmers from Vose, but he finally made out one head, then another head. He called his gang from the breakfast table, and they rushed to the job of hustling their old water-soaked boat out of the creek, hauling it for two hundred yards over dry sand, and launching it.

That took time, and Amasa's men meanwhile were having tough going to stay afloat. Amasa himself had on his thick winter pantaloons, thick underwear, heavy sea boots, and a tight-fitting jacket. He was kicking his legs vigorously, and trying at the same time to keep under his breast a bundle of small sticks that had been cut for the purpose of stringing the fish on for smoking. The sticks had come floating up from the sunken boat.

Amasa was weighted down with his water-soaked, thick clothing and boots that were filled with water. He was making headway toward the shore when he saw one of his boat's crew, a Swede named John Fostram, heading back toward him. Amasa turned his head from Fostram, and his own statement: "I used every effort to keep clear of him when I apprehended he might reach me; but the poor fellow finding his attempts fail, relinquished the oar he had grasped in his hand, his head gradually lowering, until his strength being entirely exhausted, he gave up, and sunk."

An extraordinary statement, that, from the Amasa Delano who had been calmly facing perilous situations from his boyhood; who, for that matter, was facing this situation calmly, yet also with the intention of looking out for himself first and last. He was now forty-one years of age, and thirty years of toil, exposure, and hardship had left their mark; but even so, it stands as an amazingly candid statement. He continued:

"I never until then had experienced any satisfaction at seeing a man die; but so great is the regard we have for ourselves when in danger, that we would sooner see the whole human race perish than die ourselves. I remember but few incidents in the course of my life that were more gratifying to me than that of Fostram's sinking; for I was not only relieved of the dread of his involving me in his own fate, but the oar he relinquished and which came within my reach, I immediately seized, and headed again for the land. Very soon after I observed another of my poor distressed sailors, a native of Nova Scotia, named William Thompson, making towards me on the right hand. I pulled from him, though he did not give me so much uneasiness as Fostram, and he was at a greater distance. This poor fellow soon met his fate in a similar manner with Fostram. I likewise made shift to procure his oar, and placed it under me, and then once more headed for the land."

How many men would so go on record against themselves in that fashion? Amasa did not have to set himself down for that safety first--safety for himself--unless he chose to. He was the keeper of the records. He could have written himself as a hero, told how he tried to save Thompson and Fostram and, only after a terrific struggle, gave up the attempt, and only then looked out for himself. If Amasa Delano never wrote another line, his narrative of the drowning of Thompson and Fostram would stand for proof of his unquenchable honesty.

Amasa did not say it in his own favor, but a moving influence behind that looking out for himself only was--must have been--his unquenchable purpose to make such a success of this sealing voyage that the folks back home would be placed in good circumstances after his return from it. And to bring that about, he would have to stay alive. That thought must have been in the front of his head in the water, as it was when he was battling the convict sealers who had been and were still trying to frighten him from the scaling grounds of New Holland.

Amasa's younger brother William was one of that boat's crew; and he being also weighted down with thick clothing, Amasa was much worried about him. Even while looking out for himself, Amasa was worried for his brother William because of his being handicapped with a clubfoot. William must be having a hard time of it, and Amasa tried to draw nearer to him. Even while yelling to Vose, and while pulling clear of Fostram and Thompson, Amasa was trying to reach William.

While Amasa was moving ahead, moving slowly ahead, a high wave carried the oars from under his arms. He recovered them after a hard struggle and was replacing them under his arms when another sea swept them clear. When he once more recovered the oars he was so done in that he had to give over his calling and hallooing and pay full attention to keeping his head above water.

Amasa wasn't the kind to give up hope while he could draw a breath, but his breath was coming quick and fast when he saw Vose's boat being hauled to the water's edge for a launching. Oh man, then! "The sight animated me to such a degree that I called out to my people that a boat was coming to their succour to keep a good heart and all would yet be well; but even as I called out the cheerful message, another sea caught me and threw me quite clear of my supporting oars and bundle of sticks."

Amasa drew a deep breath, as deep as he could, and went after his oars and sticks once again. This time he laid his head to the wind and quit looking toward the shore, this to prevent the sea from again coming at him broadside on. If he . lost his oars and sticks just once more he knew he would be done for.

While so supporting himself and wondering if he could stay atop of water long enough to be rescued, Amasa says, and--the honest soul he was--we must believe him:

"I thought of the anxiety of my brother Samuel who was compelled to be a witness to the peril of his two brothers without being able to be of aid to them. Samuel being the sort he was, I knew that it was almost as bad as death itself for him to be a witness of our calamity when he could do no more than remain an inactive spectator. I then began to reflect on the consequences of my not surviving this disaster, and to those I should leave behind; for them alone I felt. For myself, I could not perceive that life was of such great importance as I had already suffered a great many hardships and privations, besides many heart rending scenes of injustice, ingratitude, and disappointments, all of which I was again liable to experience.

Of my thoughts on futurity on this occasion, I can only say they were, that if I survived, I should hereafter find more favour with God than I had found amongst men, and was not terrified at committing my spirit to Him who gave it me; ever confiding in his infinite goodness; but to say I was not afraid of dying I cannot, as I considered it a very great precipice to leap down in the dark."

When Vose's men hauled Amasa out of the water, his first question was: Who else is saved? He then saw three men stretched out in the bottom of the boat, and one of the three was young brother William. They were all taken to the hut ashore and dried before a roaring fire of driftwood. When feeling strong again, they were taken back to the ship in Vose's boat.

The meeting of the three Delano brothers aboard the Perseverance that evening so far stirred Amasa's emotions that he could only express himself fully by quoting poetry:

"Long parted friends, who after an easy voyage of cares,
Receive but common gladness at their meeting,
But when from Shipwreck saved they mingle tears,
And with embrace, they hail the happy greeting."

The body of Fostram being recovered, he was buried ashore. Amasa read the funeral prayers with more than the usual solemnity. Thompson's body was never recovered.