Call me Ishmael. Years ago, finding myself poor and aimless on land, I decided to sail and view the watery world. This is my method for curing melancholy and regulating my blood. Whenever my mouth grows grim, or my soul feels like a damp, drizzly November, I know it is time to leave. The urge becomes undeniable when I pause before coffin before warehouses, trail behind funerals, or feel a manic impulse to knock hats off in the street. Going to sea is my alternative to suicide. While Cato died on his sword with a flourish, I quietly board a ship. This impulse is not unique; almost all men feel a magnetic pull toward the ocean.
In time, the sated Turk transforms. Lassitude overtakes him; he forswears the harem and becomes an exemplary solitary, cruising alone among the meridians, warning young whales from amorous errors. This “schoolmaster” seems named from the harem he once kept, though some suspect satire aimed at a Frenchman whose early lessons were folly.
Almost universally, a solitary whale proves ancient—like moss-bearded Daniel Boone, wedded to Nature herself in the wilderness of waters.
The all-male schools offer sharp contrast: young, vigorous forty-barrel bulls, tumbling round the world at a reckless, rollicking rate. No prudent underwriter would insure them. When three-fourths grown, they break up to seek harems. Yet a final difference reveals the sexes’ character: strike a bull, and his comrades flee; strike a female, and her companions swim around her with every token of concern—sometimes lingering until they too are taken.
When several ships cruise together, a whale may be struck by one vessel, escape, and fall to another. Without universal law, violent disputes would erupt among fishermen. The American whalemen have fashioned their own code, surpassing Justinian’s Pandects in terse comprehensiveness. Two laws only: a Fast-Fish belongs to the party fast to it; a Loose-Fish is fair game for whoever can soonest catch it.
But this masterly brevity demands commentary. A fish is fast when connected to an occupied ship by any controllable medium—mast, oar, cable, even a strand of cobweb. Or when it bears a waif, provided the waifing party can take it alongside.
Fifty years past, an English whale-trover case tested these principles. Plaintiffs harpooned a whale but abandoned boat and lines to save their lives; defendants captured the whale before their eyes and kept everything. Erskine, counsel for the defendants, illustrated his position with a recent crim. con. case: a gentleman who abandoned his vicious wife, then sued to recover her. The lady, once abandoned, became a Loose-Fish—fair game for the next harpooner. Lord Ellenborough ruled: the boat returns to plaintiffs, but whale, harpoons, and line belong to defendants. The whale was loose when captured; whoever takes the fish takes all.
These twin laws, on reflection, prove the fundamentals of all human jurisprudence. Possession is often the whole of the law. What are Russian serfs and Republican slaves but Fast-Fish? The widow’s last mite to the rapacious landlord? The undetected villain’s marble mansion? The Archbishop’s £100,000? John Bull’s Ireland, Brother Jonathan’s Texas? All Fast-Fish.
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