he Napoleonic wars had
broken down men's natural sense of order and of right, and the seas
swarmed with privateers, who on occasion were ready enough to turn
pirates. Many whalers fell a prey to these marauders, whose operations
were rather encouraged than condemned by the European nations. Both
England and France were at this period endeavoring to lure the whalemen
from the United Colonies by promise of special concessions in trade, or
more effective protection on the high seas than their own weakling
governments could assure them. Some Nantucket whalemen were indeed
enticed to the new English whaling town at Dartmouth, near Halifax, or to
the French town of Dunkirk. But the effort to transplant the industry did
not succeed, and the years that followed, until the fateful embargo of
1807, were a period of rapid growth for the whale fishery and increasing
wealth for those who pursued it. In the form of its business organization
the business of whaling was the purest form of profit-sharing we have ever
seen in the United States. Everybody on the ship, from captain to
cabin-boy, was a partner, vitally interested in the success of the voyage.
Each had his "lay"--that is to say, his proportionate share of the
proceeds of the catch. Obed Macy, in his "History of Nantucket," says:
"The captain's lay is generally one-seventeenth part of all obtained; the
first officer's one-twenty-eighth part; the second officer's,
one-forty-fifth; the third officer's, one-sixtieth; a boat-steerer's from
an eightieth to a hundred-and-twentieth, and a foremast hand's, from a
hundred-and-twentieth to a hundred-and-eighty-fifth each." These
proportions, of course, varied--those of the men according to the ruling
wages in other branches of the merchant service; those of the officers to
correspond with special qualities of efficiency. All the remainder of the
catch went to the owners, who put into the enterprise the ship and
outfitted her for a cruise, which usually occupied three years. Their
investment was therefore a heavy one, a suitable vessel of 300-tons burden
costing in the neighborhood of $22,000, and her outfit $18,000 to $20,000.
Not infrequently the artisans engaged in fitting out a ship were paid by
being given "lays," like the sailor. In such a case the boatmaker who
built the whale-boats, the ropemaker who twisted the stout, flexible
manila cord to hold the whale, the sailmaker and the cooper were all
interested with the crew and the ow