“_What became of the ship’s company on the whale-ship ‘Acushnet,’ according to Hubbard who came back home in her (more than a four years’ voyage) and visited me in Pittsfield in 1850._
“_Captain Pease_--returned & lives in asylum at the Vineyard.
“_Raymond_, 1st Mate--had a fight with the Captain & went ashore at Payta.
“_Hall_, 2nd Mate--came home & went to California.
“_3rd Mate_, Portuguese, went ashore at Payta.
“_Boatswain_, either ran away or killed at Ropo one of the Marquesas.
“_Smith_, went ashore at Santa, coast of Peru, afterwards committed suicide at Mobile.
“_Carpenter_, went ashore at Mowee half dead with disreputable disease.
“_Tom Johnson_, black, went ashore at Mowee, half dead (ditto) & died at the hospital.
“_Blacksmith_, ran away at San Francisco.
“_Bill Green_, after several attempts to run away, came home in the end.
“_The Irishman_, ran away, coast of Colombia.
“_Wright_, went ashore half dead at the Marquesas.
“_Jack Adams_ and _Jo Portuguese_ came home.
“_Haynes_, ran away aboard of a Sidney ship.
“_Grant_, young fellow, went ashore half dead, spitting blood, at Oahu.
“_Murray_, went ashore, shunning fight at Rio Janeiro.
Of the twenty-seven men who went out with the ship, only the Captain, the Second Mate, a Boatswain, the Cook, the Cooper and six of the mongrel crew (one of which made several futile attempts to escape) came back home with her. The First Mate had a fight with the Captain and left the ship; the Carpenter and four of the crew went ashore to die, two at least with venereal diseases, another went ashore spitting blood, another to commit suicide.
[Illustration: SPERM WHALING. THE CAPTURE.
Drawing by A. Van Beest, R. Swain Gifford and Benj. Russell, 1850.]
[Illustration: ONE OF SIX WHALING PRINTS. LONDON, 1750.]
With this company Melville was intimately imprisoned on board the _Acushnet_ for fifteen months. Of the everyday life of Melville in this community we know little enough. In _Moby-Dick_ Melville has left voluminous accounts of the typical occupations of whaling but beyond this nothing certainly to be identified as derived from life on the _Acushnet_. The ship’s company on board the _Pequod_, in so far as is known, belong as purely to romance as characters of fiction can. It doubtless abbreviates the responsibilities of the custodians of public morals, that the staple of conversation on board the _Acushnet_, the scenes enacted in the forecastle and elsewhere in the ship, shall probably never be known. In _Typee_ Melville says of the crew of the _Acushnet_, however: “With a very few exceptions, our crew was composed of a parcel of dastardly and mean-spirited wretches, divided among themselves, and only united in enduring without resistance the unmitigated tyranny of the captain.”