Books We Love Insider Blog: whaling

Wednesday, October 4, 2017

Some 17th c History & James Bartley by Katherine Pym

You’d think we’d get along considering the size of our world. We should have our own patch of land, our own lean-to and a garden plot to grow veggies but it seems we are an argumentative species. Nothing is safe.

Take the 17^th century. Compared to today, there weren’t many folks on the planet. London was a metropolis, with a large portion of the English population within its walls. Holland had her canals and Amsterdam. Paris belonged to France. These nations found plenty of land to explore but as squabbling children, they all wanted the same spots.


East India Company Battle in Indonesia

During the early part of 17^th century, the English and Dutch each had an East India Company who plied foreign waters, seeking trade. Whenever the Dutch or English sailed into the same harbor, there were sea battles, torture and murder. There were plenty of islands in the South Pacific and the Caribbean but the grass was always greener on the other’s atoll.

To compete, it wasn’t until the 1660’s that France established their own East India Company, but the French had not been idle the first half of the century. They established colonies all over the world, in the East and West Indies, along the Norwegian and North American coasts.

In the Banda Islands of today’s Indonesia where nutmeg grew, a fierce rivalry sprang up between the Dutch and English. They fought over these islands until the native peoples were decimated and the crop completely destroyed. It reminds me of a Star Trek episode where the mindset is so stubborn, the enemy would rather see the death of a planet than share it.

Killing a Whale

Whaling was another product the French, English and Dutch fought over. There were a lot of whales in the seas, but everyone congregated on the same shores. Initially, Norwegian islands offered places where whale and walrus meat could be processed but others sailed on to the cold waters of the Atlantic for whale blubber.

Stories ensued from these exertions. Hostilities transferred from country against country to whales against men.

Whales are big animals. They fight for what is theirs. Moby Dick came into being where a large mammalian beast fought in a life and death struggle against a madman, and then there was James Bartley.

Off the Falkland Islands, the crew on a whaler spotted an 80’ whale basking in the cold waters, sifting krill through its fringed baleen. Men climbed the ships’ shrouds, hung from the yardarms and pointed. Two small boats were launched. It was time to kill a whale!

Processing Whale Blubber etc.

One harpooner sent his weapon into the whale, who lashed out. The small boats in peril, men fell overboard. Water sprayed the remaining men but they bagged their prey. They hauled the 80’ beast onto the vessel and began to dissect it.

Someone reported a man missing, a James Bartley. Everyone assumed he had drowned in the battle against the big whale. They shrugged and continued to dissect the animal. After 6 hours of backbreaking work, they threw in the towel and went to sleep for the night.

The next morning, they were at it again. “Suddenly sailors were startled by something in the stomach which gave spasmodic signs of life. Inside they found the missing sailor, James Barley, doubled up and unconscious. He was placed on deck and treated to a bath of seawater, which soon revived him, but his mind was not clear and the crew placed him in the captain’s quarters.”

Poor Sod about to Beaten by Whale

Once Bartley recovered his senses, he related that he’d been hit by the whale’s tail and had been “encompassed by great darkness, and he felt he was slipping along a smooth passage that seemed to move and carry him forward. His hands came in contact with a yielding, slimy substance, which seemed to shrink from his touch. He could easily breathe, but the heat was terrible. It seemed to open the pores of his skin and draw out his vitality. The next he remembered he was in the captain’s cabin.”

Even as James Bartley survived being sucked into the belly of a beast, he was lucky. The whale was more benign than being tortured by a hostile, East India Company person.

The Salt Box, YA Fantasy