Stove by a Whale: Owen Chase and the Essex

F: Report of the Essex Shipwreck and Rescue in the Sydney Gazette, June 9, 1821

Appendix F REPORT OF THE ESSEX SHIPWRECK AND RESCUE IN THE SYDNEY GAZETTE, JUNE 9, 1821 This is the first published account of the Essex disaster (if one excepts the negligible little paragraph on the Essex in the Gazeta ministerial de Chile, April 28, 1821) and anticipates by one week the New Bedford Mercury's story on the Essex. As has been observed in chapter 5, it destroys any assumption that proximity to events contributes to accuracy of reporting; replete with errors, it has become the tainted source of a number of accounts of the Essex in Australia and New Zealand. It is also, however, the source of information that has come to be regarded as accurate, for example, the twenty-first crew member's departure from the Essex in Tecamus. And it captures some of the excitement of the fresh news as only a "media job" could. Just as Captain Raine was on the eve of leaving Valpariso for this part of the world once more, he was informed of a most marvellous affair relating to an American whaler, that had been attacked by a whale at sea in so violent and dreadful a manner as to occasion the vessel to founder, and most of the crew eventually to perish; something of whose disastrous history we have been favored with, and shall present the same to our Readers. Captain Raine received information that there were three men on Ducies Island, who had preferred remaining there rather than venture across the ocean in a boat, to which the crew had been compelled to fly from the ship. 238 APPENDIX F The boat, to which these three men belonged, had been picked up by an American whaler about 60 days after the melancholy occurrence . Another boat, in which was the Captain and the remainder of the crew, soon parted company, and were also fell in with by another whaler of America, which vessel was the bearer of the intelligence to Valparaiso; and the horrible account given by the two survivors in this boat was truly deplorable and shuddering. They had been 90 days at sea before they were fallen in with, and had experienced the most dreadful of all human vicissitudes; from the extremity of hunger they had been reduced to the painful necessity of killing and devouring each other, in order to sustain a wretched life, that was hourly expected to be terminated.-Eight times had lots been drawn, and eight human beings had been sacrificed to afford sustenance to those that remained; and, on the day the ship encountered them, the Captain and the boy had also drawn lots, and it had been thus determined that the poor boy should die! But, providentially, a ship hove in sight and took them in, and they were restored to existence. Doleful in the extreme as is it to hear such things, and painful as it is to relate them, it is nevertheless asserted as a fact by Capt. Raine that the fingers, and other fragments of their deceased companions, were in the pockets of the Capt. and boy when taken on board the whaler. The Commander of the Surry becoming opportunely acquainted with those painful and distressing circumstances, humanely detemined on calling at Ducies Island, and be instrumental in restoring three unfortunate fellow-creatures to Society, and very possibly rescue them from a miserable end; particularly as this island was no great distance out of his track from Valparaiso to New Holland. On Thursday, the 5th of April, Captain Raine considering himself within a very short distance of Ducies Island, which is laid down in Norie's Epitome to be in lat. 24°40' S. and long. 124°37, W. kept a good look-out. At about two ,PM land was perceived, which turned out to be an island in lat. 24°26' . As the vessel neared the land a gun was discharged, and shortly after the three poor men were seen to issue forth from the woods. The boats were presently lowered, Captain Raine taking one himself. On approaching the shore it was found not only dangerous but utterly impracticable to land, of which APPENDIX F 239 circumstance they were informed, in weak and tremulous voices, by the almost starved and nearly worn-out creatures themselves, who could scarcely, from the miserable plight they were in, articulate a syllable.-One poor fellow summoned up courage to plunge into...