James German: One of Melville's South Sea Crewmates

"Captain German," 1870s. Photograph of James German conveying his force of character. Freeman Studio negative, call number ONCY 2:614. Digital image of photocopy of original photograph that has since been lost. Image courtesy of State Library of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.

Herman Melville served on three whaling ships in the Pacific during the 1840s, one of which was an Australian vessel, the Lucy Ann of Sydney. He joined the ship at Nuku Hiva, in the Marquesas Islands, on 9 August 1842, and soon after coming aboard he met the forceful chief officer (first mate), James German (c1797–1879). German made a strong impression on Melville who later included a pen portrait of him in Omoo (1847), the first half of which is based on his time on the Lucy Ann. Melville changed the name of the vessel and the crewmen in the book: the Lucy Ann became the Julia and James German was renamed with the homophonous "John Jermin." Melville writes:

So far as courage, seamanship, and natural aptitude for keeping riotous spirits in subjection were concerned, no man was better qualified for his vocation than John Jermin. He was the very beau-ideal of the efficient race of short, thick-set men. His hair curled in little rings of iron gray all over his round, bullet head. As for his countenance, it was strongly marked, deeply pitted with the small-pox. For the rest, there was a fierce little squint out of one eye; the nose had a rakish twist to one side; while his large mouth, and great white teeth, looked absolutely sharkish when he laughed. … Notwithstanding his pugnacious looks, however, Jermin had a heart as big as a bullock's; that you saw at a glance. … but he had one failing: he … cleaved manfully to strong drink. At all times he was more or less under the influence of it. … sometimes he drank too much, and a more obstreperous fellow than Jermin in his cups, you seldom came across. He was always for having a fight; but the very men he flogged loved him like a brother, for he had such an irresistibly good-natured way of knocking them down, that no one could find it in his heart to bear malice against him. …

Not a few of … [the] crew were … riotous at times [and] the bluff, drunken energies of Jermin were just the thing to hold them in some sort of noisy subjection. Upon an emergency, he flew in among them, showering his kicks and cuffs right and left, and "creating a sensation" in every direction. … they bore this knock-down authority with great good humour

(Omoo 11, 14–15).

John Jermin's origins in the historical James German is supported by German's presence aboard the Lucy Ann, which is amply recorded in documents generated by an 1842 inquiry into a mutiny on the vessel by the Acting British Consul at Tahiti (Mutiny Documents). These documents, and the event they describe, have in turn been discussed by a number of scholars in the years that followed (Leeson 370–79; Hayford, Mutiny Documents 309–39; Heflin 162–68; Howard 3–17).

German continued to serve on Sydney whaling vessels for another two decades after he met Melville on the Lucy Ann in 1842. As he grew older and his strength diminished, he had to take on less demanding roles. He was navigator on the Australian (1855–56) and ship-keeper on the Post Boy (1857), Kate (1858), Governor (1859), and Amherst (1864–65) (Mariners and Ships). He retired from the sea in 1865 and died 14 years later in his room at a Sydney hotel (German death certificate). He had no wife or children and there is no record of a will (Index to wills). He probably had nothing to leave in any case as no intestate file or probate papers were generated in his name by the legal authorities in New South Wales (Index to intestate files). All of this raises a question: how could a man with no money or family...