Blubber

I found this small column of the news of the arrival of a ship in my home town, the Port of Kingston Upon Hull dating from 1790. 

It has some interesting detail of what the ship brought back to unload although the trade is now to be villified for its cruelty. 

The second paragraph has some very striking social comment which indicates that no occupation was a secure type in the last decade of the 18th Century. 

I provide the column as it appeared in the newspaper of the day being of interest to Merchants and Shipowners alike as the last two entries come from a similar activity from other ports and harbours along the East Coast of England. 

On tuesday last arrived at Hull, the Egginton, Capt Allan* from Greenland with 200 butts of blubber, the produce of 4 fish and 2460 seals. She brings an account of the following Hull ships viz. the Elizabeth of Sutton,  2 fish; Enterprise 1600 seals; Minerva 1 fish, 700 seals; Samuel 1 fish. Sarah and Elizabeth 700 seals; Selby, a fish, 1600 seals. Truelove, 1 fish, 1700 seals; Young Maria, 1900 seals; Diana, 500 seals.

On the arrival of the Egginton at Hull and the ship being moored the men went on shore in a body, armed with long knives, &c to the Custom House to muster. The officers received protections, and for three days no press-gangs durst came near the common men. 

Of course the reference to fish relates to whales as part of a large and regular sailing of a fleet from Hull into the hostile waters of the Arctic and North Atlantic. 

The huge amount of seal carcasses will have been from a shore-party landing and a subsequent bloody assault with blunt weapons on defensive animals. 

It is therefore totally ironic that the crew could not venture out into their own home port without fear of violence against them by the Press Gangs seeking to gain a commission for filling the rosters of other ships. *Capt J Allen is the name in Basil Lubbocks work on "Captains Listed in Arctic Whalers" (published 1937)