CHAPTER 89
Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish
The allusion to the waifs and waif-poles in the last chapterbut one, necessitates some account of the laws and regulationsof the whale fishery, of which the waif may be deemed the grandsymbol and badge.
It frequently happens that when several ships are cruising in company,a whale may be struck by one vessel, then escape, and be finally killedand captured by another vessel; and herein are indirectly comprisedmany minor contingencies, all partaking of this one grand feature.For example,--after a weary and perilous chase and capture of a whale,the body may get loose from the ship by reason of a violent storm;and drifting far away to leeward, be retaken by a second whaler, who,in a calm, snugly tows it alongside, without risk of life or line.Thus the most vexatious and violent disputes would often arise betweenthe fishermen, were there not some written or unwritten, universal,undisputed law applicable to all cases.
Perhaps the only formal whaling code authorized by legislative enactment,was that of Holland. It was decreed by the States-General in A.D. 1695.But though no other nation has ever had any written whaling law,yet the American fishermen have been their own legislatorsand lawyers in this matter. They have provided a system whichfor terse comprehensiveness surpasses Justinian's Pandects andthe By-laws of the Chinese Society for the Suppression of Meddlingwith other People's Business. Yes; these laws might be engravenon a Queen Anne's farthing, or the barb of a harpoon, and wornround the neck, so small are they.
I. A Fast-Fish belongs to the party fast to it.
II. A Loose-Fish is fair game for anybody who can soonest catch it.
But what plays the mischief with this masterly code is the admirablebrevity of it, which necessitates a vast volume of commentariesto expound it.
First: What is a Fast-Fish? Alive or dead a fish is technically fast,when it is connected with an occupied ship or boat, by any mediumat all controllable by the occupant or occupants,--a mast, an oar,a nine-inch cable, a telegraph wire, or a strand of cobweb, it is allthe same. Likewise a fish is technically fast when it bears a waif,or any other recognized symbol of possession; so long as the partywailing it plainly evince their ability at any time to take it alongside,as well as their intention so to do.
These are scientific commentaries; but the commentaries of the whalementhemselves sometimes consist in hard words and harder knocks--the Coke-upon-Littleton of the fist. True, among the more uprightand honorable whalemen allowances are always made for peculiar cases,where it would be an outrageous moral injustice for one party to claimpossession of a whale previously chased or killed by another party.But others are by no means so scrupulous.
Some fifty years ago there was a curious case of whale-troverlitigated in England, wherein the plaintiffs set forththat after a hard chase of a whale in the Northern seas;and when indeed they (the plaintiffs) had succeeded in harpooningthe fish; they were at last, through peril of their lives,obliged to forsake not only their lines, but their boat itself.Ultimately the defendants (the crew of another ship)came up with the whale, struck, killed, seized, and finallyappropriated it before the very eyes of the plaintiffs.And when those defendants were remonstrated with, their captainsnapped his fingers in the plaintiffs' teeth, and assuredthem that by way of doxology to the deed he had done,he would now retain their line, harpoons, and boat, which hadremained attached to the whale at the time of the seizure.Wherefore the plaintiffs now sued for the recovery of the valueof their whale, line, harpoons, and boat.
Mr. Erskine was counsel for the defendants; Lord Ellenboroughwas the judge. In the course of the defence, the wittyErskine went on to illustrate his position, by alluding to arecent crim. con. case, wherein a gentleman, after in vaintrying to bridle his wife's viciousness, had at last abandonedher upon the seas of life; but in the course of years, repenting ofthat step, he instituted an action to recover possession of her.Erskine was on the other side; and he then supported it by saying,that though the gentleman had originally harpooned the lady,and had once had her fast, and only by reason of the greatstress of her plunging viciousness, had at last abandoned her;yet abandon her he did, so that she became a loose-fish;and therefore when a subsequent gentleman re-harpooned her,the lady then became that subsequent gentleman's property,along with whatever harpoon might have been found sticking in her.
Now in the present case Erskine contended that the examples of the whaleand the lady were reciprocally illustrative of each other.
These pleadings, and the counter pleadings, being duly heard,the very learned Judge in set terms decided, to wit,--That as for the boat, he awarded it to the plaintiffs,because they had merely abandoned it to save their lives;but that with regard to the controverted whale, harpoons,and line, they belonged to the defendants; the whale,because it was a Loose-Fish at the time of the final capture;and the harpoons and line because when the fish made offwith them, it (the fish) acquired a property in those articles;and hence anybody who afterwards took the fish had a right to them.Now the defendants afterwards took the fish; ergo, the aforesaidarticles were theirs.
A common man looking at this decision of the very learned Judge,might possibly object to it. But ploughed up to the primary rockof the matter, the two great principles laid down in the twinwhaling laws previously quoted, and applied and elucidatedby Lord Ellenborough in the above cited case; these two lawstouching Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish, I say, will on reflection,be found the fundamentals of all human jurisprudence;For notwithstanding its complicated tracery of sculpture,the Temple of the Law, like the Temple of the Philistines,has but two props to stand on.
Is it not a saying in every one's mouth, Possession is half of the law:that is, regardless of how the thing came into possession?But often possession is the whole of the law. What are the sinewsand souls of Russian serfs and Republican slaves but Fast-Fish,whereof possession is the whole of the law? What to the rapaciouslandlord is the widow's last mite but a Fast-Fish? What is yonderundetected villain's marble mansion with a doorplate for a waif;what is that but a Fast-Fish? What is the ruinous discountwhich Mordecai, the broker, gets from the poor Woebegone,the bankrupt, on a loan to keep Woebegone's family from starvation;what is that ruinous discount but a Fast-Fish? What is the Archbishopof Savesoul's income of 100,000 pounds seized from the scant breadand cheese of hundreds of thousands of broken-backed laborers(all sure of heaven without any of Savesoul's help) what is that globular100,000 but a Fast-Fish. What are the Duke of Dunder's hereditary townsand hamlets but Fast-Fish? What to that redoubted harpooneer, John Bull,is poor Ireland, but a Fast-Fish? What to that apostolic lancer,Brother Jonathan, is Texas but a Fast-Fish? And concerning all these,is not Possession the whole of the law?
But if the doctrine of Fast-Fish be pretty generally applicable,the kindred doctrine of Loose-Fish is still more widely so.That is internationally and universally applicable.
What was America in 1492 but a Loose-Fish, in which Columbusstruck the Spanish standard by way of wailing it for his royalmaster and mistress? What was Poland to the Czar? What Greeceto the Turk? What India to England? What at last will Mexicobe to the United States? All Loose-Fish.
What are the Rights of Man and the Liberties of the World butLoose-Fish? What all men's minds and opinions but Loose-Fish? Whatis the principle of religious belief in them but a Loose-Fish? Whatto the ostentatious smuggling verbalists are the thoughts of thinkersbut Loose-Fish? What is the great globe itself but a Loose-Fish? Andwhat are you, reader, but a Loose-Fish and a Fast-Fish, too?
Moby Dick; Or, The Whale Page 89