CHAPTER 89

  Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish

  The allusion to the waif-poles in the last chapter but one,

necessitates some account of the laws and regulations of the whale

fishery, of which the waif may be deemed the grand symbol 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 killed and captured by another vessel; and herein are

indirectly comprised many 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 between the 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

legislators and lawyers in this matter. They have provided a system

which for terse comprehensiveness surpasses Justinian's Pandects and

the By-laws of the Chinese Society for the Suppression of Meddling

with other People's Business. Yes; these laws might be engraven on a

Queen Anne's forthing, or the barb of a harpoon, and worn round 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 admirable

brevity of it, which necessitates a vast volume of commentaries to

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

medium at 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

all the same. Likewise a fish is technically fast when it bears a

waif, or any other recognized symbol of possession; so long as the

party wailing 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

whalemen themselves sometimes consist in hard words and harder knocks-

the Coke-upon-Littleton of the fist. True, among the more upright

and honorable whalemen allowances are always made for peculiar

cases, where it would be an outrageous moral injustice for one party

to claim possession 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-trover

litigated in England, wherein the plaintiffs set forth that after a

hard chase of a whale in the Northern seas; and when indeed they

(the plaintiffs) had succeeded in harpooning the 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 finally appropriated it before the very eyes of the

plaintiffs. And when those defendants were remonstrated with, their

captain snapped his fingers in the plaintiffs' teeth, and assured them

that by way of doxology to the deed he had done, he would now retain

their line, harpoons, and boat, which had remained attached to the

whale at the time of the seizure. Wherefore the plaintiffs now sued

for the recovery of the value of their whale, line, harpoons, and

boat.

  Mr. Erskine was counsel for the defendants; Lord Ellenborough was

the judge. In the course of the defence, the witty Erskine went on

to illustrate his position, by alluding to a recent crim. con. case,

wherein a gentleman, after in vain trying to bridle his wife's

viciousness, had at last abandoned her upon the seas of life; but in

the course of years, repenting of that 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 great stress 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

whale and the lady were reciprocally illustrative to 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 off with 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

aforesaid articles 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 rock of

the matter, the two great principles laid down in the twin whaling

laws previously quoted, and applied and elucidated by Lord

Ellenborough in the above cited case; these two laws touching

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 sinews and

souls of Russian serfs and Republican slaves but Fast-Fish, whereof

possession is the whole of the law? What to the rapacious landlord

is the widow's last mite but a Fast-Fish? What is yonder undetected

villain's marble mansion with a doorplate for a waif; what is that but

a Fast-Fish? What is the ruinous discount which 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 Archbishop of Savesoul's income of

L100,000 seized from the scant bread and cheese of hundreds of

thousands of broken-backed laborers (all sure of heaven without any of

Savesoul's help) what is that globular 100,000 but a Fast-Fish. What

are the Duke of Dunder's hereditary towns and 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 Columbus

struck the Spanish standard by way of wailing it for his royal

master and mistress? What was Poland to the Czar? What Greece to the

Turk? What India to England? What at last will Mexico be to the United

States? All Loose-Fish.

  What are the Rights of Man and the Liberties of the World but

Loose-Fish? What all men's minds and opinions but Loose-Fish? What

is the principle of religious belief in them but a Loose-Fish? What to

the ostentatious smuggling verbalists are the thoughts of thinkers but

Loose-Fish? What is the great globe itself but a Loose-Fish? And

what are you, reader, but a Loose-Fish and a Fast-Fish, too?