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Animal life in the Arctic

were no longer necessary to fish the company's grounds, the London merchants began to lose their hold on the southern fishery. British whalers had suffered in the Napoleonic wars and, after 1797, when at war with Spain, her ships met with hostility in both Atlantic and Pacific ports of South America. As a result, British whalers were armed until 1815. With the turn of the century, Nantucket began to revive. Whaling was virtually the sole means of livelihood for the island's residents, so they had to be successful. William Rotch also began to build up the nearby town of New Bedford, and together the two centres had regained control of the southern whale fishery by the early 1820's. Mr Stackpole describes in great detail the exploration and opening up of the South Atlantic and South Pacific oceans by whalers from various ports. He quotes from many ship's logs and crew diaries, and his text is enhanced by a very successful series of illustrations. In his attention to detail, he provides a colourful background to the main political events of the period and offers excellent character studies of the important personalities, such as Jenkinson, Rotch, Samuel Starbuck, and Charles Greville. He also provides studies of the London whaling merchants, of conditions on board the whalers, and of daily life in the new town of Milford Haven. With such a wealth of material, it is not surprising that the book is long, but there is little repetition and little need to refer back to earlier chapters when picking up the threads of a particular argument. Whales & destiny is a useful and long-overdue reference book, and it provides interesting, though exacting, reading for pleasure. Mr Stackpole has dealt admirably with a saga, that, as he says in his concluding words, is "as strange and as exciting as will be found in the pages of maritime history".