chiefly from this viewpoint. The Shipping & Mercantile Gazette, the Lloyd’s List, France’s Packetboat and Maritime & Colonial Review, all the rags devoted to insurance companies—who threatened to raise their premium rates—were unanimous on this point.
Public opinion being pronounced, the States of the Union were the first in the field. In New York preparations were under way for an expedition designed to chase this narwhale. A high-speed frigate, the Abraham Lincoln, was fitted out for putting
continents had become more and more dangerous, the public spoke up and demanded straight out that, at all cost, the seas be purged of this fearsome cetacean.
CHAPTER 2
The Pros and Cons
DURING THE PERIOD in which these developments were occurring, I had returned from a scientific undertaking organized