globe-ships traveling perhaps 100 mil es a day around the 21 ,600-mile circumference of the world, in voyages often lasting three or four yea rs as they hunted the mightiest of all animals, the whale. Nantucket was a highly developed case of maritime America, the yo ung republic that was changing the terms of engagement in the great contest for the developing world commerce in which America, itself essentially an island nation, was soon ro develop a dominating role. The enterprise ofNantucket sai lors was legendary. William Rotch, the wealthy merchant whose counting house still stands at the foot of Main Street in Nantucket, actually shipped 487 barrels ofsperm whale oil (the most valuable kind of whale oil) ro England. His ship, flying th e Stars and Stripes, sailed up the Thames ro London in February 1783. Rotch figured , of course, that the technicality of a war whose co nclusio n had already been determined would not srop English m erchants from buying up his precious cargo-and he figured right. His freewheeling ways went beyond this. When England imposed a tariff on American whale oil afte r American indepe ndence was achieved, he moved ro France and ran his whaling business from there. When revolurionary France declared war on England in 1792 he moved tO England. This "citize n of the world" outlook may well have been what led Rotch ro insist on payin g a slave for serving aboard one of his ships back in 1771, a step which led ro the early abolition of slave ry on Nantucket. Another ind ependent-minded Nantucketerwas born "off island," as Nantucketers call the mainland. Admiral Sir Isaac Coffi n, as he became, was bo rn in Bosron , a scion of one of Nantucket's fore most whaling families. H e joined the Royal Navy at age 14 in 1773, just before the outbreak of th e American Revolution . H e served against the American forces during the Revolution and went on tO achieve wealth and distinction in the Royal Navy, beco ming a friend of"my dear lo rd Nelso n," as he called him, as well as Lady Hamilron , whom he visited in her mansion at N aples, in southern Italy, the year after Nelson's stunning vicrory at the Barde of the Ni le. After the W ar of 1812 he became a great friend of Isaac Hull who, as captain of USS Constitution, had handed the Royal Navy a startling SEA HISTORY 86 , AUTUMN 1998
Columbia, in her second voyage to the Northwest and on to China, lies in winter layup, with topmasts sent down, in a cove near Nootka on Vancouver Island in the spring of1191 . Ashore Captain Gray inspects a drawing of the small schooner Ad ve nture, which was built by the Columbia people to trade in odd corners ofthe coast inaccessible to the bigger ship. Painting by the expedition artist George Davidson, courtesy Columbia River Maritime Museum .
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defeat in taking HMS Guerriere in 1812. A jovial, rollicking son of man , as one family member described him, Coffin kept in much with friends and relations in Bosron and Nantucket, crossing the Atlantic two or three times ro visit them. In 1827 he fou nded the Coffin School in antucket, which co mmission ed the 87-foot brig Clio ro train young people in seafaring. T h e first sail trainin g ship in America, Clio cruised from Canada ro Brazil, but had ro be sold after two yea rs for lack of finances. Today th e Coffi n School continues its educational role asho re as home base to the Ega n Institute of Maritime Studies, which along with historic studies, pursues nautical training for Na ntucket yo uth. And, as noted earlier, the co unting house of the independent-minded Wi lliam Rotch sti ll stands at th e foot of Main Street. Appropriately, it bears the name of its present occupant, the Pacific Cl ub- nam ed for the world's widest ocean , half a wo rld away, which ships from thissandbarvillagehelped open ro the wo rld.
* * * * * The ship Columbia's nam e, of course, pays homage ro Columbus, who carried a distinctive sense of mission with him on his four voyages of exploration ro the New Wo rld of the Americas, 1492- 1504. The word became a poeti c name for the United States . By the 1840s, when the song "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean " appeared,
the wo rd "Co lumbia" had acquired an exuberantly confident, optimistic, outwardlooking feeling, which it retains for man y Americans roday. The prescient C revecoeur, he who wrote so sagely of the islanders of Nantucket, wrote of the great seaport of C harlesro n in the American South as well. He spoke of the abiding evil ofslavery (which he prophesied wo uld " nourish a wish of perpetual revenge") and the creative values of freedom from the Old Wo rld's binding caste systems. H e was the first human bei ng that we know of ro ask: "What is an American? " H e answered his own question with hope: H ere individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of man, whose labours and posterity will one day cause great change to the world. T h e vision and dedication which enabled America ro change the world ca me ro the new nation by sea in an increasingly di ve rse population. T he emergingAn1erican people we re attracted by wealth gained in seaborne trade, and by the new opportunities opened by this wealth. W hat they made of their opportun iti es did indeed change th e world, and is changing it roday. Surely much of the lea rnin g a nd in spiratio n that we nt inro America as a fo rce fo r change was ga in ed at sea, o n th e Ca pe Horn Road that opened the ocea n wo rld ro those w ho ga in ed th e visio n a nd energies ro sail it. J,
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