A VETERAN WHALER.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 865, 14 July 1910, Page 3

A VETERAN WHALER.

The retirement of Captain Anglem, of the JLflutf, from active warfare against the perils of the sea, marks the disappearance into the well-de-served retirement of private life of a sturdy old whaler, who is the sou of another whaler who made maritime history at the outposts of the colony in the roaring J forties and thereabouts. A writer in the Southland i\ews has wrung from Captain Anglem many episodes of; his eventful career, the sum total of which goes to maJce up a life’s experience packed tightly in every cranny with strenuous endeavour and stirring adventure while wrestling with fortune on the high seas away to the blustering s’uth’ard. Saptam Anglem first went to sea as a lad in 1804 on the schooner Post Boy, commanded by the famous •'Paddy” Gilroy, whose exploits with the brave old Chance have been made familiar in two hemispheres by Frank T. Bullen. The Post Boy hunted whales round the West Coast Sounds, and it was his baptism upon this cruise that bred in young Anglem the daring spirit which afterwards made his name one to be conjured with by followers of the hazardous occupation. That and the operation of the law of heredity. In the fullness of time (somewhere in the ’sixties), young Anglem secured his second mate’s certificate, and obtained a post in the brig Hermes, which adventured forth from the Bluff on a twelve months’ oruise and came back forlornly without securing even a cupful of oil. Then followed a couple of years’ service ■ with “Paddy” Gilroy on the Chance. Here were two adventurous spirits .well met. Nothing was too hazardous for the dauntless pair. Once a boat from the Chance got fast to a whale it was there to stay, or so long as the line held. On one occasion the line became fouled in the chocks of the Chance’s whaleboat. The whale sounded and the boat followed him. Another infuriated monster smashed another of the Chance’s boats to matchwood, and left the occupants struggling in the water. In due course they were picked up, none the worse for an adventure such as entered into the ordinary routine of the day’s work. Sealing was carried out on a large scale in those early times, and Captain Anglem regularly visited the Campbell, Macquarie, Auckland, and Bounty Islands. Skins were worth from £4 to £5 each, but the trail of the middleman was writ largely over the industry, for the sealers usually set out under contract to the merchants, the latter of whom agreed to take the entire catches at £1 per skin. Saptain Anglem finally settled down to the prosaic occupation of commagider of an oystering steamer. In 1906 he decided to retire, but the call ofi the sea was not denied, and he with others invested in a curious little ex-Fnench gunboat, of which he took command, and-which is now regarded as a eosrt of flagship of the oystering fleet. Kt is worthy of note that the gallant old Chance, when her days of usefulness were passed, lay at the Bluff wharf for years. She was finally run ashore and set on fire, but even this didl not accomplish her dissolution—so staunchly was she knit together. The alid of explosives had to be sought befom her timbers—solid British oak, nearly all of them—would yield to the destroyer.