Suffolk, then, we purpose to say a few words by way of preparatory
explanation.

Although it has actually more sea-coast than all the rest of New York
united, Suffolk has but one sea-port that is ever mentioned beyond the
limits of the county itself. Nor is this port one of general commerce, its
shipping being principally employed in the hardy and manly occupation of
whaling. As a whaling town, Sag Harbour is the third or fourth port in the
country, and maintains something like that rank in importance. A whaling
haven is nothing without a whaling community. Without the last, it is
almost hopeless to look for success. New York can, and has often fitted
whalers for sea, having sought officers in the regular whaling ports; but
it has been seldom that the enterprises have been rewarded with such
returns as to induce a second voyage by the same parties.

It is as indispensable that a whaler should possess a certain _esprit de
corps_, as that a regiment, or a ship of war, should be animated by its
proper spirit. In the whaling communities, this spirit exists to an
extent, and in a degree that is wonderful, when one remembers the great
expansion of this particular branch of trade within the last
five-and-twenty years. It may be a little lessened of late, but at the
time of which we are writing, or about the year 1820, there was scarcely
an individual who followed this particular calling out of the port of Sag
Harbour, whose general standing on board ship was not as well known to all
the women and girls of the place, as it was to his shipmates. Success in
taking the whale was a thing that made itself felt in every fibre of the
prosperity of the town; and it was just as natural that the single-minded
population of that part of Suffolk should regard the bold and skilful
harpooner, or lancer, with favour, as it is for the belle at a
watering-place to bestow her smiles on one of the young heroes of