On the 15th the sun arose amid a pretty fresh gale of wind. Directly after breakfast we sighted sperm whales. The weather looked rather dubious; but we wanted oil very bad--so down went our boats and after them. They were slightly to windward of us, and it was impossible to force our boats to the weather, in the teeth of both sea and wind, so, at 10 o’clock, the boats returned aboard. At 11 we tried it again; at 12 again returned, ate dinner, and, not at all discouraged by the two preceding failures, at two o’clock dropped our boats a third time, after having beat up with the ship to windward of the school. The third attempt proved successful, and, fortunately, the fish struck ran but very little, and was easily disposed of. Some idea may be formed of the hardships of the whaleman’s life, from a recountal of this day’s work. During the whole time that the boats were down, the rain descended in torrents, and the sea was so rugged that it was only by incessant bailing that the boats were kept from swamping. Added to this, the weather was quite cool, and the wind was at such a height that double-reefed topsails were all the ship would hear; yet, despite all this, the brave fellows, when they came aboard, although chilled through and wet to the skin, made light of the difficulties, and stated their willingness and even eagerness to encounter the same hardships again for another whale. The wind continuing, we had a troublesome job the next day in getting him aboard. The following Wednesday, as if fortune was determined to make us some reparation for the former sparsity of her favors, we again saw whales, captured one and got him all aboard the same day--making over two hundred barrels of sperm oil taken by us in ten days. The James Allen was in sight of us when we captured the last two, and had the same chance; her miscarrying, therefore, can be attributed only to the fact of her boats’ crews being unaccustomed to boat duty, and unable to compete with ours--her old crew being pretty nearly all gone, and her boats now manned by men who never saw a whale before. I think that this should be a sufficient inducement for whaling captains to treat their crews well, so as to retain them, when, at the end of two years, they make a good port, they may not have an inefficient, almost helpless crew, instead of able hands to do their behests.