EARLY SEALING DAYS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19698, 2 August 1938, Page 7

EARLY SEALING DAYS

g FASCINATING PERIOD LAWLESS AND EXCITING ADDRESS TO ROTARY CLUB A review of the early sealing days in southern New Zealand was given at to-day's meeting of the Gisborne Rotary Club by the Rev. R. B. Spence, Matawhero. Mr. Spence said that the early sealing days went back to the first opening of. New Zealand to Europeans, long before there was any settlement, before Marsden came to spread the Gospel and, indeed, almost up to the time of Captain Cook's discovery.^ "These early sealing days are per; haps the most fascinating period of New Zealand's history, when the early se'aler in his 30-ton craft battled with the storms of the Tasman Sea and the uncharted rocks of Fovcaux Strait. Those days had come and gone when New Zealand came to be looked upon as a favourable abode of the white man. "The historical records of New South Wales and New Zealand, diaries of men who lived in those lawless and exciting times, and the earliest Australian newspapers which were printed from the beginning of the nineteenth century tell tales of plundering of native villages, of massacre and revenge, of heroic endurance and crafty betrayal and of castaways on the barren rocky islands of the far south."

Earliest Exploitations

Continuing, Mr. Spence said that the sealing grounds lay chiefly up the West Coast of the South Island as far as Hokitika and on the east coast as far as DuKedin. The seals spent the winter among the ice on the Antarctic and came north in the summer for breeding, returning south at about the end of April or during May. The exploitation of the sea commenced following a report by Captain Cook that in his 1773 trip he fed his men on seal. The first sealing gang •landed at Dusky Sound in 1792, when Captain William Raven in the Britannia dropped a gang there in November after landing convicts in Sydney. The Britannia returned in September, 1793, and took off the gang, which had collected 4500 skins. A license was required from the East India Company at that time for sealing, and it was not until 1801 that the south was opened to fishing. The next ships came in 1795, when the Endeavour, 800 tons, and the Fancy, 150 tons, brought small gangs. George Bass, a surgeon, arrived in Sydney in 1795, and had a scheme for providing the supply of fish and pork. In 1801 he cut timber for casks in Dusky Sound, and following that applied for a lease of all the land to the south of the sound for the sole right of fishing, but this was net granted. He left on a further trip to Dusky Sound in 1803, but was never heard of again. The Sealing Boom

Restrictions were gazetted in New South Wales at that time prohibiting sealing south of- 43 .degrees, but as there was no authority in those islands then it was impossible to enforce the regulations. Sealing was booming between 1800 and 1812, but the indiscriminate slaughter practically exterminated the seals en the New Zealand coasts Prices for skins varied from 4s to 5s 6d on the China market in 1792 to £1 in 1800, the improvement at the beginning of the nineteenth century being the result of the invention of fur hats in England. The depletion of the seals on the coasts of New Zealand sent the gangs further afield to Bounty Island, discovered by Lieutenant Blight in 1787, Ruatara, discovered in 1805, the Snares and the Chathams, discovered in 1791, the Penantipodes, discovered in 1800, the Auckland Islands, discovered in 1800, Macquarrie' Islands, 1810, and Campbell Island, 1810. Most of these islands were very rough, and the Campbell Island was the only one where an attempt to colonise was made, most of the colony succumbing to the ri|orous conditions. Many Acts of Treachery During the boom in sealing, some big cargoes of skins were shipped to Sydney. A total of 45,000 was taken there in one week during 1809, and 100,000 from Macquarrie Island alone in 1811, but only 6000 in 1815. The last good cargo was 4500 in 1820. For a time only the skins were used, and it was not until some time after the industry had started that the oil was used. Many acts of treachery were committed during the sealing days, and after 1813 shipmasters were required to enter into a bond of £IOOO as a guarantee of the good treatment of a the Maoris. Convicts were welcomed in the sealing crews, and one master was fined £BOO for assisting the escape of two convicts. 'By 1830 seals had been practically exterminated," Mr. Spence continued. "It is an interesting fact that the rugged and barren portion of the southern coast, the tide-washed rocks and inaccessible promontories were once alive with industry and, indeed, one of New Zealand's earlJ iest industries. The killing was in- " discriminate, and as quickly as the industry grew, so quickly did it pass away Within 40 years seals were almost exterminated, and those lonely shores lapsed again into silence. A sealer's club, a schooner's log, or a few stirring tales in the early newspapers of Australia are among the only few remaining evidences of those exciting times." At the conclusion, a hearty vale of thanks to the speaker was carried, on the*motion of Rotarian F. Tolerton. The chair was taken by Rotarian L. Miles.