Moby-Dick; or, The Whale · Moby-Dick, ch. 45 · block 13

Thirdly: Some eighteen or twenty years ago Commodore J—— then commanding an American sloop-of-war of the first class, happened to be dining with a party of whaling captains, on board a Nantucket ship in the harbor of Oahu, Sandwich Islands. Conversation turning upon whales, the Commodore was pleased to be sceptical touching the amazing strength ascribed to them by the professional gentlemen present. He peremptorily denied for example, that any whale could so smite his stout sloop-of-war as to cause her to leak so much as a thimbleful. Very good; but there is more coming. Some weeks after, the commodore set sail in this impregnable craft for Valparaiso. But he was stopped on the way by a portly sperm whale, that begged a few moments’ confidential business with him. That business consisted in fetching the Commodore’s craft such a thwack, that with all his pumps going he made straight for…

Herman Melville · 1851
Project Gutenberg #15, credited to Eugene F. Irey; updated 10 June 2026. Based on the first American edition, Harper & Brothers, 1851, according to the source catalog.
Mapped print edition: Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1851; First American edition).
Passage ¶1219: p. 230 (Scanned p. 230)
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Gloss address: 45.13 · chapter.paragraph · global ¶1219
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