The attribution comes from the Nautical Magazine 23 (1864) p. 66, but who it is I haven’t learned. A bit more literate than the average whaleman but not a riveting book—a good overview of whaling but not with the art of a Melville or Bullen.
p. 88: The next day was Sunday, but not Sabbath. On all whalers, while at sea, mast-heads are manned, whales chased and captured, cut and tried out on Sunday as much as any other day of the week. Nothing else, however, except what is absolutely necessary for navigating the ship is done on this day, which is generally spent by the crew in reading and writing.
p. 95, on the Marquesas: If a native wishes a Bible, he must pay the sum of one dollar for it, and the same if a sailor wants one. Such things as these tend more to cause a feeling of hatred against the missionary and his work than of love.
p. 161: In the many books which have been written of whaling voyages, we recollect nowhere to have seen a natural history of the sperm whale, and we trust it will not be uninteresting to the reader if we give it in the present volume (p. 161-77).
There are references to other works (e.g., Roget’s Bridgewater Treatise on p. 178; William Jardine on p. 182), but these do not appear to have been available on the voyage.
p. 250, his ship, the Emily Morgan, encountered another ship on Oct. 26: Saw a ship coming out, which proved to be the ‘Charles W. Morgan,’ of New Bedford, Captain Sampson, bound home. Paper, pens, and ink were not in great demand, and, as we wrote a few lines to the dear ones at home, the thought that in one year more we too would be ‘homeward-bound,’ cheered us….
p. 298: We were rejoiced to learn that a ‘Bethel’ had been established in Hong Kong, and we gladly accepted the opportunity of attending it. It is a floating ‘Bethel,’ and seems especially adapted to the wants of seamen, who feel much more ‘at home’ there than inside brick walls. The chaplain appeared to be an excellent, earnest, kind man, devoted to the cause in which he was engaged.
p. 321, at Lahaina Harbor on Maui: As soon as the anchor was down we were visited by the harbor-master, accompanied by the seamen’s chaplain, Rev. Mr. Bishop. After the former had transacted his business, the latter addressed to us some very excellent remarks, distributed several copies of the ‘Seamen’s Friend,’ and concluded by cordially inviting all to come and see him; also to attend Bethel on the Sabbath. The ‘Seamen’s Friend’ is a sheet published at Honolulu, Wauhoo, by Father Damon, as he is familiarly called, and is devoted to the spiritual and temporal good of the sailor.