Mutiny on the Globe
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
A bloody mutiny on a whaling journey, followed by an incredible tale of survival on land and sea.
Samuel Comstock knew he was born to do some great thing, but his only legacy was a reign of terror. Two years out of Nantucket on a whaling voyage in 1824, he organized a mutiny and murdered the officers of the Globe. It was a premeditated act; in his sea chest Comstock carried the seeds, tools, and weapons with which he would found his own island kingdom. He had often described these plans to one of his brothers, William. But the chief witness and chronicler of the mutiny was young George Comstock, who neither participated in nor approved of his brother's savage deed.
Within days of settling on Mili Atoll in the Marshall Islands, Comstock was murdered by his fellow mutineers. Six innocent seamen—George among them—seized the Globe and escaped; most of the rest were killed by natives. Two survivors lived for twenty-two months, half-prisoners and half-adoptees of the natives, until they were rescued in a bold and dangerous maneuver by a landing party from the U.S. schooner Dolphin.
The Globe's story is one of terror, adventure, endurance, and luck. It is also the story of one of the most bizarre and frightening minds that ever went to sea.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In yet another title about the Globe, Heffernan (Stove by a Whale) presents the violent story of Samuel Comstock, clever ruffian, cunning trouble-maker and all around hooligan, who led a bloody mutiny aboard the Nantucket whaler. After dispatching the captain and officers of the ship, Comstock's delusions of setting up a personal empire in the Marshall Islands (and conscripting the natives into his personal army) met an apex in madness, and the 21-year-old was gunned down by fellow mutineers shortly after reaching the Mili Atoll. In the ensuing power vacuum, six sailors fled to the ship, abandoning the other nine to face the irate natives; seven were killed while the remaining two were kept as "pets." Upon learning the fate of the whaler, the U.S. Navy mounted an unprecedented rescue mission and set a standard for policing the waters of the South Pacific. Historian Heffernan wonderfully revives the mutiny and its aftermath in this dynamic, tightly edited record that never shows the toil of labor. Working from a wealth of primary source materials (among others, varying accounts from Comstock's brothers, the two marooned mariners and senior Lt. Hiram Paulding, who helped lead the rescue), the author balances the narrative with well-placed insights and quips, keeping the action relentless and oftentimes terrifying. (Heffernan's description of mayhem Comstock causes in the Chilean port of Valparaiso is an unexpected diversion on a par with the violence of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian.) With exhaustive appendixes and notes; illus. and maps not seen by PW.
