Benjamin Morrell
Encyclopedia
Benjamin Morrell was an American sealing
Seal hunting
Seal hunting, or sealing, is the personal or commercial hunting of seals. The hunt is currently practiced in five countries: Canada, where most of the world's seal hunting takes place, Namibia, the Danish region of Greenland, Norway and Russia...

 captain and explorer who between 1823 and 1831 made a series of voyages, mainly to the Southern Ocean
Southern Ocean
The Southern Ocean comprises the southernmost waters of the World Ocean, generally taken to be south of 60°S latitude and encircling Antarctica. It is usually regarded as the fourth-largest of the five principal oceanic divisions...

 and the Pacific Islands
Pacific Islands
The Pacific Islands comprise 20,000 to 30,000 islands in the Pacific Ocean. The islands are also sometimes collectively called Oceania, although Oceania is sometimes defined as also including Australasia and the Malay Archipelago....

, which are recorded in a colourful memoir A Narrative of Four Voyages. Morrell's reputation among his peers was for untruth and fantasy, and claims in his partly ghost-written account, especially those relating to his Antarctic experiences, have been disputed by geographers and historians.

Morrell had an eventful early career, running away to sea at the age of 16 and being twice captured and imprisoned by the British during the War of 1812
War of 1812
The War of 1812 was a military conflict fought between the forces of the United States of America and those of the British Empire. The Americans declared war in 1812 for several reasons, including trade restrictions because of Britain's ongoing war with France, impressment of American merchant...

. He subsequently sailed before the mast for several years before being appointed as chief mate
Chief Mate
A Chief Mate or Chief Officer, usually also synonymous with the First Mate or First Officer , is a licensed member and head of the deck department of a merchant ship...

, and later as captain, of the New York sealer Wasp. In 1823 he took Wasp for an extended voyage into subantarctic
Subantarctic
The Subantarctic is a region in the southern hemisphere, located immediately north of the Antarctic region. This translates roughly to a latitude of between 46° – 60° south of the Equator. The subantarctic region includes many islands in the southern parts of the Indian Ocean, Atlantic Ocean and...

 waters, and it was from this first voyage of a sequence of four that much of the controversy surrounding his reputation developed. Many of his claims—the first landing on Bouvet Island
Bouvet Island
Bouvet Island is an uninhabited Antarctic volcanic island in the South Atlantic Ocean, 2,525 km south-southwest of South Africa. It is a dependent territory of Norway and, lying north of 60°S latitude, is not subject to the Antarctic Treaty. The centre of the island is an ice-filled crater of an...

, a Weddell Sea
Weddell Sea
The Weddell Sea is part of the Southern Ocean and contains the Weddell Gyre. Its land boundaries are defined by the bay formed from the coasts of Coats Land and the Antarctic Peninsula. The easternmost point is Cape Norvegia at Princess Martha Coast, Queen Maud Land. To the east of Cape Norvegia is...

 penetration to 70°S, an extremely rapid passage of 3500 nautical miles (6,482 km) at improbably high latitudes, and the discovery of a coastline he called New South Greenland
New South Greenland
New South Greenland, sometimes known as Morrell's Land, was an appearance of land recorded by the American captain Benjamin Morrell of the schooner Wasp in , during a sealing and exploration voyage in the Weddell Sea area of Antarctica. Morrell provided precise coordinates and a description of a...

—have been doubted or proved false. His subsequent three voyages, in different ships, were less contentious, although his descriptions of various incidents have been dismissed as fanciful or absurd. His unreliability is also aggravated by his acknowledged habit of working the experiences of others into his narratives.

Although he has been a "stumbling-block to geographers," Morrell has been defended by writers and historians who, while deploring his style, have found explanations for his dubious claims and have accepted his basic honesty. His contemporaries were less generous to him; his reputation for untruth hampered his attempts to continue his career after the publication of his book, and he found it increasingly difficult to obtain employment. He is believed to have died in 1839, of a fever contracted in Mozambique
Portuguese East Africa
Mozambique or Portuguese East Africa was the common name by which the Portuguese Empire's territorial expansion in East Africa was known across different periods of time...

 while on the way back to the Pacific.

Early life and career

Morrell was born at Rye
Rye (city), New York
Rye is a city in Westchester County, New York, United States. It is separate from the town of Rye, which is larger than the city. Rye city, formerly the village of Rye, was part of the town until 1942, when it received its charter as a city, the most recent to be issued in New York...

, in Westchester County, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, on 5 July 1795. He grew up in Stonington, Connecticut
Stonington, Connecticut
The Town of Stonington is located in New London County, Connecticut, in the state's southeastern corner. It includes the borough of Stonington, the villages of Pawcatuck, Lords Point, Wequetequock, the eastern halves of the villages of Mystic and Old Mystic...

, where his father, also named Benjamin, was employed as a shipbuilder. Morrell, after minimal schooling, ran away to sea at the age of 12 "without taking leave of any member of my family, or intimating my purpose to a single soul". During the War of 1812
War of 1812
The War of 1812 was a military conflict fought between the forces of the United States of America and those of the British Empire. The Americans declared war in 1812 for several reasons, including trade restrictions because of Britain's ongoing war with France, impressment of American merchant...

, which broke out while he was at sea, he was twice captured by the British; on his first voyage his ship, carrying a cargo of flour, was intercepted off St John's, Newfoundland, and Morrell was detained for eight months. His second voyage landed him in Dartmoor prison
Dartmoor (HM Prison)
HM Prison Dartmoor is a Category C men's prison, located in Princetown, high on Dartmoor in the English county of Devon. Its high granite walls dominate this area of the moor...

, England, for two years. After his release Morrell continued his seafaring career, sailing before the mast as an ordinary seaman since his lack of education prevented him advancing to officer rank. A sympathetic captain, Josiah Macy, taught him what he needed to know to qualify as an officer, and in 1821 he was appointed chief mate on the sealer Wasp, under Captain Robert Johnson.

Wasp was bound for the South Shetland Islands
South Shetland Islands
The South Shetland Islands are a group of Antarctic islands, lying about north of the Antarctic Peninsula, with a total area of . By the Antarctic Treaty of 1959, the Islands' sovereignty is neither recognized nor disputed by the signatories and they are free for use by any signatory for...

, which had been discovered three years earlier by the British Captain William Smith
William Smith (mariner)
William Smith was the English captain who discovered the South Shetland Islands, an archipelago off the Graham Land in Antarctica....

. Morrell, who had evidently heard stories of these islands, was keen to go there. On the ensuing voyage he was involved in a series of "remarkable adventures" which included a narrow escape from drowning, then being lost at sea in a small boat during a gale that swept him 50 nmi (57.5 mi; 92.6 km) from the ship, and leading efforts to extricate Wasp when she became trapped in the ice. On the day following his return to New York, Morrell was appointed captain of Wasp, while Johnson took over the schooner Henry. The two ships were jointly commissioned to return to the South Seas for sealing, trading and exploration, and "to ascertain the practicality, under favourable circumstances, of penetrating to the South Pole."

First voyage: South Seas and Pacific Ocean

Wasp and Henry sailed from New York on 21 June 1822, and remained together as far as the Falkland Islands
Falkland Islands
The Falkland Islands are an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean, located about from the coast of mainland South America. The archipelago consists of East Falkland, West Falkland and 776 lesser islands. The capital, Stanley, is on East Falkland...

. They then separated, Wasp travelling east in search of sealing grounds. Morrell's account of the next few months of the voyage, in Antarctic and subantarctic
Subantarctic
The Subantarctic is a region in the southern hemisphere, located immediately north of the Antarctic region. This translates roughly to a latitude of between 46° – 60° south of the Equator. The subantarctic region includes many islands in the southern parts of the Indian Ocean, Atlantic Ocean and...

 waters, is controversial. His claims of distances, latitudes and discoveries have been challenged as inaccurate or impossible, giving substance to his reputation among his contemporaries for untruth, and leading to much criticism by later writers.

Antarctic waters

Morrell's journal indicates that Wasp reached South Georgia on 20 November, and then sailed eastwards towards the isolated Bouvet Island
Bouvet Island
Bouvet Island is an uninhabited Antarctic volcanic island in the South Atlantic Ocean, 2,525 km south-southwest of South Africa. It is a dependent territory of Norway and, lying north of 60°S latitude, is not subject to the Antarctic Treaty. The centre of the island is an ice-filled crater of an...

, which lies approximately midway between Southern Africa and the Antarctic continent and is known as the world's remotest island. It had been discovered in 1739 by the French navigator Jean-Baptiste Charles Bouvet de Lozier
Jean-Baptiste Charles Bouvet de Lozier
Jean Baptiste Charles Bouvet de Lozier was a French sailor, explorer, and governor of the Mascarene Islands.He was orphaned at the age of seven and after having been educated in Paris, he was sent to Saint Malo to study navigation. He became a lieutenant of the French East India Company in 1731...

, but his plotting of its position was inaccurate; Captain James Cook, in 1772, had been unable to find it and had assumed its nonexistence. It had not been seen again until 1808, when the British sealing captains James Lindsay and Thomas Hopper reached it and recorded its correct position, though they were unable to land. Morrell, by his own account, found the island without difficulty—with "improbable ease", in the words of historian William Mills— before landing and hunting seals there. In his subsequent lengthy description, Morrell does not mention the island's most obvious physical feature, its permanent ice cover. This has caused some commentators to doubt whether he actually visited the island.
After leaving Bouvet Island Wasp continued eastward, reaching the Kerguelen Islands
Kerguelen Islands
The Kerguelen Islands , also known as the Desolation Islands, are a group of islands in the southern Indian Ocean constituting the emerged part of the otherwise submerged Kerguelen Plateau. The islands, along with Adélie Land, the Crozet Islands and the Amsterdam and Saint Paul Islands are part of...

 on 31 December where she remained for 11 days. The voyage then evidently continued to the south and east until 1 February 1823, when Morrell records his position as 65°52'S, 118°27'E. Here, Morrell says he took advantage of an eleven-knot breeze and turned the ship, to begin a passage westward. Apart from one undated position at 69°11'S, 48°15'E, Morrell's journal is silent until 23 February, when he records crossing the Greenwich (0°) meridian. Historians have doubted whether such a long passage from 118°E, about 3500 nmi (4,027.7 mi; 6,482 km), could have been made so quickly in ice-strewn waters and against the prevailing winds. Although some writers, including former Royal Navy navigator Rupert Gould
Rupert Gould
Rupert Thomas Gould , was a Lieutenant Commander in the British Royal Navy noted for his contributions to horology .-Life:...

, have argued that Morrell's claims as to speed and distance are plausible, Morrell's undated interim latitude was later shown to be well inside the Antarctic mainland territory of Enderby Land
Enderby Land
Enderby Land is a projecting land mass of Antarctica, extending from Shinnan Glacier at to William Scoresby Bay at .Enderby Land was discovered in February 1831 by John Biscoe in the whaling brig Tula, and named after the Enderby Brothers of London, owners of the Tula, who encouraged their...

. Gould, writing in 1928 before the continental boundaries of this sector of Antarctica were known, based his support for Morrell on the premise that Enderby Land was an island with a sea channel south of it. He writes: "If at some future date Enderby Land is found to form part of the Antarctic continent, Morrell's most inveterate champions will, perforce, have to throw up the sponge."

According to Morrell, Wasp reached the South Sandwich Islands on 28 February. His presence there is corroborated by his descriptions of the harbour on Thule Island
Thule Island
Thule Island, also called Morrell Island, is one of the southernmost of the South Sandwich Islands, part of the grouping known as Southern Thule. It is named, on account of its remote location, after the mythical land of Thule, said by ancient geographers to lie at the extreme end of the earth...

, confirmed by the early 20th century expeditions. In the next phase of the voyage Morrell records that he took Wasp southwards and, the sea being remarkably clear of ice, reached a latitude of 70°14'S before turning north on 14 March as fuel for the ship's stoves was running out. This journey, if Morrell's account is true, made him the first American sea-captain to penetrate the Antarctic Circle. He believed, he says, that but for this deficiency he could have "made a glorious advance directly to the south pole, or to 85° without the least doubt". Some credence to his claimed southern latitude is provided by James Weddell
James Weddell
James Weddell was a British sailor, navigator and seal hunter who in the early Spring of 1823 sailed to latitude of 74°15' S and into a region of the Southern Ocean that later became known as the Weddell Sea.-Early life:He entered the merchant service very...

's voyage on a similar track, a month earlier. Weddell, like Morrell, reported a sea largely clear of ice, reaching 74°15'S before retreating. The words used by Weddell to express his belief that the South Pole lay in open water are replicated by Morrell, whose account was written nine years after the event. Thus it is suggested by geographer Paul Simpson-Housley that Morrell may have plagiarised Weddell's experiences, since Weddell's account had been published in 1827.

New South Greenland

Morrell next describes how on the day after turning north from his southernmost point, a large tract of land was sighted in the region of 67°52'N, 44°11'W. Morrell refers to this land as "New South Greenland
New South Greenland
New South Greenland, sometimes known as Morrell's Land, was an appearance of land recorded by the American captain Benjamin Morrell of the schooner Wasp in , during a sealing and exploration voyage in the Weddell Sea area of Antarctica. Morrell provided precise coordinates and a description of a...

", and records that during the next few days Wasp explored more than 300 nmi (345.2 mi; 555.6 km) of coast. Morrell provided vivid descriptions of the land's features, with observations of its abundant wildlife. No such land exists; other appearances of land at or near this bearing, reported during the 1842 expedition of Sir James Clark Ross, have likewise proved imaginary. In 1917 the Scottish explorer William Speirs Bruce
William Speirs Bruce
William Speirs Bruce was a London-born Scottish naturalist, polar scientist and oceanographer who organised and led the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition to the South Orkney Islands and the Weddell Sea. Among other achievements, the expedition established the first permanent weather station...

 wrote that the existence of land in this area "should not be rejected until absolutely disproved." By this time both Wilhelm Filchner
Wilhelm Filchner
Wilhelm Filchner was a German explorer.At the age of 21, he participated in his first expedition, which led him to Russia. Two years later, he travelled alone and on horseback through the Pamir Mountains, from Osh to Murgabh to the upper Wakhan to Tashkurgan and back...

 and Ernest Shackleton
Ernest Shackleton
Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton, CVO, OBE was a notable explorer from County Kildare, Ireland, who was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration...

, in their respective ice-bound ships, had drifted close to the plotted positions of New South Greenland and reported no sign of it. The view has been posited that what Morrell saw was actually the eastern coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, some 400 nmi (460.3 mi; 740.8 km) further west from his sighting. This would require a navigational error of at least 10°, and a complete revision of Morrell's timeline after leaving the South Sandwich Islands. Assuming that Morrell did not invent the experience, a possible explanation is that he witnessed a superior mirage.

Pacific and home

On 19 March Morrell "bade farewell to the cheerless shores of New South Greenland", and sailed away from the Antarctic never to return. The remaining stages of the voyage are uncontroversial, involving a year-long cruise in the Pacific Ocean. This took Wasp to the Galápagos Islands
Galápagos Islands
The Galápagos Islands are an archipelago of volcanic islands distributed around the equator in the Pacific Ocean, west of continental Ecuador, of which they are a part.The Galápagos Islands and its surrounding waters form an Ecuadorian province, a national park, and a...

 and also to the Juan Fernández Islands
Juan Fernández Islands
The Juan Fernández Islands are a sparsely inhabited island group reliant on tourism and fishing in the South Pacific Ocean, situated about off the coast of Chile, and is composed of three main volcanic islands; Robinson Crusoe Island, Alejandro Selkirk Island and Santa Clara Island, the first...

 where, a century earlier, the Scottish seaman Alexander Selkirk had been marooned, providing the inspiration for the Robinson Crusoe
Robinson Crusoe
Robinson Crusoe is a novel by Daniel Defoe that was first published in 1719. Epistolary, confessional, and didactic in form, the book is a fictional autobiography of the title character—a castaway who spends 28 years on a remote tropical island near Trinidad, encountering cannibals, captives, and...

 story. Wasp returned to New York in May 1824.

Second voyage: North and South Pacific

For his second voyage Morrell took charge of a new ship, Tartar, which sailed from New York on 19 July 1824 for the Pacific Ocean. In the next two years Tartar first explored the American coastline from the Straits of Magellan to Cape Blanco
Cape Blanco (Oregon)
Cape Blanco is a prominent headland on the Pacific Ocean coast of southwestern Oregon in the United States, forming the westernmost point in the state. It contests with Cape Alava in Washington for the title of westernmost point in the contiguous United States...

 (now in Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...

). He then sailed westward to the islands of Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...

, known at that time as the Sandwich Islands
Hawaiian Islands
The Hawaiian Islands are an archipelago of eight major islands, several atolls, numerous smaller islets, and undersea seamounts in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some 1,500 miles from the island of Hawaii in the south to northernmost Kure Atoll...

, where Captain James Cook had met his death nearly 40 years earlier. Thereafter Tartar returned to the American coast and tracked slowly southwards back to the Straits of Magellan.
Among the events witnessed and recorded in Morrell's journal were the siege of Callao
Callao
Callao is the largest and most important port in Peru. The city is coterminous with the Constitutional Province of Callao, the only province of the Callao Region. Callao is located west of Lima, the country's capital, and is part of the Lima Metropolitan Area, a large metropolis that holds almost...

, the main port of Peru, by Simón Bolívar
Simón Bolívar
Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Yeiter, commonly known as Simón Bolívar was a Venezuelan military and political leader...

's liberators, and a spectacular volcanic eruption on Fernandina Island
Fernandina Island
Fernandina Island is the third largest, and youngest, island of the Galápagos Islands. Like the others, the island was formed by the Galápagos hotspot...

 in the Galápagos
Galápagos Islands
The Galápagos Islands are an archipelago of volcanic islands distributed around the equator in the Pacific Ocean, west of continental Ecuador, of which they are a part.The Galápagos Islands and its surrounding waters form an Ecuadorian province, a national park, and a...

 archipelago
Archipelago
An archipelago , sometimes called an island group, is a chain or cluster of islands. The word archipelago is derived from the Greek ἄρχι- – arkhi- and πέλαγος – pélagos through the Italian arcipelago...

, which Tartar visited during February 1825. Fernandina, then known as Narborough Island, exploded on 14 February. In Morrell's words "The heavens appeared to be one blaze of fire, intermingling with millions of falling stars and meteors; while the flames shot upward from the peak of Narborough to the height of at least two thousand feet." Morrell reports that the air temperature reached 123 °F (51 °C), and as Tartar approached the river of lava flowing into the sea, the water temperature rose to 150 °F (66 °C). Some of the crew collapsed in the heat.

Morrell also records how a hunting trip ashore in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 led to a skirmish with the locals which turned into a full-scale battle ending, he says, with seventeen natives dead and seven of Tartars men wounded. Morrell claims that he was among the casualties, with an arrow in his thigh. Of a visit to San Francisco Morrell writes: "The inhabitants are principally Mexicans and Spaniards who are very indolent and consequently very filthy." After revisiting the Galapagos Islands and gathering a harvest of fur seal
Fur seal
Fur seals are any of nine species of pinnipeds in the Otariidae family. One species, the northern fur seal inhabits the North Pacific, while seven species in the Arctocephalus genus are found primarily in the Southern hemisphere...

 and terrapin
Terrapin
A terrapin is a turtle living in fresh or brackish water.Terrapin may also refer to:* Terrapin , a transport vehicle used for amphibious assault by the Allies during the Second World War...

, Tartar began a slow journey home on 13 October 1825. As they left the Pacific Morrell claimed to have personally inspected and identified every danger existing along the American Pacific coast. Tartar finally reached New York Harbour on 8 May 1826 with a main cargo of 6,000 fur seals. This haul did not please Morrell's employers, who had evidently expected rather more. "The reception I met from my owners was cold and repulsive", he wrote. "The Tartar did not return home laden with silver and gold, and therefore my toils and dangers counted for nothing".

Third voyage: West African coast

In 1828 Morrell records that he was engaged by Messrs. Christian Berg & Co. to take command of the schooner Antarctic (named, he claims, in honour of his earlier Antarctic achievements). Antarctic left New York on 25 June 1828, bound for Western Africa. During the following months Morrell carried out an extensive survey of the African coast between the Cape of Good Hope
Cape of Good Hope
The Cape of Good Hope is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula, South Africa.There is a misconception that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Africa, because it was once believed to be the dividing point between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. In fact, the...

 and Benguela
Benguela
Benguela is a city in western Angola, south of Luanda, and capital of Benguela Province. It lies on a bay of the same name, in 12° 33’ S., 13° 25’ E...

, and led several short excursions inland. He was impressed by the commercial potential of this coast, recording that "many kinds of skins may be procured about here, including those of the leopard, fox, bullock, together with ostrich feathers and valuable minerals". At Ichaboe Island he discovered huge deposits of guano
Guano
Guano is the excrement of seabirds, cave dwelling bats, and seals. Guano manure is an effective fertilizer due to its high levels of phosphorus and nitrogen and also its lack of odor. It was an important source of nitrates for gunpowder...

, twenty-five feet thick, he reported. In the face of such opportunity he records his belief that a $30,000 investment would produce in two years a profit "from ten to fifteen hundred per cent."

During the voyage Morrell records several encounters with the slave trade, first at the Cape Verde Islands, then a centre for the trade due to their unique position equidistant from Europe, Africa and America. He found the slaves' conditions wretched, but observes their passion for music which, he writes, "can alleviate even the pangs caused by the galling fetters of slavery". Later in the voyage he witnessed what he describes as "horrid barbarity", including the spectacle of two women slaves in their death agonies as a result of floggings. After a lengthy soliloquy in his journal on the evils of slavery, he gives his conclusion that "the root, the source, the foundation of the evil is the ignorance and superstition of the poor negroes themselves". From a trading standpoint the voyage had evidently proved prosperous beyond all expectation, so on 8 June 1829 Morrell decided to head for home. They arrived in New York on 14 July.

Fourth voyage: South Seas and Pacific Ocean

Antarctica left New York in September 1829 on the fourth of Morrell's voyages, bound for the Pacific. At her own insistence Morrell's wife accompanied him, and on her return prepared a memoir of her experiences (ghostwritten by Samuel Knapp), her declared purpose being "the amelioration of the condition of the American seaman". She was Morrell's second wife; his first, to whom he was married in 1819, had died along with her two children while Morrell was at sea in 1822–24. He had then speedily married his 15-year-old cousin, Abbey Jane Wood.

The first port of call was the Auckland Islands
Auckland Islands
The Auckland Islands are an archipelago of the New Zealand Sub-Antarctic Islands and include Auckland Island, Adams Island, Enderby Island, Disappointment Island, Ewing Island, Rose Island, Dundas Island and Green Island, with a combined area of...

, south of New Zealand, where Morrell had hoped for a rich harvest of seal, but found the waters empty. He sailed north for the Pacific islands where, during the following months, Antarctica was involved in violent skirmishes with the inhabitants of islands in the archipelago
Archipelago
An archipelago , sometimes called an island group, is a chain or cluster of islands. The word archipelago is derived from the Greek ἄρχι- – arkhi- and πέλαγος – pélagos through the Italian arcipelago...

 now known as Micronesia
Micronesia
Micronesia is a subregion of Oceania, comprising thousands of small islands in the western Pacific Ocean. It is distinct from Melanesia to the south, and Polynesia to the east. The Philippines lie to the west, and Indonesia to the southwest....

. One of these encounters developed into a major battle, described by Morrell as a "massacre". His account has been dismissed as fanciful, while a more straightforward record was given by one of his injured crewmen. This experience apparently did not deter Morrell from returning to these islands in order to exploit what he saw as their unrivalled commercial potential. After subduing a further attack on the Antarctic from the natives of Nukuoro
Nukuoro
Nukuoro is an atoll in the Federated States of Micronesia.It is a municipality of the state of Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia. Except for Kapingamarangi, it is the southermost atoll of the country. Nukuoro has a population of 372 , though several hundred Nukuorans live on Pohnpei...

, he purchased an island from them, for cutlery, trinkets and other artefacts, including possibly the first metal tools they had seen. His intention was to gather a harvest of biche-de-mer, an edible sea-slug common in these waters which evidently commanded a great price in the Chinese market. Following a brief interval of peace, Morrell's stronghold on the island was attacked again, after which Morrell decided to abandon the enterprise, due to the "unappeasable vindictiveness and incessant hostilities" of the native population.

On his return home, despite the lack of commercial success, Morrell remained optimistic about his future prospects in the Pacific. "I could, with only a modest share of patronage [...] open a new avenue of trade more lucrative than any that our country has ever yet enjoyed, and further, it would be in my power, and mine alone, to secure the monopoly for any term I pleased." In the final paragraph of his account Morrell records that his wife's father, her aunt and her aunt's child had all died during his absence, as had one of Morrell's cousins and her husband.

Later life, death and commemoration

After his return to New York, Morrell produced his Narrative of Four Voyages, a detailed account of his travels during the previous nine years, which was published in 1832. The book draws on Morrell's journals, but it is likely that much of the final text was ghost-written for him by a journalist, Samuel Wordsworth. There is no record concerning the book's reception on publication, except the comment of explorer and journalist Jeremiah Reynolds to Morrell's fellow-explorer Nathaniel Palmer
Nathaniel Palmer
Nathaniel Brown Palmer was an American seal hunter, explorer, sailing captain, and ship designer. He was born in Stonington, Connecticut.-Sealing career and Antarctic exploration:...

 that the account had more poetry than truth. However, a few years later Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...

 drew heavily on the book (and other maritime narratives) when compiling his fictitious The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket is the only complete novel written by American writer Edgar Allan Poe. The work relates the tale of the young Arthur Gordon Pym, who stows away aboard a whaling ship called the Grampus...

 (1838).

Morrell's seafaring career continued, first with a voyage to the Pacific in the schooner Mary Oakley. This ship was wrecked on the shores of Madagascar
Madagascar
The Republic of Madagascar is an island country located in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa...

. He then sought employment with the London-based shipping firm of Enderby Brothers
Samuel Enderby & Sons
Samuel Enderby & Sons was a whaling and sealing company based in London, England, founded circa 1775 by Samuel Enderby . The company encouraged their captains to combine exploration with their business activities, and sponsored several of the earliest expeditions to the subantarctic, Southern Ocean...

, but Charles Enderby
Charles Enderby
Charles Enderby was one of three sons of Samuel Enderby Junior . He was the grandson of Samuel Enderby , who founded the Samuel Enderby & Sons company in 1775. Samuel Enderby & Sons was one of the most prominent English sealing and whaling firms, active in both the Arctic and Southern Oceans...

 said that "he had heard so much of [Morrell] that he did not think fit to enter into any engagement with him." A few years later Morrell applied for a place on a French expedition, led by Jules Dumont D'Urville, to the Weddell Sea, but again found himself unwanted. He attempted to return to the Pacific in 1839, but contracted a fever in Mozambique and died there, aged 43 or 44.

As a reminder of his brief Antarctic exploits, Morrell Island
Thule Island
Thule Island, also called Morrell Island, is one of the southernmost of the South Sandwich Islands, part of the grouping known as Southern Thule. It is named, on account of its remote location, after the mythical land of Thule, said by ancient geographers to lie at the extreme end of the earth...

, at 59°27'S, 27°19'W, is the alternative name for Thule Island in the Southern Thule
Southern Thule
Southern Thule is a collection of the three southernmost islands in the South Sandwich Islands: Bellingshausen, Cook, and Thule . Southern Thule is British territory, though claimed by Argentina. The island group is barren, windswept, bitterly cold, and uninhabited. It has an extenzive EEZ rich...

 sub-group of the South Sandwich Islands. During his Pacific travels Morrell encountered groups of islands that were not on his charts, treated them as new discoveries and named them after various New York acquaintances – Westervelt, Bergh, Livingstone, Skiddy. One was named "Young William Group" after Morrell's infant son. None of these names appear in modern maps, although the "Livingstone group" has been identified with Namonuito Atoll
Namonuito Atoll
Namonuito Atoll, also called Namonweito, Weito, or Magur Islands, is the largest atoll of the Federated States of Micronesia and of the Caroline Islands, with a total area of 2267 km², unless one considers the still larger Truk Lagoon as a type of atoll in an early stage of development...

, and "Bergh's Group" with the Chuuk Islands.

Assessment

Morrell has divided opinion among geographers, historians and commentators. His reputation among his contemporaries as the "biggest liar in the Pacific", and the tone of his Four Voyages narrative, have deterred many from taking him seriously. Others, however, have considered that he has been done less than justice. "He may have been a braggart and a boaster", writes Rupert Gould, "but there is no evidence that he was a deliberate liar". Indeed, Gould asserts, the book contains a great deal of accurate and valuable information; for example, Morrell's discovery of the guano deposits on Ichaboe Island, which laid the foundations of a flourishing industry. His lack of a chronometer
Chronometer
Chronometer may refer to:* Chronometer watch, a watch tested and certified to meet certain precision standards* Hydrochronometer, a water clock* Marine chronometer, a timekeeper used for celestial navigation...

 may have contributed to his frequent errors of position in the Antarctic leg of the first voyage; at one point in this story he declares himself "destitute of the various nautical and mathematical instruments". However, Gould rejects this explanation, since Morrell frequently refers to calculating his position "by observation", which would require a chronometer. Hugh Robert Mill says that Morrell may have been vague as to dates and places, but "that he did sail [...] we cannot doubt, for he mentions the name of too many men still living at the date of publication to leave that matter in doubt". He adds that a man may be ignorant and boastful, yet still do solid work, a point echoed by historian W.J. Mills who points to the nuggets of truth among the mass of disinformation.

The question of how much of Morrell's narrative is believable is complicated by his own admission, in the prefatory "advertisement" to his book, that he incorporated the experiences of others into his account. Paul Simpson-Housley suggests that the details of his 1823 visit to Bouvet Island may have been taken from the records of an 1825 visit by Captain George Norris; the similarities of Morrell's Weddell Sea narrative to that of James Weddell might be similarly explained. The style of the book is described by Gould as "...simply dreadful—that of a 'spread-eagle' backwoods newspaper in Andrew Jackson's day". Gould excuses this on the grounds that Morrell's contemporaries would have expected him to write in the style of a "free-born Yankee patriot" and would otherwise have regarded him with suspicion. Hugh Robert Mill calls Morrell "intolerably vain, and as great a braggart as any hero of autobiographical romance", but finds the narrative itself "most entertaining". None of these writers mentions that the book may have been ghost-written; Gould appears positively to discount this possibility.

Contrarily, W.J. Mills finds the account "laboured, earnest and somewhat dull", but uses this as evidence to support Morrell's basic integrity: "The whole style of the book [...] suggests that Morrell's narrative, at least in overall intent, is an honest one." In regard to the Antarctic discoveries, which are Mills's particular concern, he points out that these are given no special emphasis. Morrell does not seem to regard the Antarctic expedition as particularly remarkable, and the discovery of "New South Greenland" is not claimed by Morrell himself but is credited to Captain Johnson in 1821. Finally, Jeremiah Reynolds, despite his warnings to Palmer, included Morrell's Pacific discoveries in his report to Congress A Report of in relation to islands, reefs, and shoals in the Pacific Ocean. This, says Simpson-Housley, was surely a compliment.

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