Transcriber’s Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
Be it remembered, That on the thirty-first day of October, inthe forty-sixth year of the Independence of the United States of America,Jonathan Seymour, of the said District, hath deposited in this officethe title of a book, the right whereof he claims as proprietor, in the wordsand figures following, to wit:
“Narrative of the most extraordinary and distressing shipwreck of thewhale-ship Essex, of Nantucket; which was attacked and finally destroyedby a large spermaceti-whale, in the Pacific ocean; with an account ofthe unparalleled sufferings of the captain and crew during a space of ninety-threedays at sea, in open boats, in the years 1819 and 1820. By OwenChase of Nantucket, first mate of said vessel.”
In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United States, entitled“An Act for the encouragement of Learning, by securing the Copiesof Maps, Charts, and Books, to the authors and proprietors of suchcopies, during the time therein mentioned.” And also to an Act, entitled“an Act, supplementary to an Act, entitled an Act for the encouragementof Learning, by securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books,to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times thereinmentioned, and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing,engraving, and etching historical and other prints.”
I am aware that the public mind hasbeen already nearly sated with the privatestories of individuals, many of whom hadfew, if any, claims to public attention; andthe injuries which have resulted from thepromulgation of fictitious histories, and inmany instances, of journals entirely fabricatedfor the purpose, has had the effect tolessen the public interest in works of thisdescri