The mate of a Nantucket whaleship routinely underwent an almost Jekyll-and-Hyde transformation when he left his island home, stepping out of his mild Quaker skin to become a vociferous martinet. “You will often hear a Nantucket mother boast that her son ‘who is met of a ship is a real spit-fire,’” William Comstock wrote, “meaning that he is a cruel tyrant, which on that island is considered the very acme of human perfection.”
