
Both, right? In
Moby-Dick Chapter 81 The Pequod Meets the Virgin, Dutch and Germans are said to chase after sperm whales under one "flag." And Stubb calls Captain De Deer and/or his ship "Yarman" and "unmannerly Dutch dogger!"
Probably
Dr. Snodhead could sort it out, being "a very learned man, professor of Low Dutch and High German in the college of Santa Claus and St. Pott’s."
Hey hey, I just found this excellent and highly pertinent article by Cornelis de Jong on Melville's mockery of foreign whalers. Wish I had seen this earlier, via SSOAR:
ReplyDelete"Like many Americans Melville does not always make a distinction between the Dutch and the Germans, sometimes calling both nations Dutch. He depicts Derick de Deer and his crew as inexperienced, clumsy but conceited suckers."
https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-56113-3
Hooray for open access!!!