Praise from whaling captains before Moby-Dick

via Images of Old Hawaiʻi

In a published letter to editor John N. Bradley of the Boston Daily Mail, correspondent  "J. G. S." reports from Lahaina, Maui that "this island is the great resort of whalers for supplies, although for repairs they have to go to Honolulu." The writer is James Gilchrist Swan--positively identified in the Daily Mail on November 21, 1849, about a month before Swan departed for San Francisco and the Pacific Ocean on the clipper ship Rob Roy. 

“... Mr. James G. Swan, will go out in the ship and will take charge of any goods than may be consigned to him. We have been acquainted with Mr. Swan for many years, and cheerfully recommend those of our friends desirous of shipping to California, that they cannot consign their goods to a better merchant or a better man. Mr. Swan will have facilities on his arrival at San Francisco, which will enable him to attend to any business entrusted to his care, in a prompt and efficient manner.

We have arranged with Mr. S. to correspond with the Mail, and our readers may expect ere long to see some interesting articles from his racy pen.

Like Herman Melville, James G. Swan is sharply critical of missionaries in Hawaii. Near the close of his long letter dated November 14, 1850, Swan registers high praise from whaling captains for Melville's first two books. Found on Genealogy Bank among digitized articles "added within 1 week":

Boston Daily Mail - January 27, 1851

Old Capt. Butler, a resident for many years on the island, and well known by every one who has ever traded in the Pacific, is spinning me a series of yarns which I am balling up for future use. If Melville had the material to work upon that Butler has, he could write a book that would eclipse all the books of adventures that have been written since the time old uncle Jonah went whaling and got into the hold of the wrong ship. By the way, the captains here are much pleased with Melvill's Omoo and Typee. Many of them recognise the characters he mentions, particularly Dr. Johnson at Tahiti, who is a drunken Englishman. Melville cannot have greater praise than he gets from the whaling captains.

-- Boston Daily Mail, January 27, 1851; from the "Interesting Letter from the Sandwich Islands" dated November 14, 1850 and signed "J. G. S."

Herman Melville, having just moved from New York City to the Arrowhead farm near Pittsfield MA, was resuming work on Moby-Dick when "J. G. S." aka James G. Swan prophetically imagined him writing a story of nautical adventure "that would eclipse all the books of adventures that have been written since the time old uncle Jonah went whaling." As Swan conceived it, Melville's best source for the greatest whaling book ever would be the real-life exploits of "Old Capt. Butler," then a "well-known" resident of Lahaina. 

Under the heading, "Death-scene of the Whale," part of Chapter 81 in Moby-Dick was excerpted in the Boston Daily Mail on November 24, 1851. 

If still living, Edmund R. Butler (aka Edward Butler?), one of the early Boston traders and longtime Lahaina resident would have been plenty old enough in 1850 to qualify as "Old Capt. Butler." Back in 1823, this Butler had been the hospitable host of Rev. Charles Samuel Stewart as recorded in Stewart's Journal of a Residence in the Sandwich Islands. 

http://imagesofoldhawaii.com/edmund-r-butler/

In late 1829 Edmund Butler served as sailing master or navigator on the brig Becket, joined with the Kamehameha on a fatal expedition to the New Hebrides islands for sandalwood. The Kamehameha was lost, and the Becket had to return after a month on Erromango, with further tragic consequences:

The company was speedily invaded by a mortal sickness, which carried off the captain [Manuia] and his kind monitor [Kaʻupena], and 180 more of their number, before they returned to Rutuma. There, twenty were left sick, and the Becket returned to Honolulu, August 3d, 1830, with only twelve natives and eight foreigners. Thus ended this disastrous expedition, a total failure, involving the loss of more than 400 lives.  --Hiram Bingham, A Residence of Twenty-one Years in the Sandwich Islands.