Demon of the Waters - The True Story of the Mutiny on the Whaleship "Globe" (Paperback, New edition)

A spectacular old whaling tale. . . . There is tension aplenty."
-Duncan C. Spencer, Chicago Sun-Times

Recounting in vivid detail one of the most dramatic incidents in American nautical history, Gregory Gibson draws from a fresh source: an eyewitness account of the Globe mutiny that was lost to historians for more than 150 years.

The 1824 mutiny on the whaleship Globe was one of the goriest uprisings in maritime lore, involving hatchet murders, stabbings, shootings, and a shipboard lynching. At its center was Samuel Comstock, a troubled young man raised in a staunch Quaker family who harbored fantasies of establishing his own island kingdom. This riveting account of the mutiny he led encompasses the story of the sperm-oil industry, the Nantucket power brokers who controlled it, and the fledging U.S. Navy's fateful early encounters with the tattooed islanders of the South Pacific. It is a story of grand adventure and inspired narrative sleuthing-an altogether extraordinary tale of men and the sea.