为了维护捕鲸业的尊严，我本只想陈述有据可查的事实。然而，一位辩护者在摆出事实之后，若全然隐瞒某种并非毫无道理的揣测——而那揣测本可为其事业娓娓陈词——这样的辩护者，难道不该受责吗？
众所周知，在为国王与王后加冕时，即便是近代的君主，也要经过某种使其胜任职分的奇特腌渍程序。有所谓的国之盐瓶，或许还有国之调味瓶。他们究竟如何用那盐——谁知晓呢？但我确然知道，国王在加冕时头颅会被郑重地抹油，犹如一盘沙拉的头。不过，他们抹油莫非是图其内里运转顺畅，如同给机器上油一般？于此，关于这王权程序本质上的尊严，大可玩味，因为日常生活中，我们鄙夷且轻贱一个往头发上抹油、浑身散发那油味的人。实则，一个成年男子若非药用而用发油，此人某处怕是生了软腐之疾。概而言之，他总体上成不了什么大器。
然此处唯有一事堪虑——加冕所用者何油？当然不可能是橄榄油、马卡萨油、蓖麻油、熊油、鲸油，亦非鱼肝油。那便只能是未加工、未沾污的抹香鲸油，诸油中最清甜者了。
想想吧，尔等忠勇的不列颠人！我们捕鲸人，供予尔等国王与王后以加冕之物！
In behalf of the dignity of whaling, I would fain advance naught but substantiated facts. But after embattling his facts, an advocate who should wholly suppress a not unreasonable surmise, which might tell eloquently upon his cause—such an advocate, would he not be blameworthy?
It is well known that at the coronation of kings and queens, even modern ones, a certain curious process of seasoning them for their functions is gone through. There is a saltcellar of state, so called, and there may be a castor of state. How they use the salt, precisely—who knows? Certain I am, however, that a king’s head is solemnly oiled at his coronation, even as a head of salad. Can it be, though, that they anoint it with a view of making its interior run well, as they anoint machinery? Much might be ruminated here, concerning the essential dignity of this regal process, because in common life we esteem but meanly and contemptibly a fellow who anoints his hair, and palpably smells of that anointing. In truth, a mature man who uses hair-oil, unless medicinally, that man has probably got a quoggy spot in him somewhere. As a general rule, he can’t amount to much in his totality.
But the only thing to be considered here, is this—what kind of oil is used at coronations? Certainly it cannot be olive oil, nor macassar oil, nor castor oil, nor bear’s oil, nor train oil, nor cod-liver oil. What then can it possibly be, but sperm oil in its unmanufactured, unpolluted state, the sweetest of all oils?
Think of that, ye loyal Britons! we whalemen supply your kings and queens with coronation stuff!
