NOTES

        ¹ More than fifty years ago (in 1815) Samuel'H. Jenks, esq., then editor of the Nantucket Inquirer, announced his intention to write the history of whaling, and advertised for material for that purpose, but so little encouragement did he meet, so little material came to hand, that he finally abandoned the design in despair of ever being able to satisfactorily complete it. In the preface to his admirable Report on the Fisheries, published in 1852, Hon. Loenzo Sabine says: " Most] than twenty years have elapsed since I formed the design of writing a work on the American fisheries, and commenced collecting materials for the purpose. My intention embraced the whale-fishery of our flag in distant seas. But increasing cares prevented the consummation of his plans. The difficulties in the way of collection of historical notes increase greatly with the lapse of years. Newspapers, which must always be considered, where they exist, invaluable aids in the prosecution of such matters, pass from the possession of the very few who, when living, treasured them, and fall into the hands of those who only value them at so many cents per pound. Those who were the actors in the scenes which it Is desired to describe die, and with them perishes the source of the information, which ultimately, in the form of tradition, becomes too distorted to be available. In the matter of the whale-fishery still another formidable difficulty is met with, in the absence or destruction of customs-records. During the Revolution many ports were under English control, and very often with the departure of the British also departed the customhouse papers. In other ports, notably Now Bedford and Nantucket, these records have been destroyed by fire. Still again in yet other ports, notably Sag Harbor, mildew and decay have obliterated the writing. About eighteen months ago Prof. Spencer F. Baird, United States Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries, requested the writer to prepare a historical sketch of this industry, so far as it related to our own country, and append to it, so far as was practicable, a record of every voyage which has been performed. Of the magnitude of this labor only those who have had similar experience can form any idea. In the one item of marine reports, it comprehended the examination of newspapers covering a period of one hundred and seventy years. The limited time allowed for the work performed is not mentioned l y the writer in any spirit of self -laudation, but as a statement due to himself for any possible errors of omission or commission that may have occurred. Fortunately in the collection of material for a work of an entirely different nature much bad been gathered which had a hearing upon this subject, and much that was absolutely necessary for use in this connection, and, fortunately, the kindness of many friends lightened still more the labor. Wherever the writer has been in search of material the utmost courtesy has been extended, and, with very rare exceptions, whenever application has been made, books and documents have been freely placed at his command. Especially is he under obligations to Charles Eldridge, esq., of Fairhaven; Dennis Wood, esq., the proprietor of the Shipping-List; and R. C. Ingraham, esq., of New Bedford; the late William R. Sleight, esq., of Sag Harbor, N. Y.; the late Hon. Henry P. Haven, and Haven, Williams & Co., of New London, Conn.; Benjamin F. Cook, esq., of Now York; Hon. Lorenzo Sabine, of Boston (who kindly placed all his papers on the subject at the author's disposal) ; F. C. Sanford, J. S. Barney, and W. H. Macy, esqrs., and Miss R. A. Gardner, of Nantucket ; Maj. S. B. Phinney, of Barnstable; R. L. Pease, esq., of Edgartown; Capt. Silas Jones, of Falmouth ; Capt. S. W. Macy, of Newport, R. I.; B. Furnald, esq., custodian of historical records of New York (see numerous quotations, the result mainly of his indefatigable researches); and the collectors and assistants of the ports of Boston and New Bedford. He also acknowledges courtesies from those in charge of the libraries of the Massachusetts Historical, Boston Athen:num, and American Antiquarian Societies. If in the search for facts the historical idols of others have been shattered, it may be a source of satisfaction to them to learn that the writer has been equally iconoclastic with many that he too has reverenced. ALEXANDER STARBUCK. WALTHAM, MASS., March 1, 1877.

        ² The North American Review, in 1834, in an article on the Whale Fishery, says, "A few years since, two Russian discovery ships came in sight of a group of cold, inhospitable islands in the Antarctic Ocean. The commander imagined himself a discoverer, and doubtless was prepared with drawn sword and with the flag of his sovereign flying over his bead to take possession in the name of the Czar. At this time he was becalmed in a dense fog. Judge of his surprise, when the fog cleared away, to see a little sealing sloop from Connecticut as quietly riding between his ships as if lying in the waters of Long Island Sound. He learned from the captain that the islands were already well known, and that he had just returned from exploring the shores of a new land at the south ; upon which the Russian gave vent to an expression too hard to be repeated, but sufficiently significant of his opinion of American enterprise. After the captain of the sloop, be named the discovery 'Palmer's Land,' in which the American acquiesced, and by this name it appears to be designated on all the recently-published Russian and English charts." A similar experience awaited the English ship Caribou, Captain Cabins, who came in sight of Hurd's Island, and, like the Russian, thought it hitherto unknown land. The similarity was carried still further by the appearance of the schooner Oxford, of Fairhaven (tender to the Arab), the captain of which informed him that the island was discovered by them eighteen months before.

        ³ "as Wee have given and graunted * * * all fishes-royal fishes, whales, balan, sturgeons, and other fishes, of what kinde or nature soever that shall at any tyme hereafter be taken in or within the saide seas or waters, or any of them by the said" (hero follow the names of the grantees) "their heires and assignes, or by any other person or persons whatsoever there inhabiting, by them, or any of them, to be appointed to fishe therein." (Charter of Massachusetts.)

        ⁴ Thatcher's list. of Plymouth, p. 21.

        ⁵ Capt. John Smith, in 1614, found whales so plentiful along the coast that he turned aside from the primary object of his voyage to pursue them. Richard Mather, who came over to the Massachusetts Bay in 1635, records in his journal of the voyage seeing near New England " mighty whales spewing up water in the air, like the smoke of a chimney, and making the sea about them white and hoary, as is said in Job, of such incredible bigness that I will never wonder that the body of Jonas could be in the belly of a whale." (Sabine's Report, p. 42.)

        ⁶ "Etchings of a Whaling Cruise," Browne, p. 522.

        ⁷ Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., iii series, viii vol., 156 p.

        ⁸ Arnold's Hist. R. I., i, p. 65. Among the Montauk Indians the most savory sacraflee to their deity was the tail or flu of the whale. (Hedge's Address, p. 35.) The Greenlander's idea of Heaven, according to Father Hcnnepin, was a place where there would be an immense cauldron continually boiling, and each could take as much seal blubber, ready cooked, as he wanted.

        ⁹ Marine Mammalia and American Whale Fishery, p. 204, note.

        ¹⁰ It would appear from Purchas' account that lines were used to attach the boat to the whale as early as 1613. He writes: "I might hero recreate your wearied eyes with a hunting spectacle of the greatest chase which nature yieldeth; I mean the killing of a whale. When they espy him on the top of the water (which he is forced to for to take breath), they row toward him in a shallop, in which the harponcer stands ready with both his hands to dart his harping iron, to which is fastened a line of such length that the whale (which suddenly feeling himself hurt, sinketh to the bottom,) may carry it down with him, being before fitted that the shallop be not therewith endangered; coming up again, they strike him with lances made for that purpose, about twelve feet long, the iron eight thereof, and the blade eighteen inches-the harping iron principally serving to fasten hint to the shallop, and thus they hold him in such pursuit, till after streams of water, and next of blood, cast up into the air and water, (as angry with both elements, which have brought thither such weak hands for his destruction,) be at length yieldeth tip his slain carcass as weed to the conquerors."

        ¹¹ By an order of court, June 6, 1654, whales cast up on lands of purchasers belonged to said proprietors. (Plym. Col. Rec. iii, p. 53.) This being much more satisfactory than the order compelling tribute to the government, probably caused ill-feeling when the general court preferred a claim.

        ¹² Plym. Col. Rec., vol. iv, p. 6.

        ¹³ Freeman's Hist. Cape Cod, ii, p. 362.

        ¹⁴ It is scarcely probable that so careful a historian as Freeman would have omitted to make mention of Hamilton, if this story of him had any foundation in fact.

        ¹⁵ Hutchinson's Coll., p. 558.

        ¹⁶ Mass. Col. MSS., Treasury, iii, p. 80.

        ¹⁷ Plym. Col. Rec. vi, pp. 252-3.

        ¹⁸ Conn. Col. Rec., i, p. 154.

        ¹⁹ Southampton was settled under a patent from the Earl of Sterling, and the privileges accorded were essentially those of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1664 the commissioners to adjust the colonial bounds decided this and the adjacent towns to be within the jurisdiction of the Duke of York.

        ²⁰ Howell's Hist. of Southampton, p. 179.

        ²¹ Ibid., p. 184.

        ²² Ibid., p. 183.

        ²³ Bi-Centennial Address at Easthampton, 1850, by Henry P. Hedges, p. 8.

        ²⁴ Ibid., p. 8.

        ²⁵ Ibid.

        ²⁶ In this petition is an early assertion of the twiuship of taxation and representation, for which Massachusetts and her offshoots were ever strenuous.

        ²⁷ N. Y. Col., MSS., vi, p. 75.

        ²⁸ N. Y. Col., MSS., vi, p. 354.

        ²⁹ N. Y. Col., Rec. iii, p. 183.

        ³⁰ It would seem by this that as early as 1669 American whaleman were accustomed to fasten to the whale with their line.

        ³¹ N. Y. Col., MSS.

        ³² N. Y. Col., MSS., General Entries iv, p. 123, Francis Lovelace.

        ³³ Howell's Southampton.

        ³⁴ This code was very similar to that afterward adopted in the Massachusetts Bay.

        ³⁵ N. Y. Col. MSS.; General Entries, iv, p. 235.

        ³⁶ N. Y. Col. MSS., xxv, Sir Ed. Andross, p. 41.

        ³⁷ Warrants, Orders, Passes, &c., 1674-1679, p. 161.

        ³⁸ N. Y. Col. MSS., xxvi, p. 153.

        ³⁹ Hist. of Southampton, p. 62.

        ⁴⁰ N. Y. Col. MSS., xxvii, pp. 6i, 66. Accompanying the order is a blank clearance reading as follows: "Permitt & suffer the good ---- of ---- A. B. Commander, bound for the Port of London in Old England to passe from the Harbor at the North-Sea near Southton at the East End of Long Isl. with her loading of Whale Oyl & Whalebone without any manner of Lett Hindrance or Molestation, shee having hectic cleared by order from the Custom house here &given security accordingly. Given under my hand in N. Y. this 20th day of April in the 30th yeare of his Maces raigne Ao Dow ini 1678. "To all his Mat1e8Okra whom this way Concerne."

        ⁴¹ N. Y. Col. Records, iii, p. 282.

        ⁴² Ibid., p. 311.

        ⁴³ Mass. Col. MSS., Usurpation, vi, p. 126.

        ⁴⁴ Ibid., iv, p. 303.

        ⁴⁵ Bi-Centennial Address at Easthampton, p. 41.

        ⁴⁶ Hist. Nantucket, p. 28.

        ⁴⁷ There are most excellent reasons for concluding that Loper never went to Nantucket. When the parties to whom grants were made settled there, their lots were surveyed and laid out to them and the survey recorded. In Loper's case no after-mention occurs of him in any place or manner, and in the list of proprietors and their grants, made np in 1674, and forwarded to New York, his name is not mentioned. Notwithstanding the islanders, in, their desire to honor and perpetuate his name, called two of their ships after him, those who are best judges in the matter concede that be never had a residence there. One James Loper (or Looper) resided at Easthampton and carried on whaling from there prior to 1675 (see petition of Shallenger, Hand & Loper). Undoubtedly this is the man referred to in the Nantucket records. Up to the year 1678, however, be still owned property in Easthampton. In regard to the Loper mentioned by Felt (Annals of Salem, p. 223), and who has been supposed (see Savage's genealogical dictionary) to be the one spoken of, the petition (Mass. Col. MSS., Usurpation, ii, p. 136) gives his name as Jacobus Loper, and it is by this name alone be is known. Thus in 1686 the constable of Eastbam was ordered to attach Jacobus Loper to find sureties for good behavior and appearance at the next court, and at the October term Jacobus Loper was acquitted of a criminal charge. In no place does the Latin name undergo a change, and accompanying circumstances would scarcely seem to imply that the appellation was ever intended to be James. On the contrary the Nantucket document plainly says James, as also do the MSS. relating to Easthampton, and in no place is the Latinized form used.

        ⁴⁸ Macy's Nantucket, p. 33.

        ⁴⁹ Macy's Nantucket, pp. 29-30. No record exists of this save in the form of tradition, but many circumstances give it an appearance of far greater probability than the story concerning Loper. Among other things, it is related as an historical fact by Zaccheus Macy (Mass. Hist. Soc., Col. iii, p. 155), who died in 1797, aged 83 years, and hence was cotemporary with some of the men living in Paddock's time. He, however, makes no mention of Loper.

        ⁵⁰ Richard L. Pease, esq., in Vineyard Gazette.

        ⁵¹ Vol. ii, p. 224.

        ⁵² Ibid.

        ⁵³ Memoir on Acadia, &c., N. Y. Col. Rec., ix, pp. 444-5. Holmes, in his "American Annals" (vol. i, p. 133), says: "Other English ships went this year (1593) to Cape Breton. This is the first mention, that we find, of the whale-fishery by the English. Although they found no whales in this instance, yet they discovered on an island eight hundred whale fins where a Biscay ship bad been three years before; and this is the first account we have of whale fins or whale bone by the English." So it appears that for a long term of years Canadian waters were the whaleman's garden.

        ⁵⁴ So called prior to 1795; since then better known as Nantucket.

        ⁵⁵ Letters from an American farmer, J. Hector St. John Crevecmur. Within the past twenty five years, when whales were seen off Southampton, the alarm was sounded by means of a horn and boats were hastily manned in pursuit, and to the present day boats and whaling craft are kept in readiness to start in pursuit of whales at a moment's warning.

        ⁵⁶ J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur. "Letters of an American Farmer." (Published 1782.) It is a somewhat disputed question whether St. John ever visited Nantucket or not. If he never did, his description of customs, &c., is remarkably accurate for hearsay evidence.

        ⁵⁷ Macy's Hist., p. 30.

        ⁵⁸ Ibid., p. 36.

        ⁵⁹ The first sperm whale known to Nantucket "was found dead, and ashore, on the southwest part of the island. It caused considerable excitement, some demanding a part of the prize under one pretence, some under another, and all were anxious to behold so strange an animal. There were so many claimants of the prize, that it was difficult to determine to whom it should belong. The natives claimed the whale because they found it" (not a bad reason surely); "the whites, to whom the natives made known their discovery, claimed it by a light comprehended, as they affirmed, in the purchase of the island." (Ah! what lawyers they must have been!) "An officer of the crown" (here steps in the lion) "made his claim, and pretended to seize the fish in the name of His Majesty, as being property without any particular owner. " * * * It was finally settled that the white inhabitants who first found the whale, should share the prize equally amongst themselves." (Alas for royalty, and alas for the finders!). The teeth, considered very valuable, bad been prudently taken care of by a white man and an Indian before the discovery was made public. The decision iu regard to ownership certainly justified their precaution. This compromise made, the whale was cut up and the oil extracted. What the amount of it was is unknown. "The sperm procured from the head was thought to be of great value for medical purpose.s It was used both as an internal and an external application; and such was the credulity of the people, that they considered it a certain cure for all diseases; it was sought with avidity, and, for a while, was esteemed to be worth its weight in silver."-(Macy's Hist.)

        ⁶⁰ "Shipped by the grace of God, in good order and well conditioned, by Paul Starbuck, in the good ship called the Hanover, whereof is master under God for the [N. S.] present voyage, William Chadder and now riding in the harbour of Boston, and by God's grace bound for London; to say:-six barrels of traine oyle, being on the proper account & risque of Nathaniel Starbuck, of Nantucket, and goes consigned to Richard Patridge merchant in London. [Prin. Paid.] Being marked & numbered as in the margin & to be delivered in like good order & well conditioned at the aforesaid port of London (The dangers of the sea only excepted) unto Richard Partridge aforesaid or to his assignees, He or they paying Freight for said goods, at the rate of fifty shillings per tonn, with primage & average accustomed. "In witness whereof the said Master or Purser of said Ship bath affirmed to Two Bills of Lading all of this Tener and date, one of which two Bills being Accomplished, the other to stand void. "And so God send the Good Ship to her desired Port in safety. Amen! "Articles & contents unknown to "(Signed) WILLIAM CHADDER. "Dated at Boston the 7th 4th me. 1720." (From original bill of lading in possession of F. C. Sanford, esq.)

        ⁶¹ The place first settled was at Maddeket, at the west end of the island. According to the records in the state-house at Boston, the following vessels were registered as belonging to Nantucket up to the year 1714: April 28, 1698, Richard Gardner, trader, registers sloop Mary, 25 tons, built in Boston, 1694; August 11, James Coffin, trader, registers sloop Dolphin, 25 tons, built in Boston, 1697; September 1, Richard Gardner, mariner, registers sloop Society, 15 tons, built in Salem, 1695; April 4, 1710, Peter Coffin, registers sloop Hope, 40 tons, built in Boston, 1709; April 24, 1711, Silvanus Hussey, sloop Eagle, 30 tons, built at Scituate, 1711; July 30, 1713, Silvanus Hussey, sloop Bristol, 14 tons, built at Tiverton, 1711; April 27, 1713, Abigail Howse, sloop Thomas, 12 tons, built at Newport, R. I., 1713; May 4, 1714, Ebenezer Coffin, sloop Nonsuch, 25 tons, built at Boston, 1714. (The Nonsuch is registered as of Boston; Coffin, however, was of Nantucket); 1714, Geo. Coffin, sloop Speedwell, 25 tons, built at Charlestown. This, then, was the character of their vessels up to 1715; among them the Hope, of 40 tons, was a very giant. In 17:32, however, the size had very greatly increased, for by a petition (Mass. Col. MSS. Maritime, v, p. 510), it appears that Isaac Myrick built at Nantucket a snow of 118 tons.

        ⁶² Macy's Hist., p. 37. According to the Boston News Letter, European advicos of August 3, 1724, reported that the Emperor of Russia bad ordered the directors of the India Company 11 newly erected there" to get twelve vessels ready against the opening of the spring, to sail for the Greenland whaling-ground, promising to them both protection and monopoly, "by which it will be prohibited, under severe penalties, to bring for the future any Oil or Whalebone into any Part of His Majesty's Dominions from Foreign Countries." Early in 1725 the directors of the English South Sea Company ordered 12 more ships for whaling in these seas. (The inference is that as early at least as the previous year, 1724, the company had vessels there.) Under date of London, July 24, 1725, the ships are reported all returned. The English ships took 25 whales, producing 1,000 puncheons of blubber and oil and 26 tons of fins, worth £450 per ton. In the Dutch fishery, the Hollanders, with 144 ships took 240 whales; the Hamburgbers with 43 ships took 463 whales; the Bremenese with 23 ships took 29 whales; the Bergenese with 2 ships took none, and two other ships returned empty. In the spring of 1726, Sweden also looked with longing eyes upon this pursuit, and designed sending twelve ships in the summer of that year to Greenland.

        ⁶³ American Annals, i, p. 126.

        ⁶⁴ Ibid.

        ⁶⁵ The names of the parties (probably captains of boats or vessels), with the number of whales taken by each, may be of interest in this connection: John Swain took 4, Andrew Gardner 4, Jonathan Coffin 4, Paul Paddack 4, Jas. Johnston 5, Clothier Pierce 3, Sylvanus Hussey 2, Nathan Coffin 4, Peter Gardner 4, Wm. Gardner 2, Abisbai Folger 6, Nathan Folger 4, John Bunker 1, Shaubael Folger 5, Shubael Coffin 3, Nath'l Allen 3, Edw'd Heath 4, Geo. Hussey 3, Benj. Gardner 3, Geo. Coffin 1, Rich'd Coffin 1, Nath'l Paddack 2, Jos. Gardner 1, Matthew Jenkins 3, Bartlett Coffin 4, Daniel Gould 1, Ebenezer Gardner 4, Staples 1; total 86. The largest number of whales taken in one day was eleven. In the New England Weekly Journal of December 21,1730, appears an advertisement, informing the public that there has been "Just Reprinted, The Wonderful Providence of God, Exemplified in the Preservation of William Walling who was drove out to Sea from Sandy Hook near New York in a leaky Boat, and was taken up by a Whaling Sloop & brought to Nantucket after he bad floated on the Sea eight Days without Victuals or Drink." In 1732, according to a petition in the Mass. Col. MSS. (Maritime, iv, p. 510), a vessel of 118 tons burden was built at Nantucket, the ruling price being then £8 58. per ton.

        ⁶⁶ Zaccheus Macy, in a brief sketch of Nantucket, published in val. iii of the Mass. Hist. Soc.'s Coll., says (p. 157) that up to 1760 no man had been killed or drowned while whaling, and this error Obed Macy, in his History of Nantucket, perpetuates. It must have been intended by the former to include only shore-whaling, since prior to the period named at least nine vessels with their crews had been lost, and these facts must have been well known Whim. There is on file at the State-house in Boston (Domestic Relations, vol. 1, p. 181), a petition to the general court from Dinah Coffin, of Nantucket, setting forth that "her Husband, Elisha Coffin did on the Twenty `evcnth Day of April Annoq Dom: 1722 Sail from sd Island of Nantucket in a sloop: on a whaling trip intending to return in a month or six weeks at most, And Instantly a hard & dismall Storm followed; which in all probability Swallowed him and those with him up: for they were never heard of." She prays that she may now (1724) be allowed to marry again.

        ⁶⁷ Zaccheus Macy writes (Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., iii, p. 157), "It happened once, when there were about thirty boats about six miles from the shore, that the wind came round to the northward, and blew with great violence, attended with snow. The men all rowed hard, but made but little headway. In one of the boats were four Indians and two white men. An old Indian in the head of the boat, perceiving that the crew began to be disheartened, spake out load in his own tongue and said, "lfomadich chater auqua sarshkee sarnkee pinchee eynoo 8ememoochkee chaquanks wihchee pinches eynoo;' which in English is, 'Pull ahead with courage; do not be disheartened; we shall not be lost now; there are too many Englishmen to be lost now.' His speaking in this manner gave the crew new courage. They soon perceived that they made headway; and after long rowing they all got safe on shore." In 1744 a Nantucket Indian struck a blackfish, and was caught by a foul line and carried down and drowned.-(Boston News-Letter.)

        ⁶⁸ It would be inferred that the shipment made in 1720 did not prove entirely satisfactory. The Boston News-Letter reports that Captain Churchman arrived at Portsmouth, Eng., December 8, 1729, from New England for London, with a cargo of log-wood and oil.

        ⁶⁹ Page 51. The Boston News-Letter of October 5, 1738, reports from Nantucket that an Indian plot to fire the English houses and kill the inhabitants of the island, had been disclosed by a friendly Indian. In consequence of the warning the plot had been abandoned, but fears were entertained for the safety of several whaling-vessels which sailed in the spring, and of the crews, of which the natives formed an essential part.

        ⁷⁰ Page 54. Davis's Straits were visited by whalemen as early as 1732, when a Captain Atkins, returning from a whaling voyage thence, brought a Greenland bear. Captain Atkins went as far as 660 north. Among the entries and clearances at the Boston custom-house as recorded in the Boston News-Letter as early as 1737 we find several to and from this locality. Beyond a doubt these vessels are whalemen, and in fact some of the names are common in the annals of this industry at Nantucket. The clearances were usually in March or April, and the arrivals from September to November, varying according to the degree of success, the season, &c. In July, 1737, Capt. Atherton Hough took a whale f° in the Straits," and in 1739, Under date of August 2, the Boston News-Letter says: "There is good Prospect of Success in the Whale Fishery to Greenland this Year, for several vessels are come in already, deeply laden, and others expected." This is not mentioned as by any means an extraordinary circumstance, and when it is remembered that the English had already pursued the whale in those seas for fifteen years, and at that time had some forty or fifty ships tbore engaged in this pursuit, it would scarcely be likely to excite surprise. In 1744, a whale 40 feet long was found ashore on Nantucket, by three men, who, for lack of more proper instruments, killed it with their jack-knives. (News-Letter October 4.)

        ⁷¹ N. Y. Col. Rec. iv, p. 1058. An order was passed in the New York Council, March 2,1702, directing Thomas Clark and John Crosier, of Suffolk County, to secure three drift whales ashore in said county, they to have one-third of the oil and bone and to deliver the remaining two-thirds to the New York custom-house clear of charge. (Council Minutes, viii, p. 323.)

        ⁷² Laws of New York, Bradford, p. 71.

        ⁷³ Ibid., pp. 131-198.

        ⁷⁴ N. Y. Col. Rec., v, p. 60.

        ⁷⁵ N. Y. Col. Rec., iv, 535.

        ⁷⁶ N. Y. Col. Rec., v, p. 474.

        ⁷⁷ These are undoubtedly what the authorities were pleased to term " Massachusetts notions."

        ⁷⁸ It was these outrageously unjust laws that brought the government into the notorious disrepute it attained with its outlying dependencies from 1675 to 1720. In March, 1698, the council. of Lord Cornbury declared certain drift-whales the property of the Crown (which apparently meant a minimum amount to the King and a maximum share to the governor), " when the subject can make no just claim of having killed them." One Richard Floyd bavingoffered a reward to any parties bringing him information of such whales, the council ordered an inquiry into the matter in order to prevent such practices in the future. (Council Minutes, viii, p. 6.)

        ⁷⁹ A copy of this speech is bound in an old volume of the Boston News-Letter, in the library of the Boston Athenaeum.

        ⁸⁰ In the address of 11. P. Hedges at the Bi-Centennial celebration at Easthampton, in 1850, be says, when Mulford finally repaired to London to present the case to the king, be was obliged to conceal his intention. Leaving Southampton secretly, helanded at Newport, walked to Boston, and from thence embarked for London. Arrived there, be "presented his memorial, which it is said attracted much attention, and was read by him in the House of Commons." He returned home in triumph, having attained the desired end. At this time be was seventy-one years old. "Songs and rejoiciugs," says J. Lyon Gardiner (vide Hedges's Address, p. 21), "took place among the whalemen of Suffolk County upon his arrival, on account of his having succeeded in getting the King's share given up." It is related of him (Ibid., p. 68) that while at the court of St. James, being somewhat verdant, he was much annoyed by pickpockets. As a palliative, lie bad a tailor sew several fish-hooks on the inside of his pockets, and soon after one of the fraternity was caught. This incident being published at the time won for him an extensive notoriety. He. was representative from Easthampton from 1715 to 1720, and died in 1725, aged eighty years.

        ⁸¹ N. Y. Col. Rec., v, 480. This assertion must be inexcusably inaccurate, for it was unquestionably on the ground of his sturdy defense of their rights that the people of Easthampton so steadily returned him to the assembly.

        ⁸² N. Y. Col. Rec., v, p. 484. This admission of Hunter's of the smallness of the revenue is indisputable evidence of his incompetence, and of the truth of Mulford's assertion of the ultimate ruin of the whale-fishery under such restrictions.

        ⁸³ N. Y. Col. Rec., v, p. 501.

        ⁸⁴ Ibid. It looks very much as though Mulford himself was propounding these inquiries, and their lordships' were mere month pieces.

        ⁸⁵ N. Y. Col. Rec., v, p. 510.

        ⁸⁶ N. Y. Col. Rec., v, p. 579. There is some discrepancy between the dates of Governor Burnett's concessions, and the triumphant reception of Mulford on his return from England, mentioned by Hedges. " In 1719, February 24," says Hedges, "a whaleboat being alone, the men struck a whale, and she, coming up under ye boat, in part staved it, and the ye men were not bur, with the whale, yet, before any help came to them, four men were tired and chilled, and fell off yo boat and oars to which they hung and were drowned, viz: Henry Parsons, William Schellenger, junior, Lewis Mulford, Jeremiah Conkling, junior.

        ⁸⁷ Mass. Col. MSS., Maritime, iv, pp. 72-3.

        ⁸⁸ Mass. Col. MSS., Letters, ii, 52.

        ⁸⁹ Mass. Col. MSS., Letters, ii, 297.

        ⁹⁰ On the 13th of January, 1728, says the News-Letter of February 1, there was a very severe storm at Provincetown. Several vessels were driven ashore; three or four whale boats were also destroyed, one being carried by the force of the wind up a "pretty large steep hill," and thrown upon the roof of a house on top of the hill.

        ⁹¹  Boston News-Letter, April 1, 1736.

        ⁹²  Boston News-Letter. According to the News-Letter of April 21, 1737, a dozen vessels were fitting that spring from Provincetown for the Davis's Straits whale-fishery, some of them of a hundred tons burden each. So many were going on these voyages continues the account, that not more than twelve or fourteen men would be left at home.

        ⁹³ Boston News-Letter, August 31.

        ⁹⁴ Ibid., February 15.

        ⁹⁵ Ibid., April 5.

        ⁹⁶ Ibid. The issue of the News-Letter for July 23, 1741, says: "Truro, July 14. On Saturday last Mr. Nath Harding an elderly Man of this Place, being at one of the Fry Houses boiling of Oil, he was taken with a fainting Fit, and 11611 into a large Vessell of boiling hot Oyl, and was scalded in a most miserable Manner."

        ⁹⁷ Whales formerly, for many successive years, set in along shore by Cape Cod. There was good whaling in boats. Proper watchmen ashore, by signals, gave notice when a whale appeared. After some years they left this ground, and passed farther off upon the banks at some distance from the shore. The whalers then used sloops with whaleboats aboard, and this fishery turned to good account. At present (1748) the whales take their course in deep water, where upon a peace our whalers design to follow them. * * * * At present this business is by whaling sloops or schooners, with two whale-boats and 13 men."-(Felt, Salem, ii, 225-6.)

        ⁹⁸ Boston News-Letter.

        ⁹⁹ Boston News-Letter.

       ¹⁰⁰ Felt's Salem, ii, p. 225.

       ¹⁰¹ Ibid.

       ¹⁰² Ibid.

       ¹⁰³ The Boston papers of December 12, 1707, state that a whale 40 feet long entered that harbor and several whale-boats pursued and killed her near the back of Noddle's Island. The logical inference is that'they had whaling craft and boats ready for instant use and men skilled in handling them.

       ¹⁰⁴ Whalebone is quoted in the News-Letter of April 18, 1723, as bringing from 3s. to 3s. 6d. in Philadelphia.

       ¹⁰⁵ B. News-Letter.

       ¹⁰⁶ Arnold's Hist. of Rhode Island, ii, p. 103.

       ¹⁰⁷ Ibid., p. 110. In point of fact deep-sea whaling had been pursued from Rhode Island some years prior to the time mentioned by Arnold. The News-Letter for May 23, 1723, records the entry of a vessel, commanded by William Bennett, from whaling, which brought the largest sperm whale ever seen, up to that time, in those parts. It produced 18 barrels of bead matter and from 40 to 50 barrels of oil, and one-thins more bead would have been saved had not the weather been stormy. "This spring," the account says, i0 our Vessels have brought in eight Whales into this port" (Newport).

       ¹⁰⁸ Arnold's R. I., ii, p. 110.

       ¹⁰⁹  For all the early information concerning Martha's Vineyard I am indebted to Richaid L. Pease, esq., of Edgartown.

       ¹¹⁰ In 6th year of the reign of George II.

       ¹¹¹ Mass. Col. MSS., Maritime, vi, p. 316.

       ¹¹² The carrying out of this scheme and the destruction of the colony of Acadiana justly receives execration.

       ¹¹³ Bancroft's Hist. U. S., v, p. 45.

       ¹¹⁴ Ibid., iv, p. 149.

       ¹¹⁵ Hist. of Massachusetts, ii, p. 400.

       ¹¹⁶ A duty was laid upon the colonists in 1756 to support a frigate on the Banks to defend the fishery.

       ¹¹⁷ Mass. Col., MSS., Maritime, vi, p. 371. From this petition it would appear that, having an unfavorable season at the southward, the whalemen would stand for the Banks, hoping to fill there. If, however, a vessel got home early from the north, they frequently went on another voyage to the south and westward in the same year.

       ¹¹⁸ Mass. Col. MSS., Maritime, vi, p. 371. Martha's Vineyard appears to be ignored in the order.

       ¹¹⁹ As already explained, Boston was the port of entry for many of the Cape towns and its own immediate vicinity.

       ¹²⁰ According to the following doggerel there were seventy-five whaling captains sailing from Nantucket in 1763.

Out of Nantucket their's Whalemen seventy-five,
But two poor Worths among them doth survive:
Their is two Ramsdills & their's Woodbury's two,
Two Ways there is, chuse which one pleaseth you,
Folgers thirteen, & Barnards there are four
Bunkers their is three & Jenkinses no more,
Gardners their is seven, Husseys their are two,
Pinkhams their is live and a poor Delano,
Myricks there is three & Coffins there are six,
Swains their are four and one blue gally Fitch.
One Chadwick, Cogshall, Coleman their's but one,
Brown, Baxter, two & Paddacks there is three,
Wyer, Stanton, Starbuck, Moorse is four you see,
But if for a Voyage I was to choose a Stanton,
I would leave Sammy out & choose Ben Stratton.
And not forget that Bocott is alive,
And that long-crotch makes up the seventy five.
This is answering to the list, you see,
Made up in seventeen hundred & sixty three.

       ¹²¹ The Dutch from 1759 to 1768 sent to the Greenland fishery 1,324 ships, which took 3,018 whales, producing 146,419 barrels of oil and 8,785,140 pounds of bone. (Scousby.) Great Britain in the same, time sent about one-third the number of ships.

       ¹²² Mass. Col. MSS., Maritime, vol. vii, p. 243. The concluding portion of this petition, including the signatures, is missing, a fact greatly to be regretted, as it would be extremely interesting to know who the prominent oil-merchants of that time were. The following is the statement of imports of oil and hone from the colonies into England and from Holland to the same country, which accompanied the petition:

       ¹²³ Bancroft's United States, v, p. 184.

       ¹²⁴ The bounty of 1748 had evidently been legislated out of existence.

       ¹²⁵ These vessels were from several whaling ports.

       ¹²⁶ Boston News-Letter. It would afford an interesting study to trace the various fashions to their commencement and see if their rerurn is marked by particular eras, or whether it is altogether spasmodic. What particularly called this to mind was reading in the News-Letter some lines addressed to a young lady's wardrobe, of which poem these four lines are appropriate here, and may servo as an illustration of the rest:

"To grace the well shap'd Foot, in Turkey's Soil,
 Through Life's short, Span laborious Silkworms' toil
 The Whale is Zembla's frozen Region found,
 That forms the swelling Hoop's capacious Round.

       ¹²⁷ Sag Harbor was settled in 1730.

       ¹²⁸ Ricketson's History of New Bedford, p. 58. Mr. Ricketson says: "To Joseph Russell, the founder of New Bedford, is also attributed the honor of being the pioneer of the whale-fishery of New Bedford. It is well authenticated by the statements of several contemporaries, lately deceased, that Joseph Russell had pursued the business as early as the year 1755." From what particular portion of the then town of Dartmouth (which also included what is now known as New Bedford, and Fairhaven) he fitted out his vessels, is uncertain. At that time the land on which stands the city of New Bedford was uupopulated by the whites, and not a single house marked the spot where, within less than a century thereafter, stands the city from which was fitted out more whaling vessels than from all the other American ports combined.

       ¹²⁹ In other words, took them down. From this it is evident that some vessels were prepared for trying out their oil on board.

      The News-Letter of July 26, 1764, states that one Jonathan Negers, of Dartmouths while whaling, was so injured by a whale's striking the boat that be died a few day, after.

       ¹³⁰ It is impossible to apportion the vessels among their proper ports. The vessels from Cape Cod and the northward cleared at Boston; those from the Vineyard, at Nantucket; those at Dartmouth, sometimes at Nantucket and sometimes at Newport.

       ¹³¹ The Boston News-Letter mentions the arrival of Capt. Peter Wells at that port from whaling August 18, 1766. Under date of October 2, the News-Letter says: "Since our last a Number of Vessels have arrived from Whaling. They have not been successful generally. One of them viz: Capt. Clark on Thursday Morning last discoverlug a Spermaceti Whale near George's Banks, mann'd his Boat, and gave Chase to her, & she coming up with her jaws against the Bow of the Boat struck it with such Violence that it throw a Son of the Captain; (who was forward ready with his Lance) a considerable Height from the Boat, and when he fell the Whale turned with her devouring Jaws opened, and caught him. He was heard to scream, when she closed her Jaws, and part of his Body was seen out of her Mouth, when she turned, and went off"

       ¹³² Duties on oil imported in British ships were remitted, the commander and one-third of each crew being British. Duties were also remitted on fat, furs and tusks of seal, bear, walrus or other marine animal taken in the Greenland Seas. By other acts the imported materials to be used in outfitting were made non-dutiable and bounties were established, amounting in the final aggregate to 40s. per ton.

       ¹³³ Boston News-Letter.

       ¹³⁴ There seems to be no accessible report of this vessel's return, and hence the degree of success or failure of her voyage is a matter of doubt. The people of Nantucket were reported to have made £70,000 in 1767.

       ¹³⁵ From a log-book kept by Isaiah Eldredge, of the sloop Tryall, of Dartmouth, which sailed April 25, 1768, for the straits of Belle Isle. She cleared from Nantucket, as Dartmouth was not then a port of entry. On Friday, April 29, she was at anchor in Canso Harbor, with 50 or 60 other whalemen. Saturday, May 7, left Crow Harbor and at night anchored in Man-of-War Cove, Canso Gut, "with about 60 sail of wailmen." The vessels were continually beset with ice, and on the 23d of May they cleared their decks of snow, which was "almost over shoes deep." They killed their first whale on the 22d of July. The larger number of vessels were spoken in pairs, which was the usual manner of cruising. The sloop returned to Dartmouth on the 5th of November. This log runs to 1775, and commences again in 1785, ending in 1797, with occasional breaks where leaves are cut out.

       ¹³⁶ In October, 1767, a whaling-sloop, belonging to Nantucket, arrived at the bar off that port, on board of which were four Indians, who had had some dispute at sea and agreed to settle it on their return. As the vessel lay at anchor the officers and crew -- except three white men and these Indians -- went ashore. The whites being asleep in the cabin, the Indians went on deck, divided into two parties, and, arming themselves with whaling-lances, commenced the affray. The two on one side were killed immediately, the other two were unhurt. The white men, hearing the affray, rushed upon deck, and, seeing what was done, secured the murderers. In November of the same year some Newburyport fishermen were astounded at perceiving their vessel hurried through the water at an alarming rate without the aid of sails. Upon investigating the cause, it was found that the anchor was fast to a whale (or vice versa), and the cable was cut, relieving them of their unsolicited propelling power. -- (Boston News-Letter.)

       ¹³⁷ Of the 80 vessels sailing from Nantucket but 70 returned, the other 10 being either captured by the French or lost at sea. The same ratio is assumed for the remainder of the fleet. In 1769 a Marblehead brig, the Pitt Packet, Capt. Thos. Power, was boarded by the Rose man-of-war, for the sake of impressing men. Four of the crew, arming themselves with harpoons, retreated to the fore-peak, resolved to resist to the extent of their lives. In the melee the boarding lieutenant was killed. But three of the men, none of whom, says the News-Letter, were Americans, allowed themselves to become intoxicated, and all were captured.

       ¹³⁸ Macy's Nantucket, p. 233.

       ¹³⁹ Ibid., p. 68. In the spring of 1770 three whalemen fitted out from Middletown, Conn. They returned in October of the same year, having met with very poor success.

       ¹⁴⁰ The almost universal method of settling the voyages of American whalemen was by "lays," each officer and man being shipped to receive a certain proportion of the earnings as his pay. In this way each one was directly interested in the general result. For instance, in settling the voyage of the ship Lion, of Nantucket, in 1807, the account as stated in the Coll. of the Mass. Hist. Soc., ii ser., iii vol., p. 19, is thus:

      Of the interest which those of Nantucket at home had in the success of the ship, Davis says, and with much of truth: "The cooper, while employed in making the casks, took care that they were of sound and seasoned wood, test they might leak his oil in the long voyage; the black-mith forged his choicest iron in the shank of the harpoon, which he knew, perhaps from actual experience, would be put to the severest test in wrenching and twisting, as the whale, in which he had a one hundredth interest, was secured; the rope-maker faithfully tested each yarn of the tow-line, to make certain that it would carry 200 pounds' strain, for he knew that one weak inch in his work might lose to him his share in a fighting monster." -- (Nimrod of the Sea, pp. 48, 49.)

       ¹⁴¹ 1835.

       ¹⁴² The difference between "head" and "body" matter of the sperm whale can be best understood by reference to the following description of cutting in and diagram copied from Scammon's "Marine Mammalia:"

"The first procedure after the animal is fastened to the ship, is to cut a hole through the blubber, between the eye and fin, at A, as seen in the accompanying outline sketch, then, after cutting the scarfs on each side and around the end of the first blanket-piece, a blubber-hook, attached to one of the cntting-tackles, is inserted into the hole at A, and the piece raised by means of the tackle until the whale is rolled on its side; then the line of separation between the upper jaw and junk is cut, as from L to C, and if a large whale, the line of separation is cut between the junk and case, as from B to E, and a cut is made across the root of the case from E to F; a scarf is also made around the root of the lower jaw, from near the corner of the month to G. A chain-strap is then put on the jaw near H and hooked or shackled to the second cutting-tackle, and raised by that purchase, while the other tackle attached to the piece is slackened off, if need be, so as to let the whale roll upon its back; when, by means of the tackle attached, and by cutting away the tongue and the adhering flesh, the jaw is wrenched from its socket and placed on deck. This being accomplished, the first tackle, which is attached to the piece, is hove up by means of the windlass, until the whale is rolled over to its opposite side, when the lines of separation are cut to correspond to those made opposite. Holes are then mortised through the head close to the upper jaw-bone, near I, at the end of the junk, near J, and at the root of the case, near K, and through these holes straps are rove, and lines are made fast to those of the junk and case. The second cutting-tackle is then hooked in the strap which is around the upper jaw at I; the fluke-chain is slackened off, and the first tackle fastened to the piece is lowered, when all hands heave on the head-tackle, forcing the whale down again, and thus bringing the creature's head up, and the body nearly to a vertical position. The officers upon the cutting-stage with their keen spades cat away between the bones and junk from L to C, and the enormous weight of the whole fatty mass of the head hanging down opens the gash between it and the skull-bone; then, cutting cross the end of the junk and root of the case, from E to F, completes the process of cutting off the head, which is temporarily made fast to the ship's quarter. The fluke-chain is then hauled in again, and the blubber is rolled from the body in the same manner as that of a baleen-whale, until coming to the region of the small, when it is uujointed just behind the vent, and the remaining posterior portion of the animal is hoisted on board in one mass. The head, as it is termed, is then hauled up to the gangway, and one of the tackles is hooked into the ,junk-strap at J, and by means of this cutting-tackle purchase, the head is taken in whole, if the whale is under forty barrels; but if over that size, it is raised suflieiently out of the water to cut the junk from the case, when it is hoisted on deck. The case is then secured by one or both tackles, hove up to the plank-sheer, and an opening is made at ts root, of a suitable size to admit the case-bucket, when the oil is bailed out, or the whole case is hove in on deck before being opened; which finishes the cutting-in of a sperm-whale." The "head" or case oil is, when bailed out, as clear and limpid as water, but after a short time thickens and hardens into a mass as purely white as the newly fallen snow. The body oil is of a coarser nature. For all practical purposes, the general principles of "cutting-in" the sperm-whale will apply to the same process in regard to the right or bone whale; and for a thorough description of these cetaceans, the implements used in their capture, and the saving of the oil, the work quoted above will be found an excellent authority.

       ¹⁴³ Bancroft says (Hist. U. S., v, p. 265), in 1765 the colonists were not allowed to export the chief products of their industry, such as sugar, tobacco, cotton, wool, indigo, ginger, dyeing-woods, whalebone, &c., to any place but Great Britain -- not even to Ireland. Save in the matter of salt, wines, victuals, horses, and servants, Great Britain was not only the sole market for the products of America, but the only store-house for its supplies.

      This stringency must, however, have been somewhat relaxed as regards oil, for the Boston News-Letter of September 8, 1768, gives the report from London, dated July 13, that the whale and cod fisheries of New England "this season promised to turn out extremely advantageous, many ships fully laden having already been sent to the Mediterranean markets." The success of the Americans seems to have again aroused the jealousy of their English brethren, for in this same year an effort was made in Parliament to revive the bounty to English whalemen, with the intent to weaken the American fishery.

       ¹⁴⁴ The word "pirate" seems to have been in these days of a somewhat ambiguous signification, and was quite as likely to mean a privateer as a corsair.

       ¹⁴⁵ The men who came home with Captain Nixon were Oliver Price, Pardon Slocum, and Philip Harkins. -- (Boston News-Letter.)

       ¹⁴⁶ Boston News-Letter.

       ¹⁴⁷ Works of Franklin, iii, p. 353. Probably Capt. Timothy Folger, a man who was prominent for many years in the history of Nantucket.

       ¹⁴⁸ Works of Franklin, iii, p. 364. In a note Franklin says: "The Nantucket captains, who are acquainted with this stream, make their voyages from England to Boston in as short a time generally as others take in going from Boston to England, viz, from twenty to thirty days." Quite a number of Boston packets to and from England were at this time and for many years after commanded by Nantucket men.

       ¹⁴⁹ In May, 1870, according to the Boston News-Letter, no less than 19 vessels cleared from Rhode Island, whaling. The Post-Boy for October 14, 1771, is responsible for the following: "We learn from Edgartown, that a vessel lately arrived there from a whaling voyage, and in her voyage, one Marshall Jenkins, with others, being in a boat which struck a whale, she turned and bit the boat in two, took Jenkins in her mouth, and went down with him; but on her rising threw him into one part of the boat, whence he was taken on board the vessel by the crew; being much bruised -- and in a fortnight after, he perfectly recovered. This account we have from undoubted authority."

       ¹⁵⁰ According to Macy, (p. 54,) the following are the dates of the occupation of various fishing-grounds by Nantucket whalemen in addition to the Davis Strait fishery: Island of Disco, 1751; Gulf of Saint Lawrence, 1761; coast of Guinea, 1763; Western Islands, 1765; east of Banks of Newfoundland, 1765; coast of Brazil, 1774. According to a local tradition, the first Nantucket whaleman who "crossed the line," arrived home from his voyage on the day of the battle of Concord and Lexington. This was the brig Amazon, Uriah Bunker, commander.

       ¹⁵¹ Boston News-Letter.

       ¹⁵² Some vessels never dropped anchor in a port from the day they sailed until their return; but scurvy was very apt to manifest itself where a crew was so long deprived of fresh provisions.

       ¹⁵³ "A snow is a vessel equipped with two masts resembling the main and foremast of a ship, and a third small mast, abaft the mainmast, carrying a trysail. These vessels were much used in the merchant service at the time of the Revolution." (Lossing's Field Book, ii, p. 846, note.)

       ¹⁵⁴ Boston News-Letter.

       ¹⁵⁵ State of the whale-fishery in Massachusetts, 1771 to 1775. Ports. Vessels fitted annually for northern fishery. Vessels fitted annually for southern fishery. Seamen employed. Sperm-oil taken annually. Whale-oil taken annually. No. Tonnage.No. Tonnage. Barrels.Barrels. Nantucket 65 4,575 85 10,200 2,025 26,000 4,000 Wellfleet 20 1,600 10 1,000 420 2,250 1,250 Dartmouth 60 4,500 20 2,000 1,040 7,200 1,400 Lynn 1 75 1 120 28 200 100 Martha's Vineyard 12 720 156 900 300 Barnstable 2 150 26 210 Boston 15 1,300 5 700 260 1,800 600 Falmouth, (Cape Cod) 4 300 52 400 Swanzey 4 300 52 400 183 13,820 121 14,020 4,059 39,390 7,650 These statistics are from Jefferson's report, and were gathered for him by governor of Massachusetts. According to Pitkin, among the exports of the colonies, including Newfoundland, Bahamas, and Bermudas, were, for the year 1770 Great Britain. Ireland. South of Europe. West Indies. Africa. Total. Sperm candles pounds 4,865 450 14,167 351,625 7,905 379,012 Whale-oil tons 5,202 22 175 268 . 5,667 Whalebone pounds 112,971 112,971 Value sterling: Sperm candles, £23,688 4s. 6d.; whale-oil, £83,012 15s 9d.; bone, £19,121 7s. 6d.

       ¹⁵⁶ The colonial trade had become to many English merchants and manufacturers a matter of great importance, and the loss of it would be a serious misfortune. One of the industries which would feel the deprivation most strongly was the manufacture of cordage, of which the Americans were by far the chiefest purchasers in the English market.

       ¹⁵⁷ Bancroft's United States, vii, p. 222, February, 1775.

       ¹⁵⁸ Eng. Annual Reg., 1775, p. 78

       ¹⁵⁹ Bancroft's United States, vii, p. 239.

       ¹⁶⁰ Ibid.

       ¹⁶¹ Among the evidence given was much tending to show the importance of the colonial trade. It appeared that in 1764 New England employed in the fisheries 45,880 tons of shipping and 6,002 men, the product amounting to £322,220 16s. 3d. sterling in foreign markets; that all the materials used in the building and equipping of vessels, excepting salt and lumber, were drawn from England, and the net proceeds were also remitted to that country; that neither the whale nor cod fishery could be carried on so successfully from Newfoundland or Great Britain as from North America, for the natural advantages of America could neither be counteracted nor supplied; that, if the fishery was transferred to Nova Scotia or Quebec, government would have to furnish the capital, for tbey had neither vessels nor men, and these must come from New England; that it must take time to make the change, and the trade would inevitably be lost; and that American fishermen had such an aversion to the military government of Halifax, and "so invincible an aversion to the loose habits and manners of the people, that nothing could induce them to remove thither, even supposing them reduced to the necessity of emigration." -- (Eng. Annual Reg.)

       ¹⁶² Eng. Annual Reg., 1775, p. 80.

       ¹⁶³ Eng. Annual Reg., 1775, p. 85.

       ¹⁶⁴ Ibid., p. 85.

       ¹⁶⁵ At this time the Falkland Islands were the subject of considerable acrimony between the English, Spanish, and Brazilian governments. According to Freeman (Hist. Cape Cod, ii, p. 539, note), the people of Truro were the first of our American whalemen to go to the Falklands. In 1774 Captains David Smith and Gamaliel Collins, at the suggestion of Admiral Montague, of the British navy, made voyages there on that pursuit, in which they were very successful.

       ¹⁶⁶ Mass. Col. MSS., Provincial Congress, i, p.300.

       ¹⁶⁷ Mass. Col. MSS. Rev. Council Papers, series i, vol ii, p. 17.

       ¹⁶⁸ The shipping of Nantucket rendered important ante-revolutionary aid to the colonists in the importation of powder, a service that was continued at intervals during the war. The Earl of Dartmouth, in a letter to Lieutenant-Governor Colden, dated 7th September, 1774, says: "My Information says that the Polly, Captⁿ Benjamin Broadhelp, bound from Amsterdam to Nantucket, has among other Articles received on board, no less a quantity than three Hundred thousand pounds weight of Gunpowder, & I have great reason to believe that considerable quantities of that commodity, as well asother Military Stores, are introduced into the Colonies from Holland, through the Channel of St. Eustatia." (N. Y. Col. Rec., viii, p. 487.) St. Eustatia was captured by the English during the colonial war, the chief grounds of the capture being the alleged supply to the revolting colonies of contraband goods.

       ¹⁶⁹ The following is the form of the bond:

"Know all men by these presents that Nathaniel Macy & Richd Mitchell Jr both of Sherburn in the County of Nantucket, are holden & stand firmly bound unto Henry Gardner Esq of Stowe in the County of Middlesex Treasurer of the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay or his Successors in sd office in the Lawful & Just sum of Two thousand pounds to the which payment well & truly to be made we bind ourselves our Heirs Exec' or Administrators, firmly by these presents sealed wth our seal Dated this fourteenth day of September Anno Dom: 1775. "The Condition of this obligation is such that whereas the above-said Nathaniel Macy is about to Adventure to sea on a whale Voyage the schooner Dighton Silas Paddack Master-if then the sd Silas Paddack or any other person who may have the Command of sd schooner Dighton, during sd Voyage shall well & truly bring or Cause to be brought into some port or harbour of this Colony except the port of Boston or Nantucket all the oil & whale Bone that shall be taken by sd schooner Dighton in the Course of sd Voyage & produce a Certificate under the hands of the Selectmen of sd Town Adjoining to such port or harbour that ho there Landed ye same then the above Obligation to be Void & of none Effect otherways to stand and remain in full force & virtue. °i NATAL MACY, "RICHD MITCHELL, JR." " Signed, Sealed, & did in presence of us." C. (Mass. Col. MSS. Misc., iii, p. 64.) The colonial papers of March 28, 1776, mention that the English frigate Renown, on her passage to America, took ten sail of American whalemen, which were sent to England to avoid the danger of recapture.

       ¹⁷⁰ Bancroft's U. S., ix, p. 132.

       ¹⁷¹ Eng. Annual Reg. 1775, p. 113.

       ¹⁷² Speech of the Earl of Harcout to the Irish Parliament, October 10, 1775.

       ¹⁷³ Annual Reg., 1776, p. 131.

       ¹⁷⁴ The "Restraining" bill.

       ¹⁷⁵ Eng. Annual Reg., 1776, p. 49.

       ¹⁷⁶ English Annual Reg., 1776, p. 43. There was also much distress at the Barbadoes. It was thought at one time to draw supplies for beleaguered Boston from these islands, but cut off as they were from supplies from the colonies, with 80,000 blacks. and 20,000 whites to feed, the project was deemed in the highest degree dangerous.

       ¹⁷⁷ Annual Reg., 1776, p. 118.

       ¹⁷⁸ To his captors Capt. Nathan Coffin, of Nantucket, nobly said, "Hang me, if you will, to the yard-arm of your ship, but do not ask me to be a traitor to my country." -- (Bancroft, ix, p. 313.)

       ¹⁷⁹ Adams, vii, p. 63. This is almost identical with the letter in Mass. Col. MSS., Resolves, vi, p. 216.

       ¹⁸⁰ In 1778 the commissioners (Franklin and Adams) in France wrote to the President of Congress in nearly the same words, urging the destruction of the English whale-fishery on the coast of Brazil and the release of the Americans there, who were practically prisoners of war, compelled to aid in supporting the enemy. In the letter of the commissioners, dated Passy, ----, 1778, Messrs. Franklin and Adams write that three wbalemen have been taken by French men-of-war and carried into L'Orient. The crews of these whaling-vessels are Americans. (Works of John Adams, vii, p. 63.)

       ¹⁸¹ William Goldsmith, who sailed from Nantucket for London with a cargo of oil in April, 1775.

       ¹⁸² Francis Macy.

       ¹⁸³ Reuben Macy.

       ¹⁸⁴ Zebdiel Coffin.

       ¹⁸⁵ Abisba Delano (probably.)

       ¹⁸⁶ From Nantucket. Twenty names are given in this list.

       ¹⁸⁷ Not italicised in the original.

       ¹⁸⁸ An exception to the general apathy in this respect occurred late in the fall or early in the winter of 1776, when boats from the Alfred, man-of-war, were sent ashore at Canso and destroyed the whaling interest there, burning all the materials for that industry, together with all the oil stores with their contents.

       ¹⁸⁹ Return of vessels and stores destroyed on Acushuet River the 5th of September, 1778: 8 sail of large vessels, from 200 to 300 tons, most of them prizes; 6 armed vessels, carrying from 10 to 16 guns; a number of sloops and schooners of inferior size, amounting in all to 70, besides whale-boats and others; amongst the prizes were three taken by Count D'Estaign's fleet; 26 store-houses at Bedford, several at McPherson's Wharf, Crane Mills, and Fairhaven; these were filled with very great quantities of rum, sugar, melasses, coffee, tobacco, cotton, tea, medicines, gunpowder, sail-cloth, cordage, &c.; two large rope-walks. "At Falmouth, in the Vineyard Sound, the 10th of Septembe , 1778: 2 sloops and a schooner taken by the galleys, 1 loaded with staves; 1 sloop burnt. " In Old Town harbour, Martha's Vineyard: 1 brig of 150 tons burden, burnt by the Scorpion; 1 schooner of 70 tons burden, burnt by ditto; 23 whale-boats taken or destroyed; a quantity of plank taken. "At Holines's Hole, Martha's Vineyard: 4 vessels, with several boats, taken or destroyed; a salt-work destroyed, and a considerable quantity of salt takeu."-(Ricketson's Now Bedford, p. 282.) At Sag Harbor, L. I., property was taken or destroyed to a large amount; Newport suffered greatly; Nantucket lost twelve or fourteen vessels, oil, stores, &c., to the value of £4,000 sterling. Warren, R. I., suffered during the war to the extent of 1A90 tons of shipping, among them two vessels loaded with oil, and a large amount of other property. Sag Harbor also lost one or more vessels by capture.

       ¹⁹⁰ April 11, 1713.

       ¹⁹¹ February 10, 1763.

       ¹⁹² Bancroft's U. S., ix, 481. The fact must be kept in mind that whaling and fishing for cod were both carried on on nearly the same waters and often by the same vessels.

       ¹⁹³ Bancroft's U. S., x, 177.

       ¹⁹⁴ Bancroft's U. S., x, p.184.

       ¹⁹⁵ Bancroft's U. S., x, pp. 210-11.

       ¹⁹⁶ Gouverneur Morris, of New York; Burke, of North Carolina; Witherspoon, of New Jersey; Samuel Adams, of Massachusetts; and Smith, of Virginia. (Bancroft's U. S., x, p. 213.)

       ¹⁹⁷ Bancroft's U. S., x, p. 213.

       ¹⁹⁸ Bancroft's U. S., x, pp. 216 to 219.

       ¹⁹⁹ Bancroft's U. S., x, p. 219.

       ²⁰⁰ Macy, 113.

       ²⁰¹ Mr. Macy gives us to understand that no permits were granted, but this must be an error; for Mr. Rotch (vide MS.), who was one of the committee the succeeding year to obtain grants from the English, mentions an accusation made by Commodore Affleck, of abuse of confidence in regard to the permits which were granted the year before, and that scarcely a vessel could be found but had one of these documents. To this Mr. Rotch replied: "Commodore Affleck, thou bast been greatly imposed upon in this matter. I defy Capt. ---- to make such a declaration to my face. Those Permits were put into my hands. I delivered them, taking receipts for each, to be returned to me at the end of the voyage, and an obligation that no transfer should be made or copies given. I received back all the Permits except two before I left home, and should probably have received those two on the day that I sailed. Now if any duplicity has been practiced, I am the person who is accountable, and I am here to take the punishment such perfidy deserves." Mr. Retch's character as a man and a merchant stood too high to be questioned, and the commodore, who a moment before was so violent, became more genial, and replied, "You deserve favor," and assisted Mr. Rotch to obtain it. The termination of this difficulty is but one example of the manner in which all these slanders, from both English and Americans, were disposed of when the accused could have an opportunity of confronting the accusers or those in authority.

       ²⁰² The following is a copy of one of these permits, from Macy, p. 115:

"[L. S.] By Robert Digby, Esquire, Rear Admiral of the Red, and Commander-in-chief, &c., &c.

James Chase, Obadiah Folger, George Coleman Silvanus Swain Charles Russell Peter Pollard Andrew Coleman Obed Barnard Jonathan Briggs "Permission is hereby given to the Dolphin brig, burthen sixty tons, Walter Folger owner, navigated by Gilbert Folger as master and the twelve seamen named in the margin, to leave the island of Nantucket and to proceed on a whaling voyage,-to commence the first of January, 1782, and end the last day of following, provided that they have on board the necessary whaling craft and provisions only, and that the master of said brig is possessed of a certificate from the selectmen of the said island, setting forth that she is bone fide the property of the inhabitants of the island, with the names of the master and seamen in her; and that she shall not be found proceeding with her cargo to any other port than Nantucket or New York.

"Dated at New York, the first day of December, 1781. "ROBERT DIGBY. "To the commissioners of his majesty's ships and vessels of war, as well as of all privateers and letters of marque. "By command of the Admiral: "THOMAS M. PALMER."

       ²⁰³ By a very disastrous fire at Nantucket, in 1846, the records both of the town and custom-house were destroyed, h3nee there arises much difficulty in getting many interesting details. Many of the custom-records of New Bedford were destroyed by fire in 1825; the corresponding documents of Newport, prior to 1779, were carried away by the English, and the vessel containing them being sunk, they were, when recovered, in a very damaged condition; the similar records of Sag Harbor (the older ones) were stored in a damp place, and are mildewed and illegible.

       ²⁰⁴ New York, at this time, was in possession of the English.

       ²⁰⁵ Mass. Col. MSS., Petitions, i, pp. 124-5-6-7-8-9. A memorandum accompanies this, which various circumstances seem to indicate is the work of Mr. Retch, and which says: "Perhaps some of those reports may have originated from this-a Committee of our Island in the fore part of the year 1781 applied to some of the Members of the General Court and spread before them the peculiar circumstances wherein the Island was involved, one whereof was that our Vessels whenever they passed in or out were perfectly under the controul of the Britons and it was therefore necessary that permits should be obtained from them for our Vessels to proceed on the Whale fishery-since which time some of them have been taken by the American Privateers for having such Permits-and we are thereby reduced to this difficulty that if we carry our Vessels over the bar without permits from the British Admiral they are made prize to the Britons-if they have such permits they are taken by our own Countrymen-and out harbour is therefore compleatly shut tip-arid all our prospects terminate in poverty and distress-what gives us great concern is that our people who understand the Whale fishery will be driven to foreign neutral Countries and many years must pass away before we shall again be enabled to pursue a branch of business which bath been in times past our support and bath yielded such large aids to the Commerce of this Country."

       ²⁰⁶ Memoranda of Wm. R0tch -- unpublished.

       ²⁰⁷ On the 22d of March, 1783, an order was passed in Congress granting 35 licenses to Nantucket vessels to whale and to secure them from the penalty attachktd to double papers. (Madison Papers, p. 405.)

       ²⁰⁸ It is estimated that no less than 1,200 seamen, mostly whalemen, were captured by the English or perished at their hands during the Revolution, from Nantucket alone!

       ²⁰⁹ William Rotch, esq.

       ²¹⁰ Warren, R. I., suffered a loss of 12 vessels (about 1,100 tons), of which at least two were whalemen. (Hist. of Warren, p. 101.)

       ²¹¹ Capt. William Mooers, who sailed for many years in the employ of Messrs. Rotch & Co. It is related that one of the crew of the vessel first showing the American flag in the Thames was hump-backed. One day a British sailor meeting him clapped his hand upon the American's shoulder, saying, "Hilloa, Jack, what have you got here?" "Bunker Hill and be d----d to you," replied the Yankee, "will you mount?'

       ²¹² The Bedford was built in 1765, by Ichabod Thomas, at North River. She was built a brig.

       ²¹³ Letter of William Rotch, esq.

       ²¹⁴ One small schooner of 38 tons burden hailed from Braintree.

       ²¹⁵ Macy's Nantucket, 121.

       ²¹⁶ See Mr. Rotch's MS.

       ²¹⁷ Macy, 129.

       ²¹⁸ Captain Alexander Coffin was of those who looked upon the whale-fishery as a peculiarly American pursuit, and who denounced any effort looking to a transfer of it to any foreign government. On the 8th of June, 1785, lie addressed from Nantucket a vigorous letter to the Hon. Samuel Adams. He wrote in severe terms against the measures being adopted to remove to England, and says Mr. Rotch "is now taking on board a double stock of materials, such as Cedar boards, (commonly called boat-boards,) of which they have none in England, a large quantity of cooper's stuff for casks, &c.neither does it stop here, the house of Rotch have been endeavoring to engage an acquaintance of mine to go to Bermudas to superintend the business at that place." In a postscript he adds, " Since writing the above I have been favored with the original scheuie of establishment of the Fishery at Bermudas, copies of which are here enclosed; one of the company is now at Kennebeck, contracting with some persons for an annual supply of hoops, staves, and other lumber necessary for the business." This letter was laid before the senate of Massachusetts, and the result was the passage of an act prohibiting the export to Bermudas of the articles enumerated, and the transfer in this direction was prevented.

       ²¹⁹ "And what," queried Lord Hawksbury, " do you propose to give us in return for this outlay of money?" " I will give you," returned Mr. Botch proudly, "some of the best blood of the island of Nantucket." At this interview Hawksbury presented his own figures, where, says Mr. Rotch, (see MS.) "he bad made his nice calculation of £87 10s. for transportation and settlement of a family," and, says he, "I am about a Fishery Bill, and I want to come to something that I may insert it, &e." My answer was, "Thy offer is no object, therefore go on with thy Fishery Bill without any regard to me." I was then taking leave and withdrawing. " Well, Mr. Rotch, You'll call on me again in two or three days." "1 see no necessity for it." "But I desire you would." "If it is thy desire perhaps I may call." However, he let me rest but one day before he sent for me. He bad the old story over again, but I told him it was unnecessary to enter again into the subject. I then informed him that I had beard a rumor that Nantucket had agreed to furnish France with a quantity of Oil. He stepped to his Bureau, took out one of a file of papers, and pretended to read an entire contradiction, though I was satisfied there was not a line there on the subject. I said, "It was only a vague report that I bad beard, and I cannot vouch for the truth of it, but we are like drowning men, catching at every straw that passes by; therefore I am now determined to go to France and see what it is. If there is any such contract, sufficient to retain us at Nantucket, neither yon nor any other nation shall have us, and if it is insufficient, I will endeavor to enlarge it." "Ab," says he, " Quakers go to France 1" "Yes," I replied, "but with regret." I then parted with Lord Hawksbury for the last time. (Rotch MS.)

       ²²⁰ His lordship sent once more for Mr. Retch to call on him, but Mr. Rotch returned answer: " If Lord Hawksbury desires to see me he will find me on board my vessel up to the hour when she takes her anchor." When Mr. Rotch was once gone, Hawksbury became alarmed and sent to him by letter, informing him that he had made provision in the fishery bill for him, -with liberty to bring forty ships instead of thirty, "he having forgotten the number ;" but it was too late. This unexpected ending of his hopes was far from pleasing either to his lordship or the government. After the interview with the King of France, Mr. Retch returned to England, andwas importuned to remove to Great Britain. In his memoranda he says be was waited upon by one of the officials, who told him he was " authorized by Mr. Pitt to tell you that you shall make your own terms." " I told him," continues Mr. Rotch, " be was too late. I made very moderate proposals to you, but could obtain nothing worth my notice. I went to France, sent forward my proposals, which were doubly advantageous to what I bad offered your Government; they considered them but a short time, and on my arrival in Paris were ready to act. I bad a separate interview with all the Ministers of State necessary to the subject, five in number, who all agreed to & granted my demands. This was effected in five hours, when I bad waited to be called by your Privy Council more than four months." All attempts on the part of the English government to re-open the subject were politely but firmly rejected by Mr. Rotch. "In the beginning of 1793," the account continues, " I became fully aware that war between England & France would soon take place, therefore it was time for me to leave the Country in order to save our vessels if captured by the English. Iproceeded to England. Two of them were captured, full of oil, & condemned, but we recovered both by my being in England, where I arrived two weeks before the war took place. My going to France to pursue the whale-fishery so disappointed Lord Hawksbury that he undertook to be revenged on me for his own folly, and I have no doubt gave directions to the Cruisers to take any of our vessels that they met with going to France. When the Ospray was taken by a King's ship, the officer sent on board to examine her papers, called to the captain & said, " You'll take this vessel in sir, she belongs to Wm. Rotch" Mr. Rotch returned to the United States with several of his vessels in 1794, and after residing in Nantucket about a year removed to New Bedford, where he lived until his death, in May, 1828.

       ²²¹ The following is a list of advantages secured to Nantucket whalemen by Mr. Coffin " 1st. An entire free exercise of their religion or worship within themselves. "2d. The concession of a tract of ground to build their houses and stores. "3d. All the privileges, exemptions, and advantages promised by the king's declaration in 1662, confirmed by letters-patent of 1784, to all strangers who come to establish there, which are the same as those enjoyed by the natif subjects of his majisty. "4th. The importation into the kingdom, free from all duties whatever, of the oil proceeding from their fishery, and the same premiums and encouragement granted for the cod and other fisheries to natif subjects. " 5th. A premium per ton on the bnrtben of the vessels that will carry on the whale fishery, which shall be determined in the course of the negotiation either with Mr. Rotch or with the select men of the island. "6th. All objects of provisions and victuals for their ships shall be exempted from all duties whatever. "7th. An additional and heavier duty shall be laid on all foreign oil, as a further encouragement to them, in order to facilitate the sale of their own. "8th. The expenses of removing those of the inhabitants, who are not capable of defraying themselves, shall be paid by the Government. "9th. A convenient dock shall be built to repair their ships. "10th. All trades-people, such as smiths, boat-builders, coopers, and others, shall be admitted to the free exercise of their trade without being liable to the forms and expense usually practised and paid by the natif subjects for their admittance to mastership. "11th. They shall have liberty to command their own vessels, and have the choice of their own people to navigate them. " 12th. They shall be free from all military and naval service, as well in war as in peace, in the samo manner and extent as expressed by the king's ordinance of the 16th of February, 1759." (Macy, 257, 258.) These were probably essentially the same concessions made to Mr. Rotch in person. How many American captains pursued the fishery from the various British and French ports subsequently to the Revolution, it would be difficult to determine. Nantucket alone furnished 83 captains for the French and 149 captains for the English fishery; probably the bulk of the total number came from this one port, though in the course of the prosecution of whaling by these nations, New Bedford furnished a very considerable number. In a " Journal of a Voyage to Greenland" from Dunkirk in the ship Penelope, Capt. Tristram Gardner (a Nantucket man,) he records under the head of Friday, June 6, 1788, in latitude 700 north, "100 ships in sight." On the 22d of the same month be states, as a mere matter of fact not worthy of extended comment, "Wind at South; A Ruged sea; Plenty of Snow. Later Part Saw Ise to ye S. W. of us a 4 yo wind Shifted to ye Northward, but Still thick weather. Saw A Number of ships, but No whale. So ends this 24 hours. LA.79.02.11 And yet this is within about 175 miles of the highest northern point attained by any of our splendidly equipped expeditions undertaken with the express purpose of pushing as far north as possible in vessels armored and strengthened and equipped in the most complete manner, while the whaling voyages were pursued in small, not uncommonly strong ships, not even having the feeble protection of coppered bottoms. As early as 1753, a schooner was fitted from Boston for the discovery of the northwest passage. She sailed in the spring and returned in October of the same year.

       ²²² Works of John Adams, viii, p. 288.

       ²²³ Works of John Adams, viii, p. 307.

       ²²⁴ 5th Richard, ii, ch. 3.

       ²²⁵ Works of John Adams, viii, pp. 308-309.

       ²²⁶ In negotiation with the Portuguese ministers in November, 1785, Mr. Adams asked (viii, p. 340) if they did not want our sperm-oil. He replied that they bad olives and made oil from them; they had no use for their own sperm-oil and sold it to Spain. "They bad now," he said, "a very pretty spermaceti-whale fishery, which they had learned of the New Englanders, and carried on upon the coast of Brazil.' According to the Boston News-Letter of April 21, 1774, the method of obtaining their knowledge was somewhat open to objections. (See p.57.) In 1805, the Portuguese attempted to carry on the whaling business from Mozambique, and Timothy Folger, Francis Paddack, William Hull, and John Hillman, of Nantucket, went there to take charge of the fishery; but. early in 1810 accounts were received at Nantucket stating that they had all beet. taken sick and died there.

       ²²⁷ Adams, viii, 363-4, In his reply to Mr. Bowdoin, under date of May 9, 1786, Mr. Adams, after expressing surprise that such reasoning as his (Bowdoin's) has no effect on the English cabinet, writes: "Mr. Jenkinson, an old friend of the British empire, is still at his labors. Ho is about establishing a bounty upon fifteen ships to the southward, and upon two to double Cape Horn, for spermaceti whales. Americans are to take an oath that they mean to settle in England, before they are entitled to the bounty." In September, 1786, Mr. Adams writes to Mr. Jefferson from London, (viii, 414): "The whalemen, both at Greenland and the southward, have been unsuccessful, and the price of spermaceti-oil has risen above £50 per ton."

       ²²⁸ Adams, viii, 363-4,389.

       ²²⁹ Ibid., 463.

       ²³⁰ Works of Jefferson, ii, 18. See also article on Jefferson, by Parton, in Atlantic Monthly for February, 1873.

       ²³¹ Referring to Russia, Portugal, Spain, France, Sweden, Tuscany, and the Netherlands.

       ²³² Jefferson, ii, 18.

       ²³³ "Works of Jefferson, ii, 518. Mr. Jefferson says, referring to a further hegira of the islanders: " A vessel was already arrived from Halifax to Nantucket, to take off some of those who proposed to remove; two families had gone on board, and others were going, when a letter was received there which had been written by Monsieur le Marquis de Lafayette to a gentleman in Boston, and transmitted by him to Nantucket. The purport of the letter was, to dissuade their accepting the British proposals, and to assure them that their friends in France would endeavor to do something for them. This instantly suspended their design; not another went on board, and the vessel returned to Halifax with only the families." In 1796 Wm. Rotch & Son petitioned Congress to remit the excess of duties and tonnage charged then on two whale-ships by the collector of New Bedford, in consequence of their not being provided with United States registers. These were ships which sailed from Nantucket in 1787 and 1789, under registers from the State of Massachusetts, and were used in the Dunkirk fishery, returning to the United States in 1794, some years after the National Government had been in operation. The committee which was appointed to consider the petition reported favorably upon it, and the prayer was granted. (State Papers, vii, p. 411.)

       ²³⁴ "Nine families only, of thirty-three persons in the whole, came to Dunkirk."(Jefferson, ii, 519.)

       ²³⁵ Jefferson ii, 520.

       ²³⁶ Jefferson, ii, 521. "The annual consumption of France, as stated by a person who has good opportunities of knowing it, is as follows: Tons. "Paris, according to the registers of 1786 1,750 "Twenty-seven other cities, lighted by M.Sangrain 500 "Rouen 312 1/2 "Bordeaux 375 "Lyons 187 1/2 "Other cities, for leather and light 1,875 ------ 5,000"

       ²³⁷ Jefferson states (ii, 523) that before the war Great Britain bad less than 100 vessels engaged' in whaling, while America employed 309. (Thrs does not take into account Sag Harbor, New York, nor the very important fishery from Newport, Providence, and Warren, in Rhode Island, which Mr. Jeffersre. seems to have overlooked in his report.) In 1788 these circumstances were rever'e,1, America employing 80, and Great Britain 314.

       ²³⁸ Jefferson, ii, 539. When the Arret of 29th December, 1787, was drawn up, the first draught was so made as to exclude all European oils, but at the very moment of passing it, they struck out the word "European," so that our oils became involved. "This, I believe," says be, "was the effect of a single person in the ministry."

       ²³⁹ Sag Harbor re-entered the business in 1785; New Bedford in 1787 or 1788. (See Returns of the Fleets.)

       ²⁴⁰ In the Pacific the Americans had been preceded by the Amelia, Captain Shields, an English fitted ship, manned by the Nantucket colony of whalemen; and sailing for that ocean from London in 1787, her first mate, Archelus Hammond, killing the first sperm whale known to have been taken in that ocean. In Jefferson's Report he enumerates three qualities of oil: 1, the sperm; 2, that from the ordinary right whales; 3, that from the right whales on the Brazil Banks, which was darker in color and of a more offensive odor when burned than from No. 2. In 1791 six ships sailed for the Pacific fishery from Nantucket and one from New Bedford. In the mean time ships from Dunkirk, among them the Falkland, Canton, and the Harmony, bad already performed their voyages, and in February, 1792, arrived at Dunkirk with full cargoes. It was the custom in those days to nearly fill with sperm, then return to the Atlantic. Ocean and complete their load on the coast of Patagonia or on Brazil Banks, commanders preferring to round Cape Horn with a snugly loaded ship. The brig Sea Horse, Captain Mayo, which arrived at Cape Ann' October 4, 1789, from a whaling voyage to Woolwich Bay, reported a very singular sinking of a point of land there, in sight of quite a large fleet both English and American, the water having a depth of six fathoms where just before was apparently solid land.

       ²⁴¹ The Boston papers of 1796 reported that the Carisford frigate had arrived at the Cape of Good Hope from England with credentials constituting General Graig governor of the colony, the limits of which were to be so arranged as to cut off other nations from participation in the Delago Bay fishery.

       ²⁴² The subject of the French spoliations is one to which the people of Nantucket have been particularly sensitive. Isolated communities are more liable to feel that the injustice done to one is an injustice to all; hence, although comparatively few of the islanders suffered from the depredations of the French, or rather from the apparent breach of faith on the part of a government bound to protect them and their interests, all felt that seeming injustice as a personal matter. In a letter to the Hon. George McDuffie, giving an account of the claims of Nantucket in this behalf, published in the Warder of May 20,1846, the following is described as the actual condition of the claimants and character of the demands "Ship Joanna, Coffin, taken with 2,000 barrels of oil on board; value of ship and cargo $40,060; one of the original owners still living-seventy-five years old and poor; one of the crew also living, poor; the master and mate died recently, poor; children still surviving; claim never sold. Ship Minerva, Fitch, 1,500 barrels of oil on board; value $30,000; one of the original owners living, sixty-eight years old, poor; master still alive, seventy-eight years old, with small means and many dependants; one of the crew alive, poor; claims never sold. Ship Active, Gardner, 3,000 barrels of oil on board; value $50,000; same owners asMinerva with captain; Captain Gardner diedtwo years ago at the age of eighty-five, leaving a large family and grandchildren; claims never sold. Ship Ann, Coffin, (in merchant service); loss of ship $10,000; the captain left a large family in slender circumstances; one of the underwriters died a few years since, in the almshouse, who, at the time of the capture, stood high among Nantucket merchants; claims never sold." Speaking in the interest of the whale-fishery, it may be safely asserted that the people of Nantucket view with regret and disappointment what they consider the gross injustice showed to them (with others) in putting off, upon untenable pretexts, the settlement of these demands. The stern logic of poverty and the almshouse is keener than the sophistries of politicians. The Fox, of New Bedford, Captain Coffin Whippey, captured in 1796 with 1,500 whale and 500 sperm, was another case. In 1853 Captain Whippey-captured a second time in 1798-was living, but dependent upon charity.

       ²⁴³ The Miantonomah was a new ship, on her first voyage.

       ²⁴⁴ In 1794 the ship Commerce, of East Haddam, was fitted for a whaling voyage, and sailed from New Loudou on February 6 of that year. In 1770 Capt. Isaiah Eldridge, of the sloop Tryall, of Dartmouth, spoke, among other whalemen on the Davis' Strait ground, Thomas Wiccum, (Wiggin?) of New London.

       ²⁴⁵ See Macy, 161-2-3.

       ²⁴⁶ When war seemed inevitable the ship-owners of Nantucket held a meeting to take into consideration the subject of how to best secure the fleet from capture. It was proposed to request the British minister at Washington to use his influence with his government to obtain from them immunity from capture of whale-ships belonging to the island. This plan was ultimately abandoned, the majority of the owners being of the opinion that "the prospect of success was too faint to warrant the attempt." (Macy, 165.)

       ²⁴⁷ The Fame was used in the English fishery, and the Renown under the name of "Adam," while engaged in the same pursuit under the same flag, went ashore on Deal beach and bilged in 1824 or 1825. In 1812 the brig Nanina, Capt. Valentine Barnard, of New York, sailed to the Falkland Islands on a sealing and elephant-oil cruise. The British ship Isabella having become wrecked, her crew were rescued by the Nanina, and showed their gratitude to Captain Barnard by seizing his vessel and setting him, with Barzillai Pease, Andrew Hunter, and E. Pease, of his crew, ashore on New Island, one of the group. A protest signed by the four was published in the Hudson Bee, and also in the supplement of Niles' Register for 1814.

       ²⁴⁸ The ship Sally, Clark master, was captured while homeward bound with 1,200 barrels of sperm-oil on board. Value of vessel and cargo $40,000. The Triton also was eaptured, involving a loss of $16,000.

       ²⁴⁹ These vessels belonged almost exclusively to New Bedford and Nantucket.

       ²⁵⁰ See Nantucket Inquirer, August 9, 1824; also Inquirer and Mirror, September 14, 1872. In the latter paper is an account of the affair written by Captain Nathaniel Fitzgerald, one of the crew on one of the detained whalers.

       ²⁵¹ The Walker, of New Bedford, was captured by an English armed whale-ship, but recaptured by Porter. The Barclay, of New Bedford, also was captured by the Peruvians, and recaptured by Porter.

       ²⁵² So far as operations in the Pacific were concerned, the English went out to shear but "returned shorn." Wherever our sailors went ashore in foreign ports and met English seamen, a melee was a frequent occurrence. An amusing instance is related of the officer of a whaling-vessel incurring the displeasure of an English naval officer in one of the South American Pacific ports, by his zeal in behalf of his country. A challenge was the result. The American being the challneged party, had, of course, the right to a choice of weapons, and being most familiar with the harpoon, chose that. They met according to the preliminaries and took their positions. For a moment the English officer stood before the poised harpoon of our whaleman, then gave in, and the proposed combat was deferred.

       ²⁵³ November 26,1813. Macy, 177. In an official report Captain Porter gives the following list of his captures, chiefly vessels, as he says, engaged in the British spermwhale fishery: Tons. Men. Guns. Montezuma 270 21 2 Policy 175 26 10 Georgiana 280 25 6 Greenwich 388 25 10 Atlantic 355 24 8 Rose 220 21 8 Hector 270 25 11 Catharine 270 29 8 Seringapatam 357 31 14 Charlton 274 21 10 New Zealander 259 23 8 Sir A. Hammond 301 31 12

       ²⁵⁴ Journal of Obed Macy. See also Degrand's report. Degrand said: "When we consider the numerous other vessels engaged in the coasting and other commercial trade of the island; the small number of inhabitants it contains, and that the island itself is but a speck upon the bordering waters of our republic; and moreover, that almost the whole of their shipping was captured or destroyed so lately as the last war; we are struck with admiration at the invincible hardihood and industry of this little active, enterprising and friendly community, whose harpoons have penetrated with success every nook and corner of every ocean."-(Niles' Register, December 2, 1820.)

       ²⁵⁵ This competition was also entered into by France and England, more particularly by the latter. (Macy, 214.)

       ²⁵⁶ Capt. George Swain, 2d, of the ship Independence, which sailed from Nantucket in 1817, asserted, on the return from his voyage in 1819, that no ship would ever fill with sperm-oil again. A similar assertion had been made in 1789, when the ship Ranger, Captain William Swain, returned to Nantucket with a cargo of over 1,000 barrels of whale-oil. Her captain thought no other vessel would ever succeed in obtaining se large a cargo.

       ²⁵⁷ The Maro returned in March, 1822, with 2,425 barrels of sperm-oil.

       ²⁵⁸ Hundreds of islands in the Pacific Ocean were first made known to civilization and first located upon charts by whalemen, and the captains of whale-ships were eagerly consulted when exploring expeditions to these seas were to be undertaken. Wilkes and Perry both were indebted to these hardy, adventurous mariners, and in the compilation of his great work on "Ocean Currents," Maury was in constant communication with them. That these favors reacted to the benefit of our whalemen is true; thus in December, 1858, Professor Agassiz, in a letter to the American Geographical Society, encouraged the Polar expedition then agitated in the following words: "I beg to add a word with regard to Dr. Hayes' Expedition,-I consider it as highly important, not only in a scientific point of view, but particularly so for the interests of the whale fisheries." Ile considered the habits of the whale as sure evidence of an open sea, "and the discovery of a passage into that open water which would render whale-fishing possible during the winter, would be one of the most important results for the improvement of whale-fishing."

       ²⁵⁹ Thus Davis mentions (Nimrod of the Sea, p. 343) speaking a ship from London which had put in to the Marquesas Islands. While there three of the crew deserted. The captain of the English ship demanded of the chief that he return the deserters under reprisal, which demand was refused. Thereupon the master of the whaleman double-shotted his nine-pound guns, fired a round into the midst of the crowded grass huts composing the village, and carried off three of the Marquesaus. "We Christians," continues Davis, "must not be unduly shocked when we bear of retaliation by the savages on the next ship's crew that falls into their power." And this atrocious treatment of the unoffendiug South Sea Islanders was by no means limited to English captains. Many seamen were eventually to be found upon these various Pacific islands who had deserted or been discharged from their ships. Some of them, scoundrels under any circumstances, became leaders of the natives in their attacks upon trading and whaling vessels; some of them became influential men upon the islands, both by means of their superior civilization and through marriage with dusky maidens -- daughters of the chief men of the islanders. One of the most marked cases of this latter kind was that of David Whippey, who left a Nantucket whaling-vessel while at the Feejee Islands, about the year 1839, and, making himself friendly and useful to the chiefs, soon became a most important man among them. According to the custom there he acquired several wives, (albeit be is said to have left one behind him in Nantucket,) and became father of a numerous family. He was appointed one of the United States vice-consuls, and for many years was of great service to our Government.

       ²⁶⁰ The ship Columbus. (Scammon's Marine Mammalia, p. 212.)

       ²⁶¹ The foreign whaling-fleet at this time numbered 230 vessels. (Scammon, 213.)

       ²⁶² Scammon, p. 213. Davis says (p. 388) the value of the " bow-bead" whale was not at first recognized. According to his account Capt. George A. Covill, of New Bedford, first learned their value, and his discovery was somewhat accidental. For lack of sperm whales they struck one of this species in the Ochotsk, and killed him with but little trouble. Before cutting in they judged be would make about seventy barrels of oil, but to their surprise he turned out one hundred and fifty, with bone in proportion. There is some question as to this priority of Captain Covill's. Capt. J. H. Swift credits the French ship Asia with being the first, and Captain Royce advances the salve claim for the American ship Huntsville. (See Scammon, note, p. 60.)

       ²⁶³ The following extract from the log of the Saratoga, of New Bedford, Capt. Harding, will serve to show to how high a northerly point whaling was pushed: "September 1, 1851, latitude 71° 40' N., longitude 15011401 W.; 71 N., the depth of water was 6 fathoms. Proceeding to the northward and eastward the depth of water gradually increased to thirty fathoms. Experienced here severe gales, with a beat of 15 miles between packed ice, to the northward and eastward. In the bite saw whales in great numbers, gradually working north." Captain Beechey, in the Blossom, in 1826 reached 70° 30', and explored with boats to 71° 25'. The Saratoga, therefore, went 15 miles farther north than the Blossom's boats. The following table taken from the Honolulu Friend of October 15, 1849, gives a record of thirteen Arctic whalers in the year, showing the amount of oil taken, the number of whales captured, the highest latitude attained, and the dates when the first and last whales were obtained: Ship. Barrels of oil. Number of whales. Highest latitude. First whale. Last whale. Junior 1,900 11 66° June 5 July 15 Jeannette 1,200 8 67° 40' July 13 Aug. 14 Two Brothers 1,000 6 68° 10' July 14 Aug. 26 Marengo 2,000 14 69° June 25 Aug. 26 Metacom 1,600 13 67° June 1 Aug. 15 Isaac Hicks 800 4 69° 50' July 19 Aug. 14 Electra 350 2 67° July 7 Aug. 10 Margaret 1,350 9 69° 30' July 21 Aug. 3 J. Maury 1,000 7 68° July 14 Aug. 23 Catharine 1, 450 9 67° 30' July 2 Aug. 17 Washington 1,800 16 68° 30' June 28 Aug. 10 Omega 1,550 12 70° 12' July 1 Aug. 25 Tiger 1,630 9 68° 40' July 18 Aug. 30 ---- ---- Total 17,650 120

       ²⁶⁴ Scammon, p. 63. See, also, a very interesting series of articles by William H. Macy, esq., entitled "My Cruise in the Arctic," published in the Naut. Inq. and Mir., 1876.

       ²⁶⁵ A similar and somewhat ludicrous case (as viewed in our present light) occurred in the early history of the cotton factory of the Boston Manufacturing Company. Not many years after its establishment, at one of the corporation dinners, a prominent director expressed great alarm arising from a dread that the mill at Waltham would prove an unfortunate speculation, because of its prospectively overstocking the market Then there were probably not half a dozen cotton factories in the country. The time is within the memory of people who are not yet what would be called old when the little town of Weston, in Massachusetts, could overstock the boot and shoe market of Boston. In 1849, the English made an effort to revive the southern whale-fishery. Some merchants were incorporated under the name of " The British Southern Whale Fishery Company," and an attempt was made to establish a colony at the Auckland Islands, having in this company its recognized head, but dissensions arose as to jurisdictions, and the design fell through.

       ²⁶⁶ In 1850, San Francisco became a whaling port. On the 13th of December of that year the Popmunnett (an old whaler) sailed from there on a whaling voyage to the Gallipagos Islands and coasts of Peru and Chili. The bark Sarah soon followed her on a sperm whaling voyage, intending to obtain a cargo and carry it to the Eastern States. In 1855, two stock companies were formed at Monterey and Crescent City for the prosecution of shore whaling. Boats were kept in constant readiness to put out in chase when a school of whales appeared. Quite a successful business was pursued in this way. In January, 1858, the freighter, John Gilpin, with a large cargo of oil, was wrecked and sunk off Cape Horn. On the 1st of. January, 1861, the Congress, of New Bedford, while cruising between Cape Leurwin and Bull Head, picked up a cask of oil, covered with barnacles, a relic of the wreck of the John Gilpin. In three years this cask had drifted east by north 7,780 miles. In February of the same year, 150 miles from New Holland, two other casks from the same cargo were picked up, having, in their three years of wandering, drifted from longitude 700 west to longitude 1110 15' east.

       ²⁶⁷ In 1861.

       ²⁶⁸ Thus were captured and burned by the Alabama the ships Benjamin Tucker, Osceola, Virginia, and Elisha Dunbar, of New Bedford, Ocean of Sandwich, Alert of New London, and schooners Altamaha of Sippican and Weather Gage of Provincetown, all of whom, attracted by the burning of the Ocean Rover of Mattapoisett, hastened to rescue the shipmates whose lives they believed to be imperilled.

       ²⁶⁹ Among these vessels wore several famous China and European merchantmen. The Herald, formerly of Boston, was nearly one hundred years old. (F. C. S., in Boston Advertiser, December 20, 1871.) Another fauious ship was the Corea, which was formerly an armed store-ship belonging to the English navy, and came to this country during the Revolution loaded with stores. A storm arising, she sought shelter in Long Island Sound. This fact soon became known to our Yankee fishermen, and they determined to capture her, and accordingly about a hundred of them, well armed, left New Bedford in a small vessel for that purpose. Coming within sight of the Corea all hands, except four men and a boy, were sent below, the vessel soon reached the fishing-ground, and, to all appearance, the five on deck were soon engaged in innocent piscatorial employments. The Corea ran down toward them and fired a gun, at which summons our fishermen stood for the storesbip, and coining within hail were ordered alongside. Grumblingly they obeyed and were despoiled of their fish, while the Corea's crew crowded around curious to see the prize. At this juncture one of the captive fishermen threw some fish out of one of the ports upon the schooner's deck and at the signal the secreted men swarmed up from below. Before the astonished Englishmen could recover their senses their vessel was a prize. She was taken to New Bedford and discharged, and sonic years after the war she was added to the whaling- fleet. The first ``stone fleet" consisted of the Archer, Courier, Cossack, Frances, Henrietta, Garland, Herald, Kensington, Leonidas, L. C. Richmond, Maria Theresa, and South America of Now Bedford, Amazon, Harvest, and Rebecca Sims of Fairhaven, Potomac of Nantucket, American of Edgartown, Corea, Fortune, Lewis, Phoenix, and Tenedos of New London, Meteor and Robin Hood of Mystic, and Timor of Sag Harbor. In the second fleet were the following whalers: America, Edward, India, Valparaiso, and Majestic of New Bedford, Monteznma, New England, and Dove of New London, Mechanic and William Lee, of Newport, Emerald and Noble of Sag Harbor, Messenger of Saloni, and Newburyport of Gloucester. Many of these. had been noted ships in their prime; some of them European packets, others in the China trade, &c.

       ²⁷⁰ The Isabella, Gypsey, Catharine, General Williams, and Wm. C. Nye. Those captured on the 27th were the Hillman, Isaac Howland, Nassau, Brunswick, Waverly, Martha 2d, Congress, Favorite, and Covington.

       ²⁷¹ A meeting of the whaling-agents in Payta was held, at which they offered both money and personal service in support of the Union. The whalemen were at this time advised to cruise in companies.

       ²⁷² Harper's Weekly, December 2, 1871. The following table, copied from the New Bedford Shipping List, willl show the number of vessels in the North Pacific each year, and the rise and decline of the fishery in those seas. The locality includes the water between the Asiatic and American coasts north of 503 north latitude Year. No. of ships. Average barrels. Total barrels. Year No. of ships. Average barrels. Total barrels. 1839 2 1,400 2,800 1840 3 597 1,760 1841 20 1,412 28,200 1842 29 1,627 47,200 1843 106 1,349 146,800 1844 170 1,528 239,570 1845 263 953 250,600 1846 292 869 253,800 1847 177 1,059 187,443 1848 159 1,164 185,256 1849 155 1,334 206,850 1850 144 1,65`2 243,648 1851 138 626 86,360 1852 278 1,343 373,450 1853 238 912 217,056 1854 2:32 794 184,063 1855 217 87:3 189,579 1856 178 822 146,410 1857 143 796 1/2 113,900 1858 196 620 121,650 1859 176 535 94,160 1860 121 518 62,678 1861 76 724 55,024 1862 32 610 19,525 1863 42 857 36,010 1864 68 522 35,490 1865 59 617 36,415 1866 95 598 56,925 1867 90 640 57,620 1868 61 708 43,230 1869 43 890 38,275 1870 46 1,069 49,205 1871 40 15,000 1872 27 729 19,680 1873 29 665 19,300 1874 22 915 20,120 1875 16 1,374 21,980 1876 8 656 5,250

       ²⁷³ A sheathing -- in this case copper-heirs used.

       ²⁷⁴ The same a cperimont, with the same result, was tried by Captain Redfield, of the brig Victoria. The Kohola and Victoria are rated as barks in a succeeeding page.

       ²⁷⁵ The following protest was written on the 12th of September, and signed by all the captains on the following day before abandoning their vessels: "POINT BELCHER, Arctic Octuu, Sept. 12, 1871. "Know all men by these presents, that we, the undersigned, masters of whale-ships now lying at Point Belcher, after holding a meeting concerning our dreadful situation, have all comp to the conclusion that our ships cannot be got out this year, and there being no harbor that we can get our vessels into, and not having provisions enough to feed our crews to exceed three months, and being in a barren country, where there is neither food nor fuel to be obtained, we feel ourselves under the painful necessity of abandoning our vessels, and trying to work our way south with our boats, and, if possible, get on board of ships that are south of the ice. We think it would not be prudent to leave a single soul to look after our vessels, as the first westerly gale will crowd the ice ashore, and either crush the ships or drive them high upon the beach. Three of the fleet have already been crushed, and two are now lying hove out, which have been crushed by the ice, and are leaking badly. We have now five wrecked crews distributed among us. We have barely room to swing at anchor between the pack of ice and the beach, and we are lying in three fathoms of water. Should we be cast on the beach it would be at least eleven months before we could look for assistance, and in all probability nine out of ten would (lie of starvation or scurvy before the opening of spring. "Therefore, we have arrived at these conclusions: After the return of our expedition under command of Capt. D. R. Frazer, of the Florida, he having with whale-boats worked to the southward as far as Blossom Shoals, and found that the ice pressed ashore the entire distance from our position to the shoals, leaving in several places only sufficient water for our boats to pass through, and this liable at any moment to be frozen over during the twenty-four hours, which would cut off our retreat, even by the boats, as Captain Frazer bad to work through a considerable quantity of young ice during his expedition, which cut up his boats badly." (Signed by the masters.)

       ²⁷⁶ The names of the beleaguered fleet were: from New Bedford, barks Awash onks, value, $58,000; Concordia, $75,000; Contest, $40,000; Elizabeth, $60,000; Emily Morgan, $60,000; Eugenia, $56,000; Fanny, $58,000; Gay Head, $40,000; George, $40,000; Henry Taber, $52,000; John Wells, $40,000; Massachusetts, $46,000; Minerva, $50,000; Navy, $48,000; Oliver Crocker, $48,000; Seneca, $70,000; William Rotch, $43,000; ships George Howland,$43,000; Reindeer, $40,000; Roman, $60,000; Thomas Dickason, $50,000. From New London, bark J. D. Thompson, value $45,000, and ship Monticello, $45,000. From San Francisco, barks Carlotta, value $52,000; Florida, $51,000; and Victoria, $30,000. From Edgartown, ships Champion, value $40,600, and Mary, $57,000. And froui Honolulu, Sandwich Islands, barks Paira Kohola, $W,000; Comet, $20,000; and Victoria 2d and ship Julian, $40,000. The Honolulu vessels had generally American owners, having been placed under the Hawaiian flag to protect them from rebel cruisers. Capt. William H. Kelley, who commanded the Gay Head, visited the locality the following year, and wrote home the condition of such of the vessels as still remained. The Minerva lay at the entrance to Wainwright Inlet, as good in hull as when abandoned. The T. Dickason lay on her beam-ends on the bank, bilged and full of water The Seneca was dragged by the ice up the coast some distance; her bowsprit was gone bulwarks stove, and rudder carried away, and she was frozen in solid. The Reindeer sank, and the Florida was ashore on Sea-Horse Islands, burned to the water's edge. The rest of the fleet were either carried away by the ice, crushed to pieces, or burned by the natives. The Gay Head and Concordia were burned where they lay. "The bark Massachusetts went around Point Barrow. There was one white man on board her who staid up here last winter. He made his escape over the ice this summer, and was five days getting back to the ships. He was about used up when they found him this summer. The natives set out to kill him, but the women saved him, and afterward the old chief took care of him. He saved a large quantity of bone, but the natives took it away from him, except a small quantity. He said $150,000 would not tempt him to try another winter in the Arctic. He said that four days after we left the ships last year the water froze over and the natives walked off to the ships; and fourteen days after there came on a heavy northeast gale and drove all but the groundice away, (that never moved.) Shortly after there blew another northeast gale, and he said that of all the butting and smashing be ever saw, the worst was among those ships driving into each other during those gales. Some were ground to atoms, and what the ice spared the natives soon destroyed, after pillaging them of everything they pleased." Since writing the account of the disaster of 1871, the reports have been received of another of less pecuniary extent but more appalling in its effect on human life. The fleet for 1876 consisted of twenty ships and barks. Of these, twelve are reported lost or abandoned in the Arctic. Much of the melancholy story seems a duplicate description of that of 1871. Again the fleet bad entered that fatal ocean early in August, and again commenced the season's whaling with prospect of fair success; again the ice commenced closing around them; again they cherished delusive hopes that a strong gale would drive it off shore and afford them a means of escape, and again these hopes were doomed to a bitter disappointment. Again the masters decided it was necessary to abandon their vessels, and again the abandonment was accomplished. Here the parallel ceases. Several men perished from exposure in journeying from one beleaguered vessel to another apparently more safe, and many died on the toilsome, perilous march and voyage to the rescuing ships. Many more preferred to stay by the ships and risk their chances of surviving during the terrible Arctic winter to assuming the nearer and, to them, apparently no less dangerous alternative of an immediate escape. These men are still there, and there seems no feasible way to communicate with them until the summer of 1877. Judging by the experience of Arctic navigators and by the condition of several of the former abandoned fleet when found in the ensuing season, their chance for a comfortable survival seems good, unless attacked by the avaricious natives. Provisions and fuel are reported amply sufficient for them, and with the first clear water of 1877 ready hands and willing hearts will hasten to their assistance. Fifty-three men remained, and three hundred made their escape. The names of the lost and abandoned vessels with their approximate values, not including cargoes, are as follows: (Of these the Arctic is reported lost; the others abandoned.) From New Bedford, the Acors Barns, $36,000; Camilla, $36,000; Cornelius Howland, $40,000; James Allen, $36,000; Java 2d, $26,000; Josephine, $40,000; Marengo, $40,000; Mount Wollaston, $32,000; Onward, $40,000; and St. George, $36,000. From San Francisco, the Clara Bell, $24,000. And from Honolulu, the Arctic, $32,000, and Desmond, $24,000. A total loss of $442,000. The estimated value of reported cargoes is about $375,000 more.

       ²⁷⁷ The lowest ebb was reached on the 1st of January, 1875, when the fleet consisted of 119 ships and barks, and 44 brigs and schooners, with a capacity of 37,733 tons.

       ²⁷⁸ Always excepting, of course, Atlantic whalers. Sperm-whaling in the Atlantic has always been pursued by the bulk of the Provincetown vessels and by quite a fleet of schooners and brigs from other ports. There is an occasional revival of this pursuit in larger vessels at intervals of a few years, at present some of the most successful voyages being made by ships and barks cruising for sperm whales in this ocean.

       ²⁷⁹ The cost of fitting of late years has grown out of all proportion to the value of the return. Thus, in 1790, a ship carrying 1.900 barrels of oil would he fitted for a twoyears' sp3rm whaling voyage to the Pacific Ocean for $12,000, while in 1858, with a doubled capacity, the length of the average voyage was more than doubled, and the cost of fitting had increased to about $65,000. But few people have an idea of the amount and variety of occupations to which the fitter-out of a whale-ship pays tribute. In 1765 the schooner Lydia, of Edgartown, Capt. Peter Pease, used the following articles in fitting for her whaling-cruise: 5 barrels beef, 6 barrels pork, 1,200 pounds bread, 60 pounds butter, 3 small cheeses, 500 pump-nails, 2 wine-glasses, 600 board-nails, 1,500 shingle-nails, 24 deck-nails, 30 spikes, 1 mallet, 1 dipsy-lino, 2 scrapers, 1 adze, 2 axes, 5 spades, 1 tunnel, 4 barrels flour, 12 bushels corn, 14 bus5ols uueal, 100 pounds rice, 2 barrels rum, 55 gallons molasses, 20 pounds candles, 314 feet boards, 230 feet boat-boards, 600 fathoms tow-line, 130 fathoms main-warp, 28 guns, 12 lances, 3 codlines, 2 log-lines, 6 gimlets, 3 skeins twine, 6 bowls, 6 knives and forks, 6 plates, 4 pounds tea, 5 pounds chocolate, 15 pounds coffee, 100 pounds sugar, 50 pounds bog's-fat, 5 bushels beans, 1 platter, 2 brooms, 2 boor-glasses, 1 lantern, 50 pounds spun yarn, 4 pump-bolts, 3 pump-brakes, 6 upper boxes, 4 lower boxes, 1 pump-hook, 1 draw-bucket, 2 cedar pails, 1 hand-pump, 2 finishing-planes, 1 pound pepper, 1 speaking-trumpet, 2 half minute glasses, 1 punch-bowl, 6 tea-cups and saucers, 14 pounds powder and shot, 1 drawingknife, 1 candlestick, 3 skeins marling, 3 skeins housing, 8 spare blocks, 1 catblock, 40 fathoms spare rigging, 1 sounding-lead, 1 boat-hook, 12 sail-needles, 18 yards mending-cloth, 1 penknife, 1 jackknife, 10 pounds chalk, 1 hung-borer, 3 chisels, 1 handsaw, 1 large hammer, 1 pump-hammer. The ship Beaver, of Nantucket, which sailed for a Pacific sperm whaling voyage in 1791, cost, with her outfit, $10,212. She was a ship of 240 tons, carried 17 men, and required in outfitting, among other articles, 400 iron-hooped casks (this was before iron came into general use for this purpose, and the remainder of her casks, to the capacity of 1,400 barrels, were wooden-hooped), 40 barrels of salt provisions, 3J tons bread, 30 bushels beans and peas, 1,000 pounds of rice, 40 gallons molasses, 24 barrels of flour. All the additional provisions used were 200 pounds of bread. She made a seventeenmonths' voyage.-(Macy.) The whaling-fleet in 1431 consisted of about 290 ships and barks, (170 sperm and 120 right whalers.) This fleet required in outfitting, among other things, 36,000 barrels of flour, 30,000 barrels of beef and pork, 18,000 bolts of duck, 3,000 tons of hoop-iron, 6,000,000 staves, 2,000 tons cordage, besides large quantities of iron, (for harpoons, lances, spades, blubber-hooks, and camboose-grates,) molasses, rice, beans, peas, corn, tea, coffee, sugar, &c. The annual consumption of copper amounted to 700,000 pounds. It has been said, and probably with a very great degree of truth, that the " whalingfleet made Honolulu," and when one considers for how many years large fleets of whalemen (formerly English, French, and American, but latterly exclusively from the latter country,) rendezvoused there, the known prodigality of the sailor, and the increasingly heavy bills for refitting, of all of which Honolulu reaped the benefit, it is easy to believe the statement. Several merchants removed thence also from the United States and purchased and fitted whaling-vessels from that port, the first whaler belonging to Honolulu being fitted in 1832 by Henry A. Pierce, of New Bedford. The principal articles used in fitting out the whaling-fleet sailing from New Bedford alone in 1858,65 ships, amounted in gross to $1,950,000, and included 13,650 barrels flour, 260 of meal, 10,400 of beef, 7,150 of pork, 19,500 bushels of salt, 97,500 gallons molasses, 39,000 pounds rice, 1,300 bushels beans, 39,000 pounds dried apples, 78,000 of sugar, 78,000 of butter, 19,500 of cheese, 16,300 of ham, 32,500 of codfish, 18,000 of coffee, 14,300 of tea, 13,300 of raisins, 1,950 bushels corn, 2,600 of potatoes, 1,300 of onions, 400 barrels vinegar, 2,000 pounds sperm-candles, 32,500 barrels fresh water, 1,200 cords oak wood, 260 of pine, 1,000,000 staves, 2(10,000 feet heading, 1,000 tons iron hoops, 33,000 pounds rivets, 520,000 pounds sheathing-copper and yellow-metal, 15,000 of sheath-nails, 52.000 of coppering nails, 400 barrels tar, 739,000 pounds cordage, 450 whale-boats, 32,500 feet boat-boards, 65,000 feet pine boards, 36,000 feet oars, 8,500 iron poles, 22,500 pounds flags, 23,000 bricks, 200 casks lime, 205,000 yards canvas, 13,000 pounds cotton-twine, 234,000 yards assorted cotton-cloth, 130,000 pounds tobacco, 39,000 gallons white lead, 5,200 pounds linseed-oil, 400 gallons turpentine, 13,000 pounds paints, 2,600 gallons new ruin, 1,000 gallons other liquors, 120 casks powder, besides clothing, &c. The advance-wages alone amounted to $130,000.

       ²⁸⁰ The increased cost of refitting has for years been a source of serious concern to ship-owners. A meeting of agents was held in New Bedford, in February, 1860, to take some action in regard to this evil. Among the things complained of, besides the enormous charges, were the extortions of consuls, the decisions of the courts of admiralty, the inducements offered to sailors to desert, &c. The Now London Star, in 1859, said that in order to make whaling profitable business must be done where the vessel is owned, not one-fourth in New London and three-fourths in Honolulu; however poorly a ship did in the aggregate, Honolulu fared just as well. "All the business must be done in the home port to make it profitable, and the sooner whaling-merchants withdraw their ships from the Sandwich Islands the better it will be for all concerned. The deluge of oil that is thrown into the eastern market by holding it at the islands until some freighter wants a cargo, and then sending it home, operates with great detriment to the holders of oil at the home ports."

       ²⁸¹ In many cases justice (t) seems to have been meted more in accordance with the requirements of the income of our representatives than with those of abstract right, and it has happened that the case of an arbitrary, cruel captain against some unfortunately weak and impecunious sailor has been decided on the time-honored (among barbarians) maxims that " might makes right," and " the king can do no wrong.'

       ²⁸² The London Mercantile Gazette, of October 22, 1852, said: "The Dumber of American ships engaged in the Southern whale-fishery alone would of themselves be nearly sufficient to man any ordinary fleet of ships-of-war which that country might require to send to sea." Instances are not wanting, indeed, where whalemen have undertaken yeoman's service for their country. Thus, in November, 1846, Captain Simmons, of the Magnolia, and Capt. John S. Barker, of the Edward, both of New Bedford, hearing that the garrison at San Josh, Lower California, was in imminent danger, landed their crews and marched to its relief. Nor were their good services toward foreign governments in peace less honorable to the country than in war, for when the government buildings at Honolulu were burning some years ago, and entire and disastrous destruction threatened, American whalemen rushed to the rescue and quenched the flames already beyond the control of the natives. During the rebellion, of 5,956 naval officers, Massachusetts furnished 1,226, Maine 449, Connecticut 264, New Hampshire 175, Rhode Island 102, and Vermont 81.

       ²⁸³ "The highest testimony to the seamanship of our whalemen is that the rate of insurance on the American is just one-half of that on the British vessels engaged in the service."-(Nimrod of the Sea, p. 56.)

       ²⁸⁴ Says the New York Journal of Commerce, in August, 1857: "There lives in affluence at Nantucket, in the eightieth year of his age, and in full possession of a sound intellect, and the enjoyment of all the respect and affection which a well-spent lifo commands, a retired whaling captain, the keel of whose ship never touched the bottom -- who was never at sea a day without going aloft except in a gale of wind-who never lost a man by abandonment or otherwise, or had one off duty more than a week by sickness-who never lost but one spar, though distinguished for many abort passageswho never returned from a voyage without a full cargo of sperm-oil. He had sixteen apprentices, mostly uneducated boys from the lower walks of life, whom he instructed and trained to his own calling, and every one of these he has lived to see in respectable standing, and several of them holding high rank as shipmasters."

       ²⁸⁵ Quite a number of similar instances are upon record. Marco Paulo mentions, as long ago as 1298, that many of the Chinese junks have as many as thirteen compartments in the bold "to guard against accidents which may cause the vessel to leak, such as striking a rock, or being attacked by a whale. This last circumstance is not unusual; for during the night the motion of the ship through the waves raises a foam that invites the hungry animal, which, hoping to find food, rushes violently against the bull, and often forces out a part of the bottom." Sir William Monson also says the same kind of accident happened to the ship in which be was taken prisoner off the Burlings in 17917 a week before his capture, " the ship giving stem to a whale that lay asleep on her back above the water. The accident was so strange and rare that it amazed the company, who gave a sudden shriek, thinking the ship had foundered upon a rock; but looking overboard they beheld the sea all bloody, which comforted them, conceiving it to be, as they found it was, a stem upon a whale." He also mentions the foundering of a ship from the same cause. Winthrop (ii, p. 7) says, " One of the ships, which came this summer (1640), struck upon a whale with a full gale, which put the ship a stays; the whale struck the ship on her bow, with her tail a little above water, & brake the planks and six timbers and a beam, and staved two hogsheads of vinegar." In March, 1796, the ship Harmony, of Rochester, Capt. George Blankenship, ran upon a whale off the coast of Brazil, and was stove and sunk. The crew were saved, but the vessel and cargo were lost. In March, 1855, the British schooner Waterloo was attacked and sunk by a whale in the North Sea. In 1859 the ship Herald of the Morning arrived at Hampton Roads leaking badly, having been struck by a large sperm-whale off Cape Horn. She was found to have started seven feet of her stem as far as the wood ends, and to have carried away both bobstays. The whale spouted a large quantity of blood. In 1865 the British schooner Forest Oak, on her passage from Boston to Yarmouth, N. S., struck a whale with such force as to nearly knock her foremast out. She was going at the time at the rate of seven knots an hour. In 1873 the three-masted schooner Watauga, of Washington, N. C., was wrecked on a reef off one of the West Indies. She was originally a side-wheel steamer, and was of 200 tons register. "While running along with a fire six or seven knot breeze, a sudden and heavy shock and jar was felt, and all supposed that the vessel bad scudded into a sea with violence. The next moment a pair of whales were seen close alongside to leeward. Ono of them seemed frisky enough, and made off rapidly, but the other seemed loggy, moved with apparent difficulty, and presently disclosed a huge gash in his side, from which the blood was issuing and coloring the sea about him. The Watauga passed on, and soon lost sight of the whale, when it was discovered that the false stem was torn off, her main stem split, and the wood ends started. The bobstay had, of course, parted, and the bowsprit was adrift. * * * She was with difficulty kept free until she had made Point Peter, where temporary repairs were made to enable her to reach home. Upon her arrival at Washington she was repaired, and the damage found to exceed $700."-(Preble's Notes on Whales and Whaling.) In 1860 the steamer Eastern City, en route for St. John, ran into a humpback whale 60 feet long, displacing her cutwater.

       ²⁸⁶ Macy, pp. 237 to 242.

       ²⁸⁷ In the account given by the mate, Mr. Owen Chase, the length of this whale is estimated at about 85 feet, (p. 26.)

       ²⁸⁸ Latitude 24° 40' south, longitude 124° 40' west.

       ²⁸⁹ Captain Pollard never cared to allude to the terrible privations and sufferings undergone on this occasion, and would always avoid reference to it if possible. His next voyage was as captain of the ship Two Brothers, which was lost on a coral reef in the Pacific while under his command. For many years Captain Pollard was on the night police in Nantucket, having abandoned the sea. He was employed as a deck hand ou board Fulton's first steamboat on the Hudson, on some of its earliest trips.

       ²⁹⁰ Latitude 5° 50' eouth, longitude 102° west.

       ²⁹¹ The Honolulu Friend, dated May 6, 1854, reports that about five months after this disaster, this pugnacious whale was taken by the Rebecca Simms, of New Bedford. Two of the Ann Alexander's harpoons were found in him, and his head had sustained serious injuries, pieces of the ships's timbers being embedded in it. Disease had robbed him of his propensity to resist attack or of any further" carrying of the war into Africa." He yielded to his captors from 70 to 80 barrels of oil. Among other cases of the attack by whales upon a ship may be mentioned one where the Pocahontas of Holmes's Hole was assailed. Two boats had been lowerd, and one bad fastened to a whale. In attempting to lance the whale, he turned upon the boat and crushed it to items. The other boat picked up the crew and returned to the vessel, which was run down toward the victor in the previous contest. When within two boat's length, the whale turned upon the ship, striking her bow with such violence as to start one or two planks and break one or two timbers on the starboard side. The Pocahontas was obliged to put into Rio Janeiro, leaking 250 strokes per hour. The merchant-ship Cuban, of and for Greenock, from Demerara, in 1857 was attacked by a whale, which struck her with such force as to completely stop her headway. As she was a ship of 500 tons, deeply laden, and running at the rate of nearly ten knots an hour, some idea can be gained of the tremendous momentum of her assailant.-(Ricketson's Hist. of New Bedford, p. 101.) The London Punch of December 6, 1851, contained a humorous description of the attack on the Ann Alexander. A similar, though not so disastrous an experience befel the Pocahontas, of Holme's Hole, in 1850. She was attacked by a large bull sperm whale, and put into Rio Janeiro for repairs, leaking 250 strokes per hour.

       ²⁹² In attacking a boat the sperm whale will sometimes turn upon his back, resuming his natural position to breathe. In 1859, Captain Pierce, of the Emerald of New Bedford, wrote home that he had had an encounter with a "digger" whale, and after nine hours of hard fighting, bad killed and sunk him. They bad had three boats stoves, lost five irons and seven bombs, and broken several oars in the melee, and in trying to haul the whale up, both lines had parted, and he had again gone down in forty fathoms of water. Captain Davis thus describes the whale-boat and its fittings. (See Nimrod of the Sea, p. 157): t° It is the fruit of a century's experience, and the sharpened sense and ingenuity of an inventive people, urged by the peril of the chase and the value of the prize. For lightness and form; for carrying capacity as compared with its weight and sea-going qualities; for speed and facility of movement at the word of command; for the placing of the men at the best advantage in the exercise of their power; by the nicest adaptation of the varying length of the oar, to its position in the boat; and lastly, for a simplicity of construction, which renders repairs practicable on board the ship, the whale-boat is simply as perfect as the combined skilll of the million men who have risked life and limb in service could make it. This paragon of a boat is 28 feet long, sharp, and clean cut as a dolphin, bow and stern swelling amidships to 6 feet, with a bottom round and buoyant. The gunwale amidships, 22 inches above the keel, rises with an accelerated curve to 37 inches at each end, and this rise of bow and stern, with the clipper-like upper form, gives it a duck-like capacity to top the oncoming waves, so that it will dryly ride where ordinary boats would fill. The gunwales and keel, of the best timber, are her heaviest parts, and gives stiffness to the whole; the timbers, sprung to shape, are a half-inch or three-quarters in depth, and the planking is half-inch white cedar. Her thwarts are inch pine, supported by knees of greater strength than the other timbers. The bow-oar thwart is pierced by a 3-inch hole, for the mast, and is double-kneed. Through the caddy-board projects a silk-hat-shaped loggerhead, for subbing and managing the running line; the stem of the boat is deeply grooved on top, the bottom of the groove being bashed with a block of l:+ad, or sometimes a bronze roller, and over this the line passes from the boat. Four feet of the length of the bow is covered in by a depressed box, in which the spear-line, attached to harpoons, lies in carefully adjusted coils. Immediately back of the box is a thick pine plank, in which the „ clumsy elect," or knee-brace, is cut. The gunwale is pierced at proper distances for those-pins, of wood, and all sound of the working oars is muffled by well-thrummed mats, kept carefully greased, so that we can steal on our prey silent as the cavalry of the poor badgered Lear. The planking is carefully smoothed with sand-paper, and painted. Here we have a boat which two men may lift, and which will make ten miles an hour in dead chase by the oars alone. "The equipment of the boat consists of a line-tub, in which are coiled 300 fathoms of hemp line, with every possible precaution against kinking in the outrun; a mast and sprit-sail; five oars; the harpoon and after-oar, 14 feet; the tub and bow-oar, 16 feet; and the midship, 18 feet long; so placed that the two shortest and one longest pull against the two 16 feet oars, which arrangement preserves the balance in the encounter, when the boat is worked by four oars, the harpoon-oar being apeak. The boat is steered by an oar 22 feet long, which works through a grummet on the sternpost. The gear of the boat consists of two live harpoons, or those in use, and two or three spare irons, i. e., harpoons secured to the side of the boat above the thwarts, and two or three lances, secured by cords in like position, the sharp beads of all these being guarded by well-fitted, soft wood sheaths. The harpoon is a barbed, triangular iron, very sharp on the edges, or it is a long, narrow piece of iron, sharpened only on one end, and affixed on the shank by a rivet, so placed that before use the cutting edge is on a line with the shank, but after penetrating the whale, and on being drawn back, the movable piece drops at right angles to the shank, and forms a square toggle about six inches across the narrow wound caused by its entrance. The porpoise iron is preferred among the Arctic whalemen, as, owing to the softness of their blubber, the fluked iron is apt to cut its way out. The upper end of a shank, 30 inches long, terminates in a socket, into which a heavy oak or hickory sapling polo 6 feet long is introduced. A short piece of whale-line with an eye-splice at one end is then wrapped twice around the shank below the socket and close spliced. This line is stretched with great strain, and secured to the pole with a slight seizing of rope-yarn, intended to pay away and loose the pole in a long fight. The tub-line is secured to the eye of the short line, after the boat is lowered. The lance is simply an oval-headed instrument, with a cutting edge, a shank 5 or 6 feet long, and a handle as long, with a light warp to recover it. A hatchet and a sharp knife are placed in the bowbox, convenient for cutting the line, and a water-keg, fire apparatus, candles, lantern, compass, and bandages for wounds, with waif-flags on poles, a fluke-spade, a boat-hook, and a " drug," or dragging float, complete the equipment of a whale-boat. Among this crowd of dangerous lines and threatening cutting gear are six pair of legs, belonging to six skilled boatmen. Such a whale-boat is ours, as she floats two miles from the ship, each man in the crew watching under the blade of his peaked oar for the rising whale, and the captain and boat-steerer standing on the highest point, carefully sweeping the horizon with trained eye, to catch the first spout, and secure the chance of 'getting on.'"

       ²⁹³ Luckily the whale struck the Parker Cook directly on the stem. Had the blow been delivered on almost any other part of her hull, she undoubtedly would have shared the fate of the Essex. and Ann Alexander.

       ²⁹⁴ Pages 357-'8-'9, 385-'6-'7.

       ²⁹⁵ That is, frightened.

       ²⁹⁶ The tail is the chief weapon of the right whale, offensively and defensively, and such is the ability with which it can wield this terrific weapon that it can sweep an are from eye to eye clear of its foes. The sperm whale, on the contrary, relies mainly on its jaw. In the attack on these monsters, then, the tactics must be varied to avoid more particularly the flukes of the right and the equally formidable lower jaw of the spermaceti whale. Not that the opposite extremes of these brutes are by any means harmless, but they are secondary to these chief agents. When it is possible to haul alongside the running whale, the officer of the boat will sometimes with his fluke-spade succeed in "hamstringing" the brute by severing the tendons at the "small."

       ²⁹⁷ Says Captain Davis: "Had the right whale the habit of 'jawing back,' as the sperm whale has, it would be next to impossible to secure him by the present weapons and methods of our whalemen. * * * Read Scoresby, Jardin, and Beale, the fathers of whaling literature, and they will not reveal the secret of the weakness of the right whale. Whalemen and naturalists, they have failed to record the important fact, that on the tip of the upper jaw there is a spot of very limited extent, seemingly as sensitive in feeling as the antennas of an insect: as keenly alive to the prick of lance or harpoon as a gentleman's nose is to the tweak of finger and thumb. However swiftly a right whale may be advancing on the boat, a slight prick on this point will arrest his forward motion at once. I think it safe to say that he will not advance a single yard after the prick is given. He will either pitch his head, and round down, like a great wheel turning OR a fixed axis, or he will turn shortly to the right or left, according to the part of the nose which is pricked. Sometimes he will throw his enormous bead straight in the air, and settle backward tail first, by this motion exposing his whole throat to the thrust of the harpoon or lance; he may take any course, save the one directly forward. It seems almost as though this sensibility to touch was a, guard against the collision of parts so important to existence with other objects, and which are beyond the line of vision. And it is also endowed with a backing power which is simply marvelous, when we consider the enormous weight moving forward with great speed. This very marked peculiarity of the right whale is constantly taken advantage of by the whaleman, who, working about its head completely out of the reach of its active flukes, parries the charge of the enraged monster as deftly as the fencer glances the thrust of his antagonist's sword. If an advancing whale glides under the boat, and the back, or 'small,' touches the keel, then, quick as the lightning flash, the responsive flukes will whip up, and send boat and crew into the air, amidst a perilous tangle of kinking line, sharp harpoons, lances, spades, hatchets, knives, and boat-gear generally. An accursed attribute of such sharp company is to travel point or edge first, and form closer acquaintance than is agreeable" (Nimrod of the Sea, p. 376.)

       ²⁹⁸ Each whale-ship has a private code of signals for her absent boats to signify when to return, where to find whales, &c., so when two ships, not cruising in company, lower for whales, the men on board of one ship can recall the boats, change their course, or convey any other similar intelligence without the nature of the tidings being known to the crew of the rival vessel until it is too late to be available. Captain Preble, in his "Notes on Whales and Whaling" (No. 37), illustrates this fact by giving the following, which was the code used by Capt. Elisha Dexter, of the whaling brig William & Joseph: "Whales ahead-Down jib. Whales astern-Haul up spanker. Whales between the ship and boats-Flag half mast. Whales on the weather bow-Haul up the weather clew of the foresail. Whales on lee bow-Lee clew of foresail.. More whales and a better chance-Flags on the fore-top-gallant-mast head and peak of the spanker. Whales on the weather beam-Mizzen topsail aback. Whales on the lee beam-Keep the ship off and luff her up again. Whales too near to keep off Signal to come on board. This signal is made by standing on the top-gallant yards and holding flags in your hands." Signaling is sometimes done with the mast-head waif, which is a light pole 6 or 8 feet long, with a hoop fastened on the end and covered with canvas. (This is sometimes called a "yonder" by English whalemen.) Scammon, 230.

       ²⁹⁹ Captain Davis says, (p. 238,) "A peculiar feature in right-whaling is the considerable number which sink on being killed. This rarely occurs with the sperm whale. With the bump-back it is the rule, and therefore this fishing is carried on in shallow sounds and bays. On putting the question, ' Why do right whales sink 3' scarcely two men will give the same reason in reply. Captain West, when master of the Adeline Gibbs, in conversation with two Arctic whalemen, at Maui, gave the following answer: 'To lance a right whale over the shoulder-blade, directing the lance downward, will kill it in the shortest time; but he will be almost certain to sink. Such a wound will be followed by a rushing escape of air, manifesting itself in large and continuous bubbles rising through the water. When this occurs the whale is certain to sink.' Therefore, he holds to the theory that whales are furnished with a sound, or air bladder, like fish, and that through no other cause than injury to this bladder could the whale settle instantly as it does. The two captains above mentioned stated that on their last cruises one bad taken nine whales, without one sinking. The other had sunk eight whales, and prided himself on the fatal thrust of his lance over the shoulder." Capt. S. P. Winegar, of the Julian, expressed himself in 1860 (see N. B. Shipping List) of a decidedly different opinion. He believed it was owing to the whales themselves and not to the manner of killing them. He further states that whales sink more often on some ground than on others, and some kinds on the same ground more than others. The right whale is more liable to sink than the bow-head, and bow-heads sink oftener in the Ochotsk than in the Arctic. He had whaled six seasons in the Arctic and never knew of whales sinking there.

       ³⁰⁰ Different captains have different opinions about the captain's place. Some of the most successful say they can do better by remaining on board the ship and directing the movements of the boats; others equally fortunate prefer to be "where the battle rages " strongest.

       ³⁰¹ Latitude 5 1/2° north, longitude 168° east. One of the Marshall group.

       ³⁰² This account is gathered from that of the third mate, Captain Silas Jones, of Falmouth (who, with the characteristic modesty of whalemen, refers but little to his own actions in the struggle), and from that given by Captain Davis in the "Nimrod of the Sea." The annals of whaling afford many instances of a similar nature to this, both in the English and American South Sea fishery.

      In April, 1825, the ship Oeno, of Nantucket, struck on a reef near Turtle Island, one of the Fejee group, and speedily showed signs of breaking up. The crew, twenty-one in number, took to the boats and landed upon the island, lured thither by the friendly motions of the natives, but when ashore about two weeks a tribe from a larger island visited the one upon which they were, and finding them unarmed massacred all but one of them. He escaped by hiding until they returned to their own island, and subsequently got away from the island.

      In 1834, or '5, the brig Waverly, Capt. William Cathcart, of Woahoo, was cut off at Strong's Island and all on board massacred, and in 1842 the English whaler Harriet, of London, Capt. Charles Bunker, shared the same fate.

      In 1842 or '3, seventeen of the crew of the whale-ship Offly, of London, were massacred by the natives of Solomon Islands, in revenge for the murder of a thief by the mate of another vessel.

      In 1845 the captain, second mate, and two boats' crews of the French whaler Angeline were reported massacred at the Mulgrave Islands.

      In 1847 the ship Triton, of New Bedford, put into Sydenham's Island (one of the King's Mill group), to recruit. While the captain with his boat's crew were ashore purchasing a fluke-chain, the natives, incited by a renegade Spaniard, attacked and captured the ship, killing one of the mates and several of the crew. The second mate with his men escaped in a boat. The ship worked off shore and the natives left her. She was afterwards carried into Papiete, (one of the Society Islands). The United States and Alabama, both of Nantucket, touched at the King's Mill group and succeeded in rescuing the survivors. In all, five were killed and seven wounded.

      In 1852 the brig Inga was cut off at Pleasant Island, and all on board were murdered. One of the original crew, left on the island about a year before to recruit, was spared.

      These are only a few of numerous instances. The crews of English ship Syren, the Boy, of Warren, R. I., the Twilight, of New Bedford, and many others suffered at the hands of the natives of the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

       ^302a Page 311.

       ³⁰³ Latitude 5º 27' north, longitude 87º 15' west. Of the crew of six, but two survived.

       ³⁰⁴ In a letter from the mate of the Janet to her owners he says that after his boat returned to the ship, he ran down for that of the second mate, the only one then in sight from the ship. They then proceeded in the direction in which the captain's boat was last seen going, and lay to all night with all sail set and lights burning. They cruised three days, but were unable to get any trace of the captain's boat and were forced to the melancholy conclusion that it had been carried down by a foul line, more particularly as be had a new line with him coiled but two days before. (See "The Whale and His Captors.")

      In January, 1860, the Massachusetts, of New Bedford, lowered four boats for a school of whales. One was killed and the mate was sent to bring the ship. She was not out of sight and the mate did not succeed in regaining her until 10 o'clock in the evening. The other three boats lay by the whale all night, and the next day, having seen nothing of the vessel, cut from him, and started for Brazil, 330 miles distant, reaching land in five days. Cheever, in "The Whale and His Captors," p. 219, instances another thrilling adventure of this kind.

      "Foul lines" have been the death of many a whaleman. A kink in the line, as it runs from the tub, catches an arm, or a leg, and in an instant the unfortunate man is overboard and too often never seen again alive. On page 138 of "The Whale and His Captors" may be found an example of this form of peril.

       ³⁰⁵ One man was hung by the mutineers.

       ³⁰⁶ William Lay, of New London, and Cyrus Hussey, of Nantucket.

       ³⁰⁷ In 1853 the crew of the brig William Penn, of San Francisco, consisting of five whites and fifteen natives of the Pacific Islands, mutinied, killing the captain, Isaac B. Hussey, and one man, and badly wounding the first and second mates and another man. The second man died a few days after the outbreak.

       ³⁰⁸ See New Bedford "Shipping List," January 5, 1875.

       ³⁰⁹ Malte Brun says (v, p. 76, ed. 1826,) "All attempts at whaling in Hudson's Bay are unsuccessful."

       ³¹⁰ The Ansel Gibbs, of New Bedford, was lost in the ice in Hudson's Bay, October 19, 1872. Fifteen of her crew died of scurvy before they were freed from their icy prison.

       ³¹¹ One of the most horrible tales of suffering in the annals of the whale-fishery is that of the English whaleship Diana, which left the Shetlands in 1866 for an Arctic (Davis Strait) voyage, with a crew of fifty officers and men. The time for her return came and passed, and nothing was heard of her whereabouts or fate. A premium was offered for tidings from the missing vessel, and at last she brought her own intelligence. On the 2d of April, 1867, the people living near Rona's Voe were startled by seeing the ghastly wreck of a ship sailing into the harbor. Battered, ice-crushed, her sails and cordage cut away and dismantled by the rigors of her terrible imprisonment, her boats and spars cut up to feed the fires which kept the wretched crew from freezing, her decks strewed with the dead and dying, the long lost Diana returned. The fifty who sailed were all brought back, but how? Ten bodies, one of them the captain's, lay on the deck carefully arranged for that burial which their comrades could not bring themselves to give to them. Thirty-five lay helplessly sick, some of them dying. Two still retained strength enough to go aloft, and three more were able to crawl around on deck. The man at the wheel fainted with excitement when help was at hand. One of the sick died in his berth after the rescuers had boarded the ship. The surgeon had worked untiringly, but cold, hunger, scurvy, and dysentery had done their work as unceasingly. The captain was the first to succumb, and one by one the others followed him. Another night and the ship which had been for all a common home would have proved to all a common tomb.

       ³¹² The ship Manhattan, Budd, of Sag Harbor, had visited Jeddo less than twelve months before to restore to their home 22 Japanese seamen whom they had rescued from a wreck. They had been hospitably received, but warned not to come there again. Vessels which have been classed as missing -- as for instance the Lady Adams of Nantucket in 1823 -- have been last seen off that coast. If dire necessity drove their crews upon that inhospitable shore, what scenes of barbarity may have been enacted in which they were the struggling and helpless victims! (NOTE. -- Although these accounts of the Lawrence and Lagoda are current in the newspapers of the time and even remembered indistinctly by whalemen who were near Japan, it has been impossible to find these vessels among the whaling-lists before the alleged accidents. -- THE AUTHOR.)

       ³¹³ Fifteen of the crew of the Lagoda reached the shore alive; one subsequently died, a victim to the barbarities of his captors; the thirteen survivors were rescued by the United States ship of war Preble in 1849. The Preble also took on board a sailor named Ronald MacDonald, formerly of the whale-ship Plymouth of Sag Harbor. MacDonald received his discharge and was given a whale-boat furnished with books, provisions, &c., and left the ship off Japan in June, 1848, with the expressly avowed purpose of visiting the Japanese islands. He landed upon one of them and was immediately captured, deprived of his books, and imprisoned. Having nothing to occupy his time he turned his attention to teaching his captors the English language, and soon had quite a class receiving instruction. But his presence was a thorn in the side of the Japanese, and they availed themselves of the first opportunity to get rid of him.

       ³¹⁴ Incendiary fires, which became of disastrous frequencey in later years, are not meant when we speak of this immunity.

       ³¹⁵ This account is taken from that of the captain, published in the Baltimore Sun.

       ³¹⁶ The rescued negro confessed that the ship had been fired by his drowned companion and himself. Their fears of being sold into slavery had been excited, and this desperate act was performed as a means of escaping, through death, that more miserable fate. Before leaping into the sea his companion had stabbed himself.

       ³¹⁷ On his arrival in port Captain Dominick reported that he had tendered them help, which they refused. As though drowning men ever refused substantial aid!

       ³¹⁸ The new ship Niphon, of Nantucket, on her first voyage, sank at sea on her passage home, January 12, 1849, in consequence of the depredations of ship-worms.

       ³¹⁹ The underwriters declined to insure her.

       ³²⁰ Wrecked oil was sometimes purchased at from fifty cents to one dollar a barrel.

       ³²¹ Prior to the commencement of Polar whaling, the amount of bone taken bore to the number of barrels of whale-oil the proportion of 8 or 10 to 1. A vessel taking 2,000 barrels of whale-oil would be reasonably supposed to bring home (when they saved it) from 16,000 to 20,000 pounds of bone. But Arctic whaling destroyed all these calculations, for the bone was larger and the proportion yielded much greater.

       ³²² This was at a time when oil and bone commanded a good price.

       ³²³ Ambergris is generally considered as a product of the rectum of a diseased whale.

       ³²⁴ Macy's Hist. Nant., p. 69. Mr. Macy must, for reasons enumerated in the succeeding note, be slightly in error in this date.

       ³²⁵ $ Mass. Col. MSS., Manufactures, p. 369. The memorial does not seem to be on file. The documents relating to it are as follows:

      "Whereas Benjamin Crabb of Rehoboth in the County of Bristol has Represented to this Court that he (A) has the Art of making Candles of Coarse Sperma Caeti Oyle and has been at Great Expense in providing himself with proper Implements therefor and s Willing on due encouragment to undertake and Carry on that Business here and to Teach and Instruct Some of the Inhabitants of this province his Art Aforesaid, and this Court being Willing to Encourage an undertaking so likely to prove Beneficial to the province: --

      "Therefore Be it Enacted by the Lieut-Governour, Council And House of Representatives -- That the said Benjamin Crabb and his Heirs shall and may have and enjoy the Sole use, Exercise and Benefit of making Candles of Course Sperma Caeti Oyle (B) Within, this province for Sale for the Term of Fourteen years next ensuing the publication of this Act provided he forthwith engage in and Carry on the Business Aforesaid within this province During that Term and Do Instruct Five of the Inhabitants of this province the Art Aforesaid Within Ten years after the publication of this Act -- .

      "And be it further Enacted by the Authority Aforesaid that no person or persons saving such only as shall first obtaine the Consent of the said Crabb or his Heirs signified under his or their hands shall Sell Within this province or Export out of it any Candles made of the Oyle (C) Aforesaid daring the time the said Cobb And his Heirs are Entitled to the priviledge Aforesaid other than Such as are made by the said Crabb his Heirs or Assigns on pain of Forfeiting Ten pounds For each offence."

      This bill passed its three readings on January 25, 1750, and was sent to the council for concurrence. On the 6th of February the council returned it with these amendments, viz: "Insert at A: -- And no other Person in the Province has the Art of pressing, fluxing & chrystalizing of Sperma Ceti & course Sperma Ceti Oyle, and of making Candles of the same as so prepared. Insert at B: -- So prepared untill the 31 day of May which shall be in the year of our Lord 1759 Provided that He do forthwith engage in & carry on the business aforesaid within this Province: and shall some time before the 31 day of May 1752 remove to some place within seven Miles of the Town of Boston & there set up Works suitable for carrying on the said Business; and shall then & there manufacture all such quantities of Oyl as can be procured fit for the purpose; and shall likewise within five years from the publication of this Act well & fully instruct five of the Inhabitants of this Province (two of whom shall be appointed by General Court if they see cause) in the Art aforesaid. Insert at C: -- prepared as."

      (The amendments A and B would strike out the words italicized.)

      The house concurred with amendment A, and returned the bill to the council, who, though first non-concurring, finally, on the 12th of Feb., 1750, agreed with the amended house bill.

      It will seem evident that this Benjamin Crabb and the one mentioned by Macy must be the same party, in which case he must have presented his petition late in 1749; and there is scarcely a chance that he was manufacturing in Rhode Island prior to 1750. There seems no means of knowing whether he ever pursued his occupation in Massachusetts or not. According to Macy it would appear that for some reason he did not accept the terms of the act.

       ³²⁶ The name of this firm was changed in 1763 to Nicholas Brown & Co. This account of the early sperm-candle factories is compiled from Macy's History of Nantucket, from a communication to the Providence Journal signed "M.," and from newspapers and memoranda of the time.

       ³²⁷ Probably the same name as Macy spells Mausley.

       ³²⁸ "M." says: "We cannot give the locality of this house." It is judged by the writer, however, to be located in Boston, from the fact that a few years later (in 1769) one John Langdon carried on the sale of sperm oil and the manufacture of candles in that town "in Fleet street, near the Old North Meeting House." In the same year candles of this kind are advertised as made by Russell & Howard, of Boston, and Daniel Jenckes & Co., of Providence.

       ³²⁹ By this agreement it would seem that the arrangement had become unanimous.

       ³³⁰ See New Bedford Shipping List, January 23, 1855.

       ³³¹ At the last report Newport did not have a candle factory worthy of the name.

       ³³² The New Bedford Medley has, under date of Nantucket, November 30, 1792, an item to the following effect: "This day was cut from the loom the first piece of sail-cloth manufactured at the new duck factory. It employs more hands than the five rope-walks and ten sperm-candle works,'which number there is here.'" The papers in January, 1793, reported canvas as being manufactured at Salem, Boston, and Nantucket, and another factory being about to be started at Newport, R. I. In the Mass. Col. MSS., Manufactures, pp. 295-6-7, are papers relating to the encouragement to be given by the general court to the manufacture of duck as carried on by John Powell of Boston (in 1727), and affidavits of captains of vessels the sails of which were made from canvas of Powell's make.

       ³³³ Hist. New Bedford, p. 77.

       ³³⁴ Tables of Exports, Pitkin.

       ³³⁵ The falling off of exports occurs chiefly in those years when European wars or national troubles make shippers cautious. In 1797 Hudson, N. Y., possessed one or more sperm-candle factories.

       ³³⁶ The Whale and his Captors, p. 157.

       ³³⁷ New Bedford Shipping List. Captain Hamblen, of the Andrew Hicks, of Westport, took, in 1871, from a sperm whale captured near the Gallipagos Islands an iron which belonged to the ship Catawba, of Nantucket, and had been lost 20 years previously. This was the second time Captain Hamblen bad recovered a harpoon lost from the same ship -- the first time the interval between lass and recovery bring about 7 years.

       ³³⁸ Page 188.

       ³³⁹ Menkar.

       ³⁴⁰ Now Bedford Shipping List, 1871.

       ³⁴¹ Ibid., October 10, 1876.

       ³⁴² The use of bone was unknown in 1578. At present its uses are multifarious. Mr. John K. Andrews, a whalebone-worker in Boston, kindly furnishes the following list of the principal purposes to which it is put, viz: in the manufacture of whips, parasols, umbrellas, dresses, corsets, supporters of various kinds, caps, bats, suspenders, neck-stocks, canes, rosettes, cushions to billiard-tables, fishing-rods, divining-rods, bows, husks, fore-arm bows, probangs, tongue-scrapers, pen-holders, paper folders and cutters, graining-combs for painters, boot-shanks, shoe-horns, brushes, mattresses, &c.

       ³⁴³ " Page 380. Captain Davis, on p. 368, gives another description of the head of the right whale. The mouth, unlike that of his spermaceti relative, has no teeth, but instead is lined with some five or six hundred bprny plates (better known as whalebone) attached to the upper jaw and extending from the throat to the end of the narrow roof. These plates are parallel, running transversely with the sides, about onefourth of an inch apart, and terminating on the inner edge in a hairy fringe. It is these fringes that, interlacing, form the sieve or strainer through which the animal forces the water retaining within the meshes the minute food gathered as it swims along. The gullet is small; by some it is said to be too contracted to admit even a herring; but this statement Captain Davis, for obvious reasons, is not inclined to fully credit. The cavity of the mouth, when the lips are closed, exclusive of the tongue, is equal in capacity to 300 barrels, and the mass of the tongue may occupy 250 barrels, leaving about 50 barrels' capacity for a single mouthful of food-charged water. The ship Sarah Sheafe took a bow-head whale in 1857 that produced 100 barrels of oil and 3,000 pounds of bone; so it will be seen that the old formula of 10 pounds of bone to the barrel of oil does not apply to Arctic whaling. Small amounts of cut bone were sold in February, 1877, as high as $6 per pound.

       ³⁴⁴ This tongue and throat afford the most vulnerable point of attack to the killer-whales and sharks.

       ³⁴⁵ This "brit" consists of little reddish, shrimp-shaped mednsm, which occur in prodigious numbers in various parts of the ocean, where they are carried by the currents. So numerous are they that Scoresby estimates that an area of two square miles contains 23,888,000,000,000,000 individuals. These being dependent upon the action of currents for their means of locomotion, Commodore Wilkes was led to locate upon his charts those places which would necessarily become the natural feeding-grounds of the whales, and hence the localities where they would be more certainly captured.

       ³⁴⁶ In an editorial in the Nantucket Inquirer & Mirror of February 17, 1877, the difficulty of correctly ascertaining the yield of a single whale is commented on. In a busy season it is no uncommon thing for a ship to "boil out" a thousand or even two thousand barrels of oil without "cooling down," and unless the most extraordinary care was exercised it would be hard to tell where one whale's yield ended and another began. The Honolulu Friend, in 1849, reported a, whale taken by the Junior, of New Bedford, which produced 316 barrels of oil, and the same paper is the authority for the story of a whale seen by Captain Royce of the Superior, of Sag Harbor, that was so large they would not attempt his capture, because the strain on the mast in cutting in (if he was taken) would be so great. How well authenticated this story is, is not known, but unless the authority was above suspicion, the strain on one's imagination must be as disastrous as that on the mast would have been.

       ³⁴⁷ Notes on Whales and Whaling, xviii.

       ³⁴⁸ Nimrod of the Sea, Appendix A.

       ³⁴⁹ Ibid., p. 233.

       ³⁵⁰ Scoresby (ii, p. 276) relates an instance in the experience of the English wbaleship Resolution, where a whale was finally killed after a chase of nine miles, and after having carried off one boat (which was lost) and 10,440 yards or nearly six miles of line.

       ³⁵¹ P. 187. The thorough descriptions of whales, their habits, haunts, &c., given by Scammon and Davis, make extended comments unnecessary in this work.

       ³⁵² P. 177. Schools of whales containing many individuals have, even within a comparatively late period, been seen and attacked in the Indian Ocean. The fishery there extends from Cape Leeurvin to Java Head, a distance of 1,600 miles. In 1838 the American and French whalemen took at one capture off Cape Leeurvin 10,000 barrels; in 1845 the Americans in one onslaught in Champion Bay took 6,000 barrels; in 1857 the American and French fleets, while off King George's Sound, took at one time 12,000 barrels.

       ³⁵³ "The First Whale." The series is soon to be published in book-form.

       ³⁵⁴ It is sometimes the custom on whalemen for the captain to offer some reward to the man who first "raised" or discovered whales.

       ³⁵⁵ The term applied by the sailors to the captain.

       ³⁵⁶ Every man has his place.

       ³⁵⁷ Usually the cooper is also head ship-keeper while the boats are down, if the captain is in one.

       ³⁵⁸ Exciting scenes have often occurred where boats from rival ships contended for the prize, which by the law of whaling belongs to the first "fast" boat. Many years ago an English, a French, a Portuguese, and an American ship lay becalmed within a radius of a mile of each other in the South Pacific, when a whale was "raised." With a celerity peculiar to whaling, a boat from each ship was down and in pursuit. The American whaleman is the only man who attends exclusively to his own duty; the oarsmen leave it to their officers to watch the whale and only attend to getting the boat through the water. Says the boat-steerer of the American boat in his account of the race: "Placing the palm of my left hand under the abaft oar, while with my right I guided the boat, and at each stroke threw a part of my weight against it, our boat would 'skim the water like a thing of life.' A few moments from the start brought us up with the Portuguese. The crews of the different ships witnessing the chase, the excitement was tremendous. Our shipmates cheered us as we came up with the first boats and as we passed, the whale again made its appearance. Singing out to the men, 'There she blows! She's an eighty-barrel -- right ahead. Give way, my boys!' &c., we were soon alongside the Frenchman. The Frenchman was too polite to oppose us, and we passed him with ease. The English boat was now about ten rods in advance, and the whale about one and three-fourths of a mile. Now came the trial. The English boat was manned by the same number of stout, active hands as our own, and, seeing us pass the other boats, their whole strength and force was put to the oar. We gained on them but slowly, and such was the excitement of the race that we were in danger of passing over where the whale had last 'blowed.' At this moment the English boat-steerer noticed the manner in which I had placed my left hand and weight against the oar. Instantly laying hold of his own in alike manner, his first effort broke it short at the lock. Thus disabled, he gave us a hearty curse as we shot past him like a meteor. We had been so excited with the race that we had lost sight of the whale. As luck would have it, at this instant she 'blowed' but a few rods ahead. In a moment we were fast, and 'all hands stern.' * * * That whale stowed us down eighty-five barrels of oil, and shortened our voyage two months." (See The Whale and his Captors, p. 196.)

      Another international race took place once in Delago Bay. A large whale was "raised" at the same moment by an English and an American ship, about equidistant from each, and immediately the boats were down. The English, having the lead, finding the American gaining, bore wide from the whale to throw their rivals on the outside. When, however, they both came, side by side, abreast of the whale, the English inside, of course, one of the American sailors sprang from his seat and darted his harpoon directly over the English boat, planting it clear to the socket in the whale's life, and the Englishmen, hastily releasing themselves from their perilous position, left the field to their American cousins, while the shores of Delago Bay echoed with the cheere of the comrades of the victors. (N. A. Review, 1834.)

       ³⁵⁹ It sometimes happens that as the iron is thrown, the whale "bows," and the harpoon striking in the concave against what is called "slack blubber" fails to penetrate. (See Nimrod of the Sea, p. 378.)

       ³⁶⁰ Mr. Macy thinks this word may be a corruption of the obsolete verb gallow, to be found in old writers. Thus Shakespeare says, in King Lear, "The wrathful skies gallow the deep wanderers of the dark."

       ³⁶¹ Drag.

       ³⁶² In taking the second boat's line the upper end is made fast to the lower end of the line of the "fast" boat, which then becomes the "loose" one, and the second boat takes the place of the first.

       ³⁶³ In hauling in the line from a fast whale it is not recoiled in the tub, but in the boat. The utmost care is, however, necessary in this coiling, for if occasion demands it must run out as freely the second time as from the tub.

       ³⁶⁴ It sometimes happens that it is desirable to draw up alongside the whale while fast to him, the more effectually to use the lance. This operation is thus described: "Having hauled as well forward as the position of the harpoon will admit, the boat-header reaches over the bows, and, taking hold of the line forward of the chocks, brings it around outside the boat, then giving it into the hands of the bow-oarsman, who has faced forward on his thwart. Now, as the man hauls on the line, the direction of strain is oblique, well back on the bow, and the course of the boat becomes parallel with that of the whale a few feet distance from him. The boat-header then has his chance to ply the lance with deadly effect. If the harpoon is well forward of the hump of the whale, the boat will run in comparative safety, as the strokes of the tail will be behind the boat, and the swing of the jaw in front. As long as the whale continues running in a straight course on the surface, the persistent boat will cling behind his fin as a bull-dog will to the nose of an ox. His only escape is to run deep, or, by suddenly milling or turning, to bring the boat in reach of jaws or flukes. The duty of the bow-oarsman is arduous when the whale is running fast, or there is a high sea. By his own strength he must keep the boat in its position, though drenched with the flying spray from the bow. Should the strain wrench the wet line through his burned hands, the blessings of the excited boat-header are poured oil his head with a vigor heard only in the rushing hiss of this "Nantucket sleigh-ride."' (Nimrod of the Sea, p. 142.)

       ³⁶⁵ The head rises and falls, and the flukes strike the surface in rapid succession. With great force it will rapidly swiiu in a large circle, sometimes passing two or three times around, and then closing the circuit by rolling on its side, dead. This is termed the "flurry," and the ending of the tragedy is "fin out." (Nimrod of the Sea, p. 177.) The food of the sperm whale consists principally of squid, and in the agonies of his "flurry" he often throws up immense pieces of undigested food, pieces half as large as a whale-boat are frequently seen, and these seem to be mere fragments of the immense marine monster to which they formerly belonged. Mr. Joseph Swain, of Nantucket, relates an instance where a piece of shark several feet long was similarly vomited up in the death-struggle of a sperm whale.