THE HISTORY OF WHALING IN THE AZORES 289 



empty casks on the way home after a long voyage and thereby gave rise to a famous incident of the 

 American Civil War. When three years and four months out from New Bedford she was captured and 

 burned off Flores by the Confederate cruiser Alabama. According to Starbuck (1878, p. 101) the 

 blazing vessel attracted other whaleships to her assistance, and in this way the Alabama destroyed eight 

 more Yankee whaling vessels: but Semmes, commanding the Alabama, said he had no choice but to 

 burn the ships and did not in fact use them as lures for others (Semmes, 1869, pp. 423 ff.). 



Beside these subsidiary cruises near home by the southseamen, there were vessels called ' plum- 

 puddingers', mostly schooners and small brigs, which commonly frequented the Azores. The "tween 

 seasons ' or plumpudding voyages were short, usually of not more than six months duration, and 

 confined to cruising grounds in the North Atlantic at a time when Sperm whaling voyages, mainly in 

 other seas, commonly lasted for three or four years (Melville, 1851, p. 95; Scammon, 1874, P- 2 4 x ! 

 Ashley, 1926, p. 103 ; Hohman, 1928, p. 9). The port which specialized in plumpudding voyages was 

 Provincetown, Mass., and Captain N. E. Atwood (in Clark, 1887, p. 144) records that from 1820 on- 

 wards the Azores were a favourite ground for Provincetown vessels. By the middle of the century there 

 were about 100 vessels, plumpuddingers and southseamen varying from 100 to 400 tons burden, 

 cruising annually on the Western Islands ground (Drouet, 1861 ; Faria e Silva, 1890). According to 

 Wilkes (1845, v, p. 520) the ground did not extend more than 200 miles from the islands and lay 

 principally to the south of them. Apart from a little winter whaling the season lasted from April to 

 November and Drouet states that the annual catch was about 150 whales, although this is a small 

 figure for such a fleet and does not compare with the catches of the present shore fishery carried on by 

 similar methods (Table 10). 



When the Azores and the Cape Verdes were established as cruising grounds, it became the practice 

 to call at the islands and embark the Portuguese inhabitants as recruits for the fishery. The whaleships 

 also took fresh provisions from the Azores and salt from the Cape Verde Islands (Webster, 1834, p. 18). 

 Of the Cape Verdes it may be said that comparatively few islanders were recruited in the early 

 decades: but in the last days of deep-sea whaling, between 1900 and 1920, when scarcely any nationals 

 were to be found in the forecastles of American whaleships, these 'bravas' formed the major pro- 

 portion of crews made up for the remainder of West Indians with some Azoreans. Murphy (1947), 

 who made a whaling and sealing voyage in the brig Daisy in 191 2-1 3, describes such a crew. The 

 brigantine Viola called at the Cape Verde Islands for all her foremast hands in 1910 (Cook, 1926, 

 p. 338). But I can find no reference to any shore whaling from the Cape Verdes although Sperm 

 whales certainly frequent the islands, at least in winter. It appears that the bravas as whalemen 

 passed with the whaleships. 



The islands commonly visited in the Azores were Fayal, Flores, San Miguel and Terceira. Fayal 

 was the most important because, according to Drouet, it originally provided better victuals than were 

 obtainable elsewhere. Its connexion with the whaling trade quickly prospered: Lima (1940) records 

 that 104 out of 327 vessels calling at Fayal in 1866 were whaleships. A remark by Olmsted (1841) 

 shows that by 1839 there was a United States consul appointed at Horta to look after American 

 whaling interests. It was this consul or his son who had a hand in developing the shore whale fishery 

 (p 296). The whalers called at Fayal not only for recruits and provisions but also to discharge and 

 tranship sperm oil (Clark, 1887, p. 25 ; Chippendale, i 95 3, P- 62). Drouet notes that every year four 

 or five thousand barrels of oil were transhipped at the port of Horta. In those days the harbour had no 

 breakwater and was dangerously exposed to storms and swell. Some of the transhipment trade was 

 shifted to San Miguel when a new port was constructed at Ponta Delgada. Swindells, quoting in 1877 

 from a pamphlet by the harbour engineer of Ponta Delgada, wrote : ' lately St Michaels tends to become 

 the entrepot where American whalers tranship or discharge their oil'. But the importance of San 



