THE REVOLUTION 85 



when she sailed by. But those who navigated the sloop were 

 fully alive to these purposes, and as she neared the ship her 

 course was suddenly changed and she swept by on the other 

 side and was out of range of the guns before the buccaneers 

 could recover from their surprise and reshift and retrain their 

 cannon. The sloop stood upon her course till they were out of 

 sight of the ship, then tacking, the signal agreed with the boat- 

 swain was set and she steered boldly for the corsair. As she 

 hove in sight, the pirates, recognizing the sign, and believing an 

 armed force from the man-of-war was on board the whahng 

 vessel, fled precipitately to the shore, where they were speedily 

 apprehended on their character being known. The whalemen 

 immediately boarded their prize, released the mate, and carried 

 the ship to New Providence, where a bounty of $2,500 was 

 allowed them for the capture and where the chief of the muti- 

 neers was hanged."^ 



In spite of oppression and pirates, whaling as an American 

 industry had grown and prospered until the Revolution, but 

 when the war broke out, it came virtually to an end. A vessel 

 that put to sea was almost sure to be captured, and if by adroit 

 management, uncommon speed, or God's compassion she es- 

 caped capture, she could reach no foreign market with her oil. 

 Lost vessels, raided ports, plundered warehouses, were the har- 

 vest of those years. Nantucket, hardest hit, because most de- 

 pendent upon her whaling fleets, struggled desperately against 

 starvation. For a time the Islanders succeeded in using some 

 of their vessels in trading with the West Indies — oil, candles, 

 fish, and lumber for such cargoes as salt and molasses — but the 

 growing privateer fleets, which the British sent out as soon as 

 they had seized American ports, soon put an end to even this. 

 Some of their prisoners enlisted in the British Navy, for there 

 were Tories by sea as well as by land ; some officered and manned 

 a whaling fleet of seventeen vessels for the coast of Brazil ; some 

 burrowed out of prisons; and some, who came home from the 

 prison ships, brought back from Old England to the whaling 

 ports of New England, grim stories of vermin, hunger, and death. 



^Alexander Starbuck. History of the American Whale Fishery, p. 55. 



