94 WHALING 



house. In 1853 aged Captain Coffin Whipply, who had lost 

 two vessels, one in 1796, the other in 1798, was dependent on 

 charity. 



The 25,000,000 francs that France, by the treaty concluded on 

 July 4, 1831, agreed to pay the United States, was enough to 

 pay for about a fifth of the damage she had done, and there 

 was a further delay of five years before we succeeded in col- 

 lecting even that. 



During the period when French privateers were plundering 

 our shipping, the alliance between France and Spain, which 

 made it possible for French vessels to use Spanish ports and 

 islands as bases, caused further disasters to our whalemen by 

 stimulating Spanish privateersmen to emulate the French. 

 In January, 1799, the Nantucket ship Commerce, Captain 

 Amaziah Gardner, ran afoul the Spaniards at St. Mary's, who 

 sorely misused the captain, the mate, and a boat's crew; the 

 ship Maryland, Captain Liscomb, of New York, on a whaling 

 and sealing voyage, sufi'ered the double miisfortune of falling 

 first into the hands of the Spaniards at St. Mary's, who abused 

 them barbarously, and then into the hands of a French pri- 

 vateersman, who robbed the ship of 2,000 sealskins. 



A French privateer, the Reliance, captured the ship Nancy, 

 Captain Swain, of New Bedford, which sailed February 12, 

 1798, on a whaling voyage to Desolation, whither no American 

 vessel and only one English vessel had preceded her; the United 

 States brig Eagle recaptured her. In 1799, a French privateer 

 captured the ship Rebecca, Captain Andrew Gardner, of New 

 Bedford. This ship an English vessel recaptured, and claiming 

 half the value of vessel and cargo as salvage, sent her into Nova 

 Scotia. 



Every turn of European politics affected the fortunes of our 

 whalem.en in the years between the Revolution and the War 

 of 1812; each brief season of prosperity came to a disastrous 

 end. There are few records of personal adventure during those 

 years. We know little or nothing about most of the m.en who 

 officered and sailed the v/haling fleets. But they worried along, 

 somehow or other, and with inextinguishable hope went back 



