VI 



THE WAR OF 1812 



AT THE beginning of the war of 1812, virtually all the 

 /V whaling fleets of our American towns were in commission, 

 many vessels were at sea, and a number had sailed on long 

 voyages to the Pacific. Now the average whaler was built 

 for capacity rather than for speed, and the business of whaling 

 required vessels to cruise for long periods, on the whaling 

 grounds where, until news of war reached them and rendered 

 them wary, an enterprising frigate or privateer could be reason- 

 ably certain of finding them in considerable numbers. Hence 

 American whalemen presented a broad mark for British attack, 

 and many of them were taken. 



Those that learned of the war in time to run for cover lay 

 idle in port; and although Captain David Porter and Lieutenant 

 Commandant John Downes recaptured somxe of those which fell 

 into British hands, the British destroyed most of them, or used 

 them as transports. As happened during the Revolutionary 

 War, whaling out of American ports came virtually to an end ; 

 the people of Nantucket, face to face with destitution when the 

 one industry on which their livelihood depended was threat- 

 ened, and therefore keeping up their whaling in spite of all 

 odds, lost twenty-three out of forty-six vessels. 



The one spectacular incident of wide importance, so far as 

 whaling is concerned, was the cruise of the Essex. She had 

 been a British whaler and had been taken as a prize, then 

 armed and converted as an American cruiser. Captained by 

 David Porter, and with John Downes as second in command, 

 she sailed from the Delaware on October 28, 1812, to join, at St. 

 Jago or at Fernando de Noronha, Commodore Bainbridge, who 

 had sailed from Boston two days earlier with the Constitution 



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