220 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [16] 



visit, immediately dispatched two fri^^ates from Spain to prevent their 

 whaling around the shores or near the coast of Chili or Peru. Several 

 captures were made an<l carried into port as lawful prizes, among which 

 was the Beaver,* Paul Worth, of Nantucket. 



After some detention and a great deal of negotiation she was released 

 and arrived home in 1793, with a full cargo of sperm oil. 



I must not forget to relate that in one of the interviews William Eotch 

 had with George III, Pitt, and Lord Hawkesbury, upon the fishing 

 privileges, and in which Mr. Eotch strongly urged the admission of 

 twenty ships from Nantucket, with all their outfits, free of duty, the 

 King demanded of Rotch what equivalent he expected to give if he was 

 granted all the boons he asked for : "J am going to give thy Majesty the 

 young men from my native isle,''' was the answer received by his Imperial 

 Highness from the sturdy old Quaker republican, and sure enough, in 

 time, London saw a host of them. 



One more fact and I am done. The first ship to cross the equator to 

 the southern hemisphere was the Amazon, commanded by Capt. Uriah 

 Bunker, who obtained a full ship, and anchored at Nantucket bar April 

 19, 1775, the day on which the battle of Lexington was fought.. 



These notes are not given with the idea that they make a complete 

 history of the whale fishery. A hundred volumes could be written and 

 a hundred writers might spend their lives in weaving the halo of romance 

 about these ships and their commanders, and make stories to which those 

 of the Pilot, the Phantom ship, and Sinbad the Sailor are as children's 

 prattle. Then the half would not have been told of this gigantic 

 undertaking, which required so much capital, so much skill and daring, 

 which sent ships into every sea, even into the ends of the earth, ships 

 manned by a set of heroes who braved every danger and suffered i very 

 hardship. These notes are given here as simple facts, in order to res- 

 cue them from that oblivion and forgetfulness to which they might else 

 be consigned, and for the benefit of those who take an interest in the 

 noble men who go down to the sea in ships. 



January 16, 1883. 



* This ship was the namesake of the one which assisted in making the brew of 

 fragrant bohea, whose fumes wafted across, the Atlantic, set the nerves of all Europe 

 a tingle, as well as our own, only, however, by putting it overboard. 



