FOREWORD. XIX 



Such whaling vessels as were not captured were mostly 

 burned at the wharf. The British destroyed all shore 

 works — storehouses and try-furnaces. Out of her fleet 

 of 150 vessels, Nantucket lost 134 captured and 15 

 wrecked. Meanwhile, England with her stolen Nantucket 

 whalemen, was able to carry on a very valuable whale 

 fishery on the coast of Brazil. Of a fleet of seventeen ves- 

 sels reported in this fishery "all the officers and almost all 

 the men were Americans from Nantucket and Cape Cod, 

 except two or three from Rhode Island and perhaps one 

 from Long Island" ! Over 1200 Nantucket men either lost 

 their lives or were taken prisoners before the Kevolution 

 came to an end. 



In the face of all this, one wants to take off one's hat 

 to the plucky little ship "Bedford" from Nantucket, which 

 was the first vessel to display the thirteen rebellious stripes 

 of America in a British port after peace had been declared. 



Pluck could not save the Nantucket whaling. The 

 British put a duty of eighteen pounds a ton on "rebel" oil, 

 which effectually closed the English market. Moreover, 

 during the war, when fishing was impossible, the Ameri- 

 cans had been forced to find substitutes for whale-oil lamps, 

 among other things, tallow candles. Hence the home mar- 

 ket was slack. Moreover, poor fellows, their very success 

 in catching whales (the monsters had grown less timid 

 during the war when not pursued, and had multiplied), 

 served to glut the market and depress prices. In despair 

 a goodly number of Nantucket men emigrated to France, 

 to Nova Scotia, and even to England The island still 

 regards them as a parcel of renegades, to take the best 

 whaling blood of America to foreign ports. 



Between the Kevolution and the War of 1812 came a 

 period of great depression in the whaling industry. With 



