[15] NOTES ON THE WHALE FISHERY. 219 



In thirteen months the Africa returned to London with 7,000 barrels 

 sperm whale and seal oil^ and 70,000 seal skins. The Brook Watson went 

 into Delago Bay, where Captain Swift was taken sick with the African 

 fever, died, and was buried ; but he did not die alone. In the bay at 

 the time were the ships Cyrus, Archelus Hammond (before mentioned), 

 Dolphin, Stephen West, and Paul West, and a host of kindly and brave 

 men performed the last sad rites for their fellow townsman, under the 

 burning tropical sun, in a strange and far-away country. The mate of 

 the Brook Watson took charge of her, sailing from Delago Bay to the 

 east of Cape of Good Hope, where he obtained 1,300 barrels of oil, ar- 

 riving safely in London, making, with this addition, Mr. Bennett the 

 richest commoner in England. He subsequently fitted out a great many 

 whalers, and there have been seen at one time (1824) at the Sandwich 

 Islands twenty of these ships, among which maybe mentioned the Eoyal 

 George, Eecovery, Daniel 4th, Lady Amherst, &c. 



The first ship that ever entered the harbor of Nantucket was the l!^ep- 

 tune, October 30, 17G5, a London packet commanded by Nathan Coffin, 

 previously mentioned. On her first voyage out she took from Nantucket 

 a load of sperm oil, consigned to Barnard & Harrison, of London. Pre- 

 vious to this date we had only brigs, schooners, and sloops, and after 

 1765 nearly all of these brigs were rigged into ships. 



The ship Barclay, which Mr. William Eotch had ordered to be built 

 while he was in France in 1793, sailed from Loudon in 1795, in command 

 of David Swain, of Nantucket, bringing Mr. Eotch as passenger to Bos- 

 ton, where she arrived after a stormy i^assage of sixty days. October 

 23, 1799, the Barclay, under command of Griffin Barney, of Nantucket, 

 sailed from New Bedford for the coast of Chili on a sealing voyage. 

 She filled with skins off St. Felix, and proceeded to Canton, China, where 

 she disposed of the skins, and returned to New Bedford with a rich 

 cargo. She was engaged in sperm whaling in the Pacific Ocean for 

 many years, after this always obtaining valuable cargoes. In 1814 she 

 was captured by the Spaniards, who nearly succeeded in taking her into 

 Callao, when the late gallant Commodore David Porter, of the frigate 

 Essex, recaptured her, cutting her out from under the guns of the forti- 

 fications of that fort, and restoring her to Captain Eandall, who was in 

 command when she was captured. She arrived safely in New Bedford 

 full of sperm oil. She was finally broken up at New Bedford in 1864. 

 When our ships first appeared off the coast of Peru, in the latter part 

 of the last century, the Spanish Government, learning the object of their 



King was prevailed upon to pardon Folger on condition that he leave England for- 

 ever, which he agreed to, and returned to Nantucket, where he died December 7, 1837. 

 The Partridge was a sister ship to La Eagle, captured from the Danes at Copenha- 

 gen in 1807. In 1824 La Eagle, in command of Capt. Valentine Starbuck, another 

 Nantucket man, took as passengers to London the king and queen of the Sandwich 

 Islands, both of whom died in Locdon of the measels. Captain Folger was a nephew 

 of Noah Pease, who for many years was a resident of London, and a successful ship- 

 master out of that ijort, in the South Seawhaling. 



