34 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



and bear off whatever camein their way that they were able to take care of. 

 Such a raid was made in the middle of the summer of 1744. One Captain 

 Eoach, in a veaeel from Cape Cod, arrived in Boston and reported that 

 on the 24th of June, just before night, being in a sloop from Nantucket 

 for Boston, with a cargo of 330 barrels of oil, the weather being calm 

 and his vessel somewhat in advance of the others, another sloop came 

 up showing but few men on deck and hoisting the English flag. 

 Captain Roach, suspecting in spite of her appearance that she was an 

 enemy, and being only about two miles from the shore, took out the 

 most necessary things, and, putting them into his boat, escaped with 

 his crew to the shore. As soon as the pursuer found the sloop was 

 abandoned, he sent a boat of armed men to her, took possession of her, 

 and carried her off. The same vessel, which proved to be a French 

 privateer, took in September several coasting and merchant vessels and 

 one Nantucket whaling- vessel, and landed many of her prisoners on the 

 island of Nantucket.* 



The facts in regard to whaling at Salem and vicinity from 1700 to 

 1750 are very meager. Undoubtedly the business was carried on all 

 through this section in the early part of 1700 in a small way. In 1700 

 John Higginson writes concerning the business there and at other por- 

 tions of the coast : " We have a considerable quantitie of whale oil and 

 bone for exportation." t Again, in 1706, he writes to a friend in Ips- 

 wich, as one concerned with others in boats engaged in whaling. 

 Here, as elsewhere, there were drift- whales, and in 1722-'23 public | 

 notices are given to claimants to prove in courts of admiralty their 

 rights in two such cases.§ In August, 1723, a drift-whale is advertised 

 in the Boston News-Letter as ashore at Marblehead, and the usual 

 notice of court is appended. 



Whether Boston was at this period a participant in this pursuit is 

 difiBcult to determine. V arious reasons tended to make that port the 

 factor of the colony in that regard. Vessels from the whole colony 

 cleared from there to go to the northward whaling, while those from 

 Nantucket, the Vineyard, and the south shore of the cape pursued their 

 southern voyages along the edge of the Gulf Stream to the Leeward and 

 Cape de Verde Islands under clearances from Newport, R. I. In the 

 absence of the custom-house records of Boston prior to 1770, || it is im- 

 possible to determine which of the numerous clearances and entries are 

 whalemen, and equally impossible to determine to what port they be- 

 longed. Referring to the files of the colonial gazettes of this period, 



*" Boston News-Letter. 



+ Felt's Salem, ii, p. 225. 



X Ibid. 



§ Ibid. 



II The Boston papers of December 12, 1707, state that a whale 40 feet long entered 

 that harbor and several whale-boats pursued and Icilled her near the back of Noddle's 

 .Island. The logical inference is that they had whaling craft and boats ready for in- 

 -etantuse and men skilled in handling them. 



