56 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



Franklin's request Captain Folger made a sketch of the stream, with 

 directions how to use or avoid its currents, and this sketch made over a 

 century ago is substantially the same as is found on charts of the pres- 

 ent day. "The Nantucket whalemen," says PYankliu,* "being extremely 

 well acquainted with the Gulph Stream, its course, strength, and extent, 

 by tbeir constant practice of whaling on the edges of it, from their 

 island quite down to the Bahamas, this draft of that stream was obtained 

 of one of them. Captain Folger, and caused to be engraved on the old 

 chart in Loudon for the benefit of navigators by B. Franklin." 



Jl^otwithstanding this information so kindly volunteered to them, and 

 notwithstanding the fact that the Falmouth captains were furnished 

 with the new charts, they still persisted iu sailing their old course. 

 There is a point where perseverance degenerates into something more 

 ignoble ; it would seem as though at this date these self-suflicient cap- 

 tains had about attained that point. 



In 1772 two whaling sloops from Nantucket, with 150 barrels of oil 

 each, were captured by a Spanish brig and sloop off Matanzas t In 

 December of the same year, the brig Leviathan, Lathrop, sailed from 

 Rhode Island for the Brazil Banks on a whaling voyage. On the 25th 

 of January they lowered for whales, and in the chase the mate's boat 

 (Brotherton Daggett) lost sight of the brig, but the crew were picked 

 up at sea and brought home by another vessel. 



In 1773 quite a fleet of American whalers were on the coast of Africa,| 

 no less than 14 being reported as coming from that ground, and 

 probably there were as many more of whom no report was made. One 

 brig from Boston, while off the coast of Sierra Leone, sent a boat ashore 

 with six men to procure water. The boat was seized and the crew all 

 massacred by the natives. In the spring of the following year a sloop 

 owned by Gideon Almy of Tiverton, and another belonging to Boston, 



* Works of Fraukliu, lii, p. 3(54. In a note Fnuiklia says : " Ttie Nantucket caiitains, 

 who aieacqnaiuted with th is stream, make their voyages from Eugland to Boston iu as 

 short a time geuerally as others take in going from Boston to Euglaud, viz, from twenty 

 to thirty days." Quite a number of Boston packets to and from England were at this 

 time and for many years after commanded by Nantucket men. 



t In May, 1870, according to the Boston News-Letter, no less than 19 vessels 

 cleared from Rhode Island, whaling. The Post-Boy for October 14, 1771, is responsi- 

 ble for the following : " We learn from Edgartown, that a vessel lately arrived there 

 from a whaling voyage, and in her voyage, one MarshallJenkins, with others, bijng iu 

 a boat which struck a whale, she turned and bit the boat in two, took Jenkins in her 

 mouth, and weut down with him; but on her rising threw him into one part of the 

 boat, whence he was taken on board the vessel by the crow ; being much bruised — and 

 in a fortnight after, he perfectly recovered. This account wo have from undoubted 

 authority." 



t According to Macy, (p. 54,) the following are the dates of the occupation of various 

 fishing-grounds by Nantucket whalemen in addition to the Davis Strait lishery : 

 Island of Disco, 1751 ; Gulf of Saint Lawrence, 1761 ; coast of Guinea, 1763; Western 

 Islands, 1765 : east of Banks of Newfoundland, 1765 ; coast of Brazil, 1774. According 

 to a local tradition, the first Nantucket whaleman who "crossed the line," arrived 

 home from his voyage on the day of the battle of Concord and Lexington. This was 

 the brig Amazon, Uriah Bunker, commander. 



