J HE AMERICAN WHALE-FISHERY. 241 
Provincetown has ever been foremost with her numerous fleet of plum-puddingers, 
or, in whaling phrase, "plum-pu-dn-rs," which are small vessels, employed on 
short vo} r ages in the Atlantic Ocean. New Londoners have been, and still 
are, renowned for prosecuting the Right Whale fishery, in the rough waters 
of high latitudes, and pursuing the Sea Elephant about the forbidding shores of 
Kerguelen's Land, the Crozets, and Hurd's Islands, situated far south in the Indian 
Ocean ; and also in contending with the northern ice and snow of Davis Strait 
and Hudson's Bay, in search of the Bowhead and the White Whale. Sag Harbor 
and Stonington likewise employed many of their ships in the northern and south- 
ern Right Whale fishery ; and New Bedford, in the course of her absorption of the 
greater portion of the whaling commerce of the United States, prosecuted the 
enterprise in its various branches all over the ocean world, by availing herself of 
the services of many of the best whaling -masters and officers from other quarters, 
thus combining the highest energy and skill for the successful prosecution of the 
fishery. But, with all the judicious management of the merchants, and the unpar- 
alleled vigor and tact put forth by the seamen, our whale-fishery, as previously 
stated, has been for j'ears on the decline; and the first famous whaling-port of 
America — Nantucket — which once boasted of her hundred fine ships, has now 
disposed of her last whaler — the R. L. Barstow — at that port of recruit, Payta, 
which is as familiar to all sperm -whalemen as that of Tumbez, where they went 
for supplies of sweet potatoes, after obtaining their onions at the former place. 
Sag Harbor, which in 1850 had twenty -three whalers, the majority of which were 
of large class, now has only two small brigs, which are employed on the Atlantic. 
Stonington, Mystic, Greenport, Warren, Gold Spring, Seppican, Wareham, Fall 
River, Falmouth, Holmes' Hole, Providence, Newport, Lynn, Quincy, Mattapoisett, 
Yarmouth, and Somerset, altogether mustered, in 1850, a fleet of ninety- two sails; 
but, according to the Whalemen's Shipping List, published at New Bedford, February 
4th, 1873, there is not a single vessel engaged in whaling from any one of those 
ports. Of the forty -eight vessels comprising the New London fleet of 1850, there 
are left on the list of February 4th, 1873, only twenty. Fairhaven, in 1850, had 
forty -six whaling -vessels, of which only five are retained in the business. Prov- 
incetown's squadron of Atlantic cruisers, in 1850, numbered sixteen vessels, which 
tonnaged in the aggregate 1,871 tons; it had in February, 1873, nineteen vessels, 
whose capacity amounted to 1,561 tons. Bdgartowu, in 1850, had five large 
whalers in the Pacific, and one brig in the Atlantic ; in 1873, only three remained, 
two of which were in port ; and Westport, which had a squadron of fifteen vessels 
in 1850, now (1873) has only eight. The great fleet of New Bedford, in 1850, num- 
Mabtne Mammals. —31. 
