Nantucket in the War of the Revolution 93 



All the officers and almost all the men belonging 

 to these seventeen vessels are Americans from 

 Nantucket and Cape Cod in Massachusetts, 

 excepting two or three from Rhode Island and per- 

 haps one from Long Island." 



A list of twenty American captains of British 

 whalers, as obtained from the officers of three of 

 the whalers that had been captured by French 

 cruisers, was added to the communication. Six- 

 teen of the twenty were from Nantucket. 



The commissioners suggested the sending of a 

 French frigate to the Brazil coast to gather in 

 that whaling fleet. Adams wrote home urging 

 that an American frigate or sloop be sent to the 

 same coast. In this letter he said: 



"Whenever an English man-o'-war or privateer 

 has taken an American vessel, they have given 

 the whalemen among the crew, by order of gov- 

 ernment, their choice either to go on board a 

 man-of-war and fight against their country, or go 

 into the whale fisheries. Such numbers have 

 chosen the latter as have made up the crews of 

 these seventeen vessels." 



There is no record of any attack upon this 

 British fishery. 



