374 The Story of the New England Whalers 



obeying the natural impulses of humanity, bore 

 down for the burning craft to save the lives they 

 believed to be endangered. Thus were captured 

 and burned by the Alabama the ships Benjamin 

 Tucker, Osceola, Virginia, and Elisha Dunbar, of 

 New Bedford; Ocean, of Sandwich; Alert, of 

 New London, and schooners Altamaba, of Sippi- 

 can, and Weather Gage, of Provincetown, all of 

 whom, attracted by the burning of the Ocean 

 Rover, of Mattapoisett, hastened to rescue the 

 shipmates whose lives they believed to be im- 

 perilled." 



Semmes' story of the burning of the Ocean 

 Rover is entirely different from that told by Star- 

 buck, and it may be given here not only as a 

 matter of justice to Semmes, but because it de- 

 scribes in an interesting way the destruction of 

 a number of the whaling fleet. Semmes says, in 

 Memoirs of Service Afloat, p. 431 : 



"Later in the afternoon we chased a large ship, 

 looming up almost like a frigate, in the north- 

 west, with which we came up about sunset. We 

 had showed her the American colors, and she 

 approached us without the least suspicion that 



