THE WHALK FISHERY. 115 



immediately boarded 'their prize, released the mate, and carried the ship to New Providence, where 

 a bounty of $2,500 was allowed them for the capture and where the chief of the mutineers was 

 hanged."* 



SUPERIOR SEAMANSHIP OF AMERICAN WHALEMEN. "About this time Dr. Benjamin 

 Franklin, being in London, was questioned by the merchants there respecting the difference in 

 time between the voyages of the merchantmen to Rhode Island and the English packets to New 

 York. The variation, which was something like fourteen days-,- was a source of much annoyance 

 to the English merchants, and believing the place of destination might have something to do with 

 it, they seriously contemplated withdrawing the packets from New York and dispatching them to 

 Rhode Island. In this dilemma they consulted Dr. Franklin. A Nantucket captain, named Fol- 

 ger,t who was a relative of the doctor's, being then in London, Franklin sought his opinion. 

 Captain Folger told him that the merchantmen were commanded by men from Khode Island who 

 were acquainted with the Gulf Stream and the effect of its currents, and in the passage to America 

 made use of this knowledge. Of this the English captains were ignorant, not from lack of repeated 

 warnings, for they had been often told that they were stemming a current which was running at 

 the rate of 3 miles an hour, and that if the wind was light the stream would set them back 

 faster than the breeze would send them ahead, but they were too wise to be advised by simple 

 American fishermen, and so persevered in their own course at a loss of from two to three weeks on 

 every trip. By 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 present day. 'The Nantucket whalemen,' says Frankliu,J 'being 

 extremely well acquainted with the Gulph Stream, its course, strength, and extent, by their con- 

 stant 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 London for the benefit of navigators by B. Franklin.' 



"Notwithstanding this information so kindly volunteered to them, and notwithstanding the 

 fact that the Falmouth captains were furnished with the new charts, they still persisted in 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-sufficient captains had about attained that point." 



Loss OF AMERICAN WHALING VESSELS. "In 1772 two whaling sloops from Nantucket, 

 with 150 barrels of oil each, were captured by a Spanish brig and sloop off Matanzas. In Decem- 

 ber of the same year, the brig Leviathan, Lathrop, sailed from Khode 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 fourteen 

 being reported as coming from that ground, and probably there were as many more of whom no 



" * Boston News-Letter." 



" t Works of Franklin, iii, p. 353. Probably Capt. Timothy Folger, a man who was prominent for many years in 

 the history of Nantucket." 



" } Works of Franklin, iii, p. 364. In a note Franklin says : ' The Nantncket captains, who are acquainted with 

 this stream, make their voyages from England to Boston in as short a time generally as others take in going from 

 Boston to England, 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." 



" $ In May, 1770, according to the Boston News-Letter, no less than nineteen vessels cleared from Rhode Island, 

 whaling. The Post-Boy for October 14, 1771, is responsible for the following: 'We learn from Edgartown that a 

 vessel lately arrived there from a whaling voyage, and in her voyage, one Marshall Jenkins, with others, being in a 

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

 ranch bruised, and in a fortnight after lie perfectly recovered. This account we have from undoubted authority.'" 



