220 HISTORY AND METHODS OP THE FISHERIES. 



chants and ship-owners of Nantueket were not deemed competent as business men until they 

 became familiar, by actual experience, with every detail of the fishery ; and. according to u Miriam 

 Coffin," so strong were the prejudices against any man who was not a whale-fishermau, that the 

 daughters of Nantucket formed an organization of " female Freemasons," and refused to marry a 

 man who had not first killed his whale.* 



The New England fleet at this time was manned almost exclusively by American-born citizens. 

 Crews for the New Bedford vessels were made up from neighboring towns. Capt. Isaiah West, 

 now eighty-six years of age, tells me that he remembers when he picked his crew within a radius 

 of 60 miles of New Bedford ; that oftentimes he was acquainted, either personally or through 

 report, with the social standing or business qualificalions of every man on his vessel ; and also 

 that he remembers the first foreigner, an Irishman, that shipped with him, the circumstance 

 being commented upon at that time as a remarkable one. 



The Provincetown vessels are engaged exclusively in the Atlantic fishery, and consequently 

 the natives of the numerous islands of the Pacific Ocean are seldom found in this fleet. The main 

 dependence is placed upon Portuguese! from the Cape Verdes and Azores, and a small percentage 

 of white men from Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. Occasionally an Irishman 

 is shipped. Probably about one-fourth of the Provincetown crews is composed of Americans. The 

 crews shipped at San Francisco are composed of negroes, Mexicans, Kanakas, and Americans, and, 

 rarely, an Indian from Cape Flattery. 



DISCIPLINE ON THE VESSELS. There is a certain kind of relaxed discipline on all whaling- 

 vessels; for, as might be expected from the character and morale of the present crews, if the cap- 

 tain once " looses his grip on his men," the voyage will result in a failure. Manacles and handcuffs 

 are usually carried, though seldom used, the captains preferring in all cases to rule and govern 

 their men by moral suasion. Occasionally, however, it may be necessary to iron an insubor- 

 dinate, pugilistic, or drunken man. He is then placed in the run of the vessel, or between decks 

 in the blubber room, and kept on bread and water until willing to comply with the rules of the 



"The author of Miriam Coffin, iu continuation of his remarks in regard to Freemasonry upon the island of Nan- 

 tucket, says: 



" It was never fairly understood what were the secret obligations of these female Masons ; and it was even doubted 

 whether they had any 'secrets worth knowing,' inasmuch as DO important operations, either of good or evil tendency, 

 were known to be put in practice in the little town of Sherburne [Nantucket], or to disturb the world at large. This 

 much, however, came afterwards to be divulged: an obligation, if not under the solemnity of an oath or affirmation, 

 was at least assumed by the novitiate under the charge of the officiating mistress, that she would favour the courageous 

 whale-fisherman, under every circumstance, in preference to a stranger and a landsman, if the alternative should 

 ever occur. The letter and the spirit of this charge were for a long time pertinaciously adhered to by the unmarried 

 members; and some of them were known to carry it so far as to make it a sine qua non in permitting the addresses of 

 their suitors, that they should have struck their whale, at least, before the smallest encouragement would be given 

 or a favouring smile awarded as the earnest of preferment. 



''It has been shrewdly suspected that the chivalric ordeal, thus enforced by the fair maidens of the isle, was set on 

 foot by some of the patriotic whale-fishermen and oil merchants of the place, in order to perpetuate a nursery of 

 peculiar seamen ; while in doing so, they were sure to secure valorous husbands, and a certain competency for "their 

 daughters, as well as a monopoly of the trade to the island. The intermarriage of so many whale-li.sliermen with the 

 daughters of whale-fishermen, until almost all the inhabitants did, in reality, claim near relationship, and call each 

 ' cousin,' at all events would seem to point that way, and to favour the presumption. Certain it is, that the daughters 

 of some of the wealthiest men of the island had already formed a compact not to accept the addresses of sighing swains, 

 much less to enter into the holy bonds of matrimony with any but such as had been on a voyage, and could produce 

 ample proof of successfully striking a whale." Miriam Coffin, or The JVhale-Finlirrmi'n, pp. 57, 58. 



tThe Portuguese are gaining a foothold on some parts of the eastern coast. Through an increasing importation 

 by whaling-vessels, they are becoming quite numerous in New Hertford, and have quartered themselves in one sec- 

 tion of the city which is known as "I-'ayal." Some of them are property-holders, and make good citizens, and, like 

 the true negro, believe in the unfailing powers of conjuration. The Cape Cod Portuguese usually engage iu the cod 

 fishery, and as they find this branch of industry remunerative, they rarely ship as whalemen again, unless they do so 

 purposely to invite a difficulty with an officer at sea and to seek redress at Ihe end of the voyage, the law for the pro- 

 tection of seamen being very stringent. 



