194 A HISTORY OF THE WHALE FISHERIES 



from a French prize crew. In 1762 the Samuel of 

 Hull whilst engaged in the ordinary trade was 

 captured by the French. Subsequently there seems 

 to have been a decline, partly due to the losses aboy.e 

 enumerated, and partly to the American war (1774- 

 81) when most of the Hull whalers were taken up by 

 the Government for transport service. In 1779 

 only four whalers left Hull, and ten Whitby, all 

 well equipped with guns. 



In 1784 the Truelove, the most famous of all 

 whalers, made her first voyage as a whaler from 

 Hull. This vessel had so remarkable a career that 

 she deserves more than passing reference. She was 

 built and launched at Philadelphia, U.S.A., in 1764, 

 captured by a British cruiser in the American war 

 and sold by the Government about 1780. First 

 employed in the wine trade between Hull and 

 Oporto, she started a whaling career in 1784. She 

 survived the disastrous seasons of 1835 and 1836, 

 making her seventy-second and last whaling trip in 

 1868. 



In 1873 she made the voyage to Philadelphia, 

 where the citizens held a demonstration and 

 presented her with a flag in honour of her birth 

 there, one hundred and nine years before. Accord- 

 ing to Barren, 1 who was apprenticed in the barque 

 in 1849, the Truelove was of two hundred and 

 ninety-six tons register, and in shape much like the 

 barque in which William Penn arrived in America 

 at the time he made the treaty with the Indians, 

 1 " Old Whaling Days," Hull, 1895, 



