THE AMERICAN WHALE FISHERIES 239 



1862. The "Shipping List" for 1862, states: 

 " That Southern pirate, Semmes, has already made 

 frightful havoc with whaling vessels, and his 

 piratical ship the Alabama threatens to become 

 the scourge of the seas." This privateering con- 

 tinued throughout the war, especially by the 

 Alabama, and the Shenandoah. The latter entered 

 Behring Sea, capturing and burning twenty-five 

 whalers, taking four others for transport. 



Fifty whalers were lost in the war ; another forty 

 were purchased by the Government to form the 

 Charleston stone fleet, which was sunk in the attempt 

 to blockade Charleston harbour. The decline in 

 the whaling fleet during the Civil War was fifty per 

 cent in vessels and sixty per cent in tonnage (514 

 vessels to 263; 158,745 tons to 68,535). 



After the end of the Civil War there was a revival 

 of whaling, partly due to the prevailing high prices, 

 and San Francisco now began to take part (1869) 

 in the whaling trade, though by this time the Atlantic 

 whaling ports showed a marked and serious decline, 

 Nantucket to give one example practically 

 dropping out altogether. 



From 1869 to 1880 the rise of San Francisco as 

 a whaling port was very gradual, the number of 

 vessels averaging eight; after 1880 the growth was 

 rapid. 



The English first used steam in whalers in 1857, 

 but it was not until 1880 that the Americans adopted 

 it, when it speedily effected a revolution in Arctic 

 whaling. Prior to this, the Arctic fleet had wintered 



