56 REPORT OP COMMISSIONER OP FISH AND FISHERIES. 



Franklin's request Captain Folger made a sketch of tbe 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 pres- 

 ent day. "The Nantucket whalemen," says Franklin,* "being extremely 

 well acquainted with the Gulph Stream, its course, strength, and extent, 

 by their constant 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 tbe 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 cap- 

 tains had about attained that point. 



In 1772 two whaling sloops from Nantucket, with 150 barrels of oil 

 each, were captured by a Spanish brig and sloop off Matauzas t In 

 December of the same year, the brig Leviathan, Lathrop, sailed from 

 Bhode 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 

 (Brothertou 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 14 being reported as coming from that ground, and 

 probably there were as many more of whom no report was made. One 

 brig from Boston, while off the coast of Sierra Leone, sent a boat ashore 

 with six men to procure water. The boat was seized and the crew all 

 massacred by the natives. In the spring of the following year a sloop 

 owned by Gideon Almy of Tiverton, and another belonging to Boston, 



* Works ot Frauklin, lii, p. 364. In a note Franklin says : " The Nantucket captains, 

 who are acquainted with th is 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 ami from England were at this 

 time and for many years after commanded by Nantucket men. 



t In May, 1870, accordiug to the Boston News-Letter, no less than 19 vessels 

 cleared from Rhode Island, whaling. The Post-Boy for October 14, 1771, is responsi- 

 ble 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 much bruised — and 

 in a fortnight after, he perfectly recovered. This account we have from undoubted 

 authority." 



t According to Macy, (p. 54,) the following are the dates of the occupation of various 

 fishing-grounds by Nautucket whalemen in addition to the Davis Strait fishery: 

 Island of Disco, 1751 ; Gulf of Saint Lawrence, 1761 ; coast of Guinea, 1763; Western 

 Islands, 1765 : east of Banks of Newfoundland, 1765 ; coast of Brazil, 1774. According 

 to a local tradition, the first Nantucket whaleman who "crossed the line," arrived 

 home from his voyage on the day of the battle of Concord and Lexington. This was 

 the brig Amazon, Uriah Bunker, commander. 



