HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN WHALE FISHERY. 119 



ooats became separated ; that one and then another of the mate's crew 

 became enfeebled and died; that the body of the second unfortunate 

 was dismembered, the flesh cut from his bones, and served out like that 

 of an animal to his starving, raving comrades ; that when the darkness 

 of despair had settled upon their clouded, tottering minds the welcome 

 cry of "A sail" was given, and the poor wrecks of humanity still sur- 

 viving in the mate's boat were picked up, on the 17th of February, by 

 the English brig Indian, Capt. William Crozier, and treated with a 

 brotherly tenderness and humanity. 



The captain's and late second mate's boats kept together until the 

 night of the 29th of January, 1820; during the interval between the 

 separation from the mate and this time four men had died out of the 

 two boats, and their bodies furnished their comrades with their only 

 food. The captain's crew became at last reduced to the alternative of 

 drawing lots to see which should be killed to furnish sustenance to the 

 survivors. On the 23d of February, three months from the time when 

 they left their shattered ship, Captain Pollard and Charles Ramsdale, 

 the sole survivors of the boat's crew, were picked up by the ship 

 Daughin, of Nantucket, Capt. Zimri Coffin. The third boat was never 

 heard from. The three men left on Ducie's Island were afterward res- 

 cued. The number surviving in the mate's boat was three.* 



The fate of the Ann Alexander, Capt. John S. Deblois, which belonged 

 to and sailed from New Bedford June 1, 1850, was not less sudden than 

 that of the Essex, and had her crew been as far from helping hands as 

 was that of the latter ship, not even so favorable a record as the mel- 

 ancholy one of Captain Pollard and his men would have been left of 

 them, and the Ann Alexander would have been set down as one of those 

 missing ships the fate of which will be forever unknown. 



Ou the 20th of August Captaiu Deblois, having reached that whaling 

 locality known as the "Off-shore Ground,"t discovered whales at about 

 9 o'clock in the morniug. The boats were immediately lowered, and by 

 noon the mate's boat was fast to one. The whale ran a short distance, 

 and then turning rushed at the boat, seized it in his jaws, and in an 

 instant had smashed it to fragments no larger than a common chair. 

 Captain Deblois immediately hastened to the rescue, and took the mate's 

 crew into his boat, which, this being done, contained eighteen men. In 

 the mean time, the disaster having been observed from the ship, the 

 waist-boat was dispatched to assist. When she arrived the crews were 

 divided, the mate taking command of the waist and the captain con- 

 tinuing with his own (or the starboard) boat, and the attack was recoui- 



*Captain Pollard never cared to allude to the terrible privations and sufferings under- 

 gone on this occasion, and would always avoid reference to it if possible. His next 

 voyage was as captain of the ship Two Brothers, which was lost on a coral reef in the 

 Pacific while under his command. For many years Captain Pollard was on the night 

 police in Nantucket, having abandoned the sea. He was employed as a deck hand ou 

 board Fulton's lirst steamboat on the Hudson, ou some of its earliest trips. 



t Latitude 5° 50' couth, longitude 102° west. 



