340 THE ISLAND OF NANTUCKET. 



portion of Nantucket's fleet of forty-six whale ships was 

 then at sea. The first of the fleet , captured was the 

 schooner " Mount Hope"; in rapid succession came the 

 tidings of the capture of ship after ship, until one half 

 of the number, besides smaller vessels, had fallen a 

 prey to British cruisers. Some were taken on the 

 return voyage within sight of the island. The miseries 

 and deprivations of the Revolution were repeated; the 

 same struggle for existence was maintained against the 

 same terrible odds. In February, 1815, came the tid- 

 ings of peace, and again our islanders essayed to restore 

 their shattered fortunes. The first vessel to return to 

 any port in the United States with a cargo of oil after 

 the last war was the sloop " Mason's Daughter," which 

 after a six- weeks' voyage returned to Nantucket on the 

 9th of July, 1815, with one hundred barrels of oil. 



Recovery from these disasters of 1812-15 was rapid. 

 In December, 1820, Nantucket possessed a fleet of 

 seventy-two whale ships (aggregating 20,449 tons), 

 besides brigs, schooners, and sloops. 



In 1819 occurred the accident to the ship " Essex" 

 of Nantucket, which has always been accounted one 

 of the most singular and direful that has ever happened 

 to a whaling vessel. An enraged sperm whale attacked 

 and sunk her, and the crew were obliged to make a 

 journey of three months' duration and about 2,000 

 miles in extent in frail, shattered whale boats. But 

 eight of the crew of twenty men survived to tell of 

 the terrible perils and privations of their voyage.* 



*Of those eight men, Capt. Thomas G. Nickerson of iN'an- 

 tucket, who keeps a boarding house on the corner of North and 

 Chester Streets, is the only one now surviving. 



