One captain insisted upon washing the decks of his ship every morning, using pulverized stones instead of sand, and another, to give the fleet a warlike appearance, mounted a formidable “Quaker” gun, made from a section of a spar. A second fleet sailed later in the year, making forty-five vessels in all. Although the expedition cost the government about a quarter of a million dollars, its success was only temporary. The captain of the “Alabama” swore vengeance on New Bedford and destroyed or captured every whaler he could find, and in the “Alabama” awards that were made after the war New Bedford received a large share. Ten years later occurred the worst disaster that ever befell a whaling fleet. Thirty-four whalers were caught in the ice in the Arctic regions and sunk, and it is a curious fact that, while the loss reached one million five hundred thousand dollars, not a single human life was sacrificed. These three pictures of a series of five on the following page show the sinking of the ships, the abandonment of their vessels, which had their flags union down, and the eighty-mile sail through the ice-floes to the open sea, where twelve hundred and nineteen men, women, and children were taken home in the seven whalers that had not been lost in the ice. It must have been very crowded, as each ship had to stow away several hundred persons in addition to her own crew. There were many sad hearts as they left their vessels and almost all of their belongings, and started off in the small boats. The trip to sea and the trans-shipment in the heavy swell must have been made with the utmost care, otherwise many lives would have been sacrificed. The loss to the New Bedford owners was so tremendous that they never really recovered from the catastrophe, and many families had to economize for years after. The Swifts, Howlands, and Rotchs were among those who lost ships. On one of the vessels in the first picture of this series was a large quantity of the finest Manila cigars and also some rare Madeira wine, that had been picked up in the Philippines the year before on instructions from the ship’s owner. When the captain of this vessel reached New Bedford and reported the loss of his command, the owner’s first question, after listening to the dismal tale, was whether his cigars and wine had been saved. “All of it,” came the reply. “Where is it?” said the owner, looking more cheerful. “Well, you see, I drank the wine and Mr. Jones, the mate, he smoked the cigars, and they certainly done us both good,” replied the captain. The ship “Progress,” shown in the last picture, forms an interesting connecting link between the Stone Fleet and this 1871 disaster. [Illustration: Abandonment of the whalers in the Arctic Ocean, September, 1871. Vessels surrounded by the ice, and many of them in a sinking condition.]