In 1854, on hearing that war had broken out, a few French ships painted their sterns with American names to avoid capture; the following year the British war steamer "Barracouta" ordered an American whaleship out of Ayan. In May 1865, the Confederate raider "Shenandoah" captured and burned the ship "Abigail" (310 tons), of New Bedford, off western Kamchatka; two ships, on learning of her depredations, hid at the head of a bay. Russian cruisers also seized or ordered away foreign whaleships in the sea in 1867, 1875, 1885, and 1892.