TlIE WHALE FISIIKIIV. 



105 



to one a bounty and requiring of another a duty for (lie same service. They, however, ask for no 

 bounty they are content that Great Britain should alone receive the benefit of that but they 

 simply desire that they should not be taxed with ;i duty on these imports."* 



ENGLISH BOUNTY ABOLISHED. "The knowledge that the English fishery, even with its 

 bounty, was still unable to fully cope with the Dutch, or even to supply its own home demand, as 

 well as the desire of Earl Grenville to forward certain projects in his American policy, notably the 

 odious stamp tax, caused some attention to be paid to petitions similar to the foregoing, fortified 

 somewhat by the presence of a special agent from Massachusetts to sustain the position and urge 

 the claims there made. To various sections various tenders were to be made. 'The boon that 

 was to mollify Now England,' says Bancroft,! 'was concerted with Israel Mauclit, acting for bis 

 brother, the agent of Massachusetts, and was nothing less than the whale-fishery. Great Britain 

 had sought to compete with the Dutch in that branch of industry ; had fostered it by bounties ; 

 had relaxed even the act of navigation, so as to invite even the Dutch to engage in it from British 

 ports iu British shipping. But it was all in vain. Grenville gave up the unsuccessful attempt, 

 and sought a rival for Uolland in British America, which had hitherto lain under the double dis- 

 couragement of being excluded from the benefit of a bounty, | and of having the products of its 

 whale-fishing taxed unequally. He now adopted the plan of gradually giving up the bounty to 

 the British whale fishery, which would be a saving of 30,000 a year to the treasury, and of reliev- 

 ing the American fishery from the inequality of the discriminating duty, except the old subsidy, 

 which was scarcely 1 per cent. This is the most liberal act of Grenville's administration, of which 

 t lie merit is not diminished by the fact that the American whale-fishery was superseding the English 

 under every discouragement. It required liberality to accept this result as inevitable, and to 

 favor it. It was doue, too, with a distinct conviction that 'the American whale-fishery, freed from 

 its burden, would soon totally overpower the British.' So this valuable branch of trade, which 

 produced annually 3,000 pounds, and which would give employment to many shipwrights and 

 other artificers, and to three thousand seamen, was resigned to America." 



EFFECTS OF WAR. "With the people of Nantacket every foreign war meant a diminution 

 of their whaling fleet, for there is scarcely any risk that whalemen have not and will not run in 

 pursuit of their prey. During the years 1755 and 1756 six of their vessels had been lost at sea 

 and six more were taken by the French and burned, together with their cargoes, while the crews 



' * Ma. Col. MSS., Maritime, vol. vii, p. 243. Tbe coacludiiig portion of this petition, including tbe signatures, is 

 missing, a fact, greatly to bo regretted, as it would be extremely interesting to know who tbe prominent oil-merchants 

 of tbat time were. The following is the statement of imports of oil ami bone from the colonies into England and 

 from Holland to the same country, which accompanied the petition: 



Account of Finim <f- Oil from America to England cf- Duties from Christmas 1758 to Christmas 1763. 



t Bancroft's United States, v, p. 184. 



t The bounty of 174b had evidently been legislated out of existence. 



