128 CAPTAIN ZACHARY G. LAMSON 



nage in the two years remained the same, 

 Nantucket in 1811 must have employed 

 about fourteen hundred men in her whaling 

 fleet. New Bedford at this time is supposed 

 to have had as large a whale fishing fleet 

 as Nantucket, and Dennis, Yarmouth, 

 Wellfleet, Harwich and Provincetown each 

 sent out a few whalers, while Boston owned 

 quite a number. Norwich, New Haven 

 and New London, Connecticut, did some 

 whaling, and a few vessels from Rhode 

 Island and New York were similarly en- 

 gaged. If all the vessels built for and 

 usually employed as whalers were in ser- 

 vice in 1811, more than three thousand men 

 would have been engaged in this pursuit. 

 According to Tower, however, in his lately 

 published "History of the American Whale 

 Fishery," the whole whaling tonnage of the 

 country in 1811 only amounted to 5299 

 tons, which on the ratio we have used would 

 indicate some 750 men as the number em- 

 ployed in that industry. The seamen on a 

 whaling vessel were paid by the lay and 



