ECONOMIC SOCIAL 129 



averaged rather better wages than in cod- 

 fishing or the merchant service. 1 



After 1796 the seal fishery was carried on 

 quite extensively, chiefly from New Haven. 

 It was closely allied to the East India and 

 China trade, and like that was a trade for 

 rich men. It appealed to the young and 

 venturesome, and in many cases young 

 captains, without chart, chronometer or 

 sextant, 2 sailed to the Falkland Islands, 



1 The "lay" varied from fa for the captain to T ^ for 

 the boys. In some cases the owner furnished the ship 

 and supplies and took three fifths of the proceeds. The 

 following is the settlement of the "Sea Lion," which 

 arived in port June, 1807, after a two years' cruise. The 

 captain received $2070, the first mate $1381 and the men 

 averaged four to six hundred dollars each. Mass. 

 Hist. Coll., vol. Ill, series ii, p. 29. 



2 The Naval Chronicles for 1810, p. 325, give an inter- 

 esting account of the condemnation of an American vessel 

 in the Danish courts, at that time under the influence of 

 Napoleon, because, as the judges reasoned, the lack of 

 a chart or sextant aboard showed that the vessel must 

 have come from England and not America. The protest 

 of the American captains then present in port shows 

 that this failure to carry chart or sextant was no unusual 

 thing. The protest was as follows: 



