10 THE AMERICAN WHALEMAN 



fishing banks, and that the towns of Massachusetts Bay pos- 

 sessed a larger and more accessible hinterland which gave 

 them marked advantages in the mercantile pursuits. But 

 neither Nantucket nor New Bedford was able to boast of any 

 marked natural features which were peculiarly adapted to the 

 pursuit of whales, unless the absence of any easier means of 

 livelihood might have been so construed. 



The niggardliness of nature, however, was offset by the 

 character of the people. Whaling demanded an unusual com- 

 bination of qualities on the part of those followers who would 

 succeed in itj and the Quaker-Puritan- Yankee stock of south- 

 ern New England, through training, temperament, and cul- 

 tural environment, possessed these traits in rare degree. The 

 catalogue was a long and mixed one. Courage, hardihood, 

 skill, thrift carried to the point of parsimony, shrewdness, stub- 

 born perseverance, ingenuity, sturdy independence, a cold lack 

 of squeamishness in driving bargains, and a righteous scorn for 

 luxuries, — these were characteristics, partly admirable, partly 

 unpleasant, which rendered yeoman service to their possessors 

 in the whaling industry. And these were amongst the qual- 

 ities, inculcated by the philosophy of Quaker and Puritan 

 forbears and modified by several generations of struggle with 

 a niggardly and often hostile New World environment, which 

 characterized the Nantucket and New Bedford whalemen who 

 carried whaling to its highest point. 



Beyond doubt it was true, of course, that the rise and fall 

 of whaling was due to the operation of fundamental economic 

 forces which created or withheld a demand for its products. 

 When this demand was heavy and increasing, the industry 

 waxed and grew prosperous: when the demand fell off per- 

 manently, the industry waned and died. But the fact that 

 leadership in supplying the required products passed into the 

 hands of Nantucket and New Bedford, rather than of New 

 York or Charleston or New Orleans or even Boston, must be 

 attributed in no small degree to the character and background 

 of the inhabitants. 



The further specialization which took place within the gen- 

 eral field of whaling was probably due to minor causes rooted 

 in the realm of historical accident. Whatever the original 



