WHALING IN THE COLONIES 33 



And these vessels brought into port during the course of a 

 year approximately 45,000 barrels of sperm oil, 8,500 barrels 

 of whale oil, and 75,000 pounds of whalebone/*^ 



Such figures as these, together with the spirit of daring 

 enterprise which they indicated, caused Edmund Burke to 

 exclaim, during the course of his well-known speech on Amer- 

 ican affairs, delivered in Parliament in 1774: "Look at the 

 manner in which the New England people carry on the whale 

 fishery. . . . We learn, that while some of them draw the 

 line or strike the harpoon on the coast of Africa, others run 

 the longitude, and pursue their gigantic game along the coast 

 of Brazil. No sea, but what is vexed with their fisheries — 

 no climate that is not witness of their toils." 



10 Starbuck, A., "History of the American Whale Fishery," p. 57. 



