PROFITS AND THE COUNTING-ROOM 281 



borne by the entrepreneur as one of his characteristic and most 

 onerous functions. The whaling merchant, however, did en- 

 joy two alleviating circumstances in the lay system, which pro- 

 portioned wages to profits, and in the possibility and not too 

 infrequent occurrence of magnificent profits. 



Whaling profits were perhaps the least stable of all the vary- 

 ing elements in this uncertain industry. Consequently con- 

 temporary estimates lacked both definiteness and agreement. 

 Lieutenant Wilkes, writing about 1843, declared that the prof- 

 its in the whale fishery had been great. Something more than 

 a decade later Lewis Holmes stated rather vaguely, in "The 

 Arctic Whaleman," that the industry as a whole was reasonably 

 profitable for the higher officers, and as tempting as any other 

 to the investor. He added that the ports which were seriously 

 engaged in whaling compared favorably with inland manufac- 

 turing and farming communities "in enterprise, wealth, educa- 

 tional appliances, and in all the comforts, and even the lux- 

 uries, of life." Alexander Starbuck, after an exhaustive 

 search amongst whaling records which ended in 1876, was able 

 to report only that profits were subject to great fluctuations, 

 and that large gains were balanced by many accidents and losses. 

 This commonplace was repeated in the mid-eighties by J. T. 

 Brown, who simply remarked that profits fluctuated widely 

 and were very uncertain. ^^ 



Such emphasis upon the variations and uncertainties of en- 

 trepreneurs' gains was fully justified by the facts. For suc- 

 cess, when it came, was sometimes as enriching as failure was 

 ruinous. Unusual good fortune might attend not only the 

 conduct of a single voyage, as already shown, but also the op- 

 erations of an entire season and the management of a given 

 vessel over a long period of years. The year 1849 affords an 

 excellent illustration of a most gratifying season 5 for the 154 

 whalers then in the Arctic returned with a huge catch which 

 sold for $3,419,622, whereas the total value of both ships and 

 outfits was only $4,650,000.^^ 



1'^ See W^ilkes, C, "Narrative of the U. S. Exploring Expedition," V, pp. 

 493 ff.; Holmes, Lewis, "The Arctic Whaleman," p. 286; Starbuck, A., "His- 

 tory," p. 145 ; and Brown, J. T., in "Fisheries and Fishery Industries," VII, 

 P- 293. 



.18 Starbuck, A., "History," p. 148. 



