Forenoon on Nenjo Seas 187 



something quite new in the field. They not only owned their lands 

 and most else besides communally, but they also worked together 

 on an almost ideally cooperative system, each man contributing 

 what he could by his skills and labors to the common good. Their 

 early whahng effort was organized along these lines, in which even 

 the red men participated. It was a joint enterprise, initiated by co- 

 operative labor, and entirely without subscribed capital. When suc- 

 cessful, it resulted in an equitable distribution of all the proceeds. 

 What is more, the portion received by every man was commen- 

 surate with what he had put into the job. 



The ownership of the boats did not last for long upon this joint 

 community system, and an arrangement of partnerships grew up, 

 but the basic principle of part shares in any one company's profits 

 persisted and gave rise to what was to become universally known 

 as the "lay" system. By this, every man, from cabin boy to captain, 

 and the widow ashore to the cooper aboard, received a share in the 

 profits in proportion to his or her investment in money or labor. 

 Thus, every man aboard the whaling ships was working for himself 

 and to his own profit. The result was a veritable blossoming of free 

 enterprise in a field that is thankless, to say the least, dangerous at 

 all times, and at that time much less profitable than ordinary trading 

 or slave trading. 



The offshore whaling on the mainland had by 1700 already be- 

 come a truly capitalistic enterprise with the white men employed 

 on set salaries, with or without a bonus, and the red men employed 

 for a set quota of rum, whale oil, or trade goods. However, there 

 were still wide variations in the practice then because offshore 

 whalers ran into many frustrating, bureaucratic obstacles erected by 

 the British Government. There are records of most sorry and pro- 

 tracted bickerings between the colonist, who wished to indulge this 

 enterprise, and the Crown, who wished either to prohibit it or to 

 tax it for its own benefit. These disputes sometimes reached the 

 highest courts of appeal in England. In time, however, the Nan- 

 tucket practice of "lays" spread throughout the industry, and it 

 finally spread also to the codfishery and to other related enterprises. 



Despite the partially seasonal nature of this business, it appears 

 to have been regarded so highly that strict laws governing some of 

 its aspects were enacted in various areas, notably in New York to 



