40 Kenneth S. Latourette, 



west Coast of America.^* By 1804 the American sealers were 

 causing trouble to the British in Australia, three having been 

 there within a year.^^ These rather disconnected instances show 

 the early origin and the broad scope of the sealing voyages. 



The sealing industry, like the trade to the Northwest Coast, 

 had a rapid growth and decline. Morrell estimated that from 

 the Island of Massafuero alone three and a half million fur seals 

 were taken and sold at Canton between 1793 and 1807.^® Delano, 

 writing after the commerce had declined, said that he had been 

 at that same island when fourteen ships were sealing there. ^' 

 The culmination of the industry was reached shortly after 1800. 

 It was self-destructive. No attempt could be made to protect 

 the seals, and a few years saw their almost complete destruc- 

 tion on islands where they had formerly been the most numer- 

 ous. ^^ To hasten the decline, competition had overstocked the 

 Canton market and had brought the price below the profit point. 

 By the opening of the War of 1812, the trade had nearly run its 

 course.^* 



" George Staunton, An Authentic Account of an Embassy from the 

 King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China. 2 v. London, 1798. 

 1 : 207. It is interesting to note that in 1802 some men were left for the 

 same purpose by one of Perkins' ships on St. Paul, a neighboring island. 

 Journal of Voyage from Salem to Sumatra and Manila in the ship 

 "Active," George Nichols, master. 1801-1802. MS. in Essex Inst. 



^^ Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery, The Americans in the South Seas. 

 London, 1901, p. 22,7. Governor King of New South Wales wrote that 

 "this is the third American vessel that has within the last twelve months 

 been in the Straits and among the islands, procuring seal skins and oils 

 for the China market." 



""Benjamin Morrell, A Narrative of Four Voyages to the South Seas, 

 etc., from the year 1822-1831. New York, 1832. p. 130. 



" Delano, Voyages, p. 306. 



^ Doolittle, Sketches, p. 13. About 1809 or 1810 he found seals almost 

 extinct on Massafuero. Charles W. Barnard, A Narrative of the Suffer- 

 ings and Adventures of Captain Charles W. Barnard in a Voyage round 

 the World during the years 1812, 1813, 1814, 1815, and 1816, New York, 

 1829, pp. 198-201. No seals were there in 1814, and the island was 

 deserted. Barnard, however, had found some at the Falkland Islands 

 some two years before. Ibid., p. 12. 



^° The last sealing voyage from New Haven, October 25th, 1815, et 

 seq., was a failure. Thomas Rutherford Trowbridge, History of the 

 Ancient Maritime Interests of New Haven, New Haven, 1882, p. 78. 

 In 1828 we find as one reason urged for the sending out of an exploring 



