IN THE DOLDRUMS 89 



The number of whaling ports suddenly decreased. It was even 

 suggested that Nantucket, as a desperate measure, be made 

 neutral territory and thus saved from ruin. And in 1785 the 

 Massachusetts Legislature offered bounties of £5 a tun on 

 white sperm oil, £3 a tun on yellow sperm oil, and £2 a tun 

 on whale oil, provided that residents of Massachusetts owned 

 and manned the vessel, which must land the oil at a Massachu- 

 setts port. 



This caused another curious disturbance in the industry, for 

 the whalemen, stimulated by the bounties, went to work with 

 such enthusiasm and diligence that they flooded the market and 

 forced down the price of oil. Tallow candles had of necessity 

 replaced oil for many purposes during the Revolution, and the 

 demand for oil did not begin to require the supply the vessels 

 brought home. At that time the whalemen had abundant 

 reason to regard their last state as appreciably worse than their 

 first. 



In 1785, the year in which the Massachusetts Legislature 

 established the bounty on oil, sperm and whale, that indomit- 

 able whaleman, William Rotch, sailed for England to take into 

 his own hands the future of the Nantucket whalemen. 



It was he who had gone to New York to persuade Rear- 

 Admiral Robert Digby to permit the Nantucket ships to go 

 whaling during the war. It was he, again, who had gone with 

 Samuel Starbuck to Philadelphia to persuade the Continental 

 Congress to permit Nantucket vessels carrying British permits 

 to go unmolested by American cruisers. And it was he also 

 who appeared in court at Boston in behalf of two such vessels 

 which American privateers had brought into port in defiance of 

 the papers issued by the authority of Congress. His success 

 in these various missions had given him a position of promin- 

 ence and authority. 



Arriving in England, he applied to the Government for finan- 

 cial assistance in transplanting a body of whalers from Nantucket 

 to an English port. 



That the British Government appreciated the resourcefulness 

 and skill of American whalemen there is no doubt whatever. 



