88 WHALE-FISHERY. 



not fitted out under the regulations for obtaining 

 the bounty, if British vessels, and owned by Bri- 

 tish subjects, &c. were declared at liberty to fish 

 for whales, and import the produce duty free, the 

 crew to be protected during the voyage, and the offi- 

 cers in the winter season, in every respect the same 

 as ships fitted out for the bounty. Whale-boats 

 being of a construction adapted for the pui-pose of 

 smuggling, were ordered to be laid up during the 

 intervals of the voyages*. 



Such great progress was made in the whale-fish- 

 ery carried on by the Nantucket whalers, in vessels 

 fitted out of Dunkirk, that instead of two ships 

 which adventured in 1788, in the year 1793, 40 sail 

 were equipped from this port. This trade, as then 

 established, was profitable, and promised considerable 

 national benefit ; " in consequence, however, of the 

 revolution, together with the peculiar state of the 

 country since that period, it was suspended," some 

 of the conductors of it returned to America, and 

 the trade has not been yet revived f. 



During the war in which Great Britain was at 

 this time engaged, the manning of the Greenland 

 fleet was fovmd to be a matter of such particular 

 difficulty, that the indulgence of making up the com- 



• S2d Geo. III. c. 22. 



t Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, vol. iv. p. 285. 



