90 WHALE-FISHERY. 



Until the year 1797, British built ships wholly 

 owned by his Majesty's subjects, usually residing in 

 Great Britain, Ireland, or the islands of Guernsey, 

 Alderney, Jersey, Sark, or Man, registered, fitted 

 out, and navigated, agreeable to the regulations of 

 the 26th Geo. III. c. 41. and subsequent acts, were 

 permitted to import into Great Britain, the produce 

 of whales, seals, or other creatures, living in the seas 

 of Greenland and Davis' Straits, or the seas adja- 

 cent, after certain oaths made by the master, &c. 

 free of all customs, subsidy or other duty ; but at 

 the time of passing the tonnage-duty act of the 38th 

 Geo. III. c. 76. an impost of 16s. lOd, ^jcr ton, was 

 laid on train oil or blubber, fish-oil, or oil of seals, 

 or other creatures living in the seas ; and Sj^er cent, 

 ad valorem, on all other produce of the British 

 northern whale-fisheries. In this act, the ambigui- 

 ty and impropriety of considering train oil and 

 blubber as similar articles, when the proportion of 

 blubber to oil is as four to three*, occasioned a very 

 inequitable application of the duty ; for the north- 

 ern whalers, who brought home their cargoes in 

 blubber, paid the same duty jier ton as the south- 

 ern whalers, who brought theirs home boiled into 

 oil ; consequently, the former paid more duty by one- 



* The proportion which blubber bears to oil, has always 

 been considered by the Legislature, as the number 3 to 2 ; but 

 it is found by experience, that four tons of blubber will gene- 

 rally produce three tons of oil. 



