134 WHALE FISHERY. 



Parliament granted 1500 /. to IVlessrs Nesbet, to en- 

 courage them in this national undertaking*. 



SECT. II. 



JVliale-Fishery of the British Colonies in 

 America. 



While the subjects of Great Britain pursued 

 the wliale-fishery at Spitzbergen to a considerable 

 extent, and with various success, and while they 

 performed a voyage so distant, and practised the 

 arduous operations of the fishery in the Polar re- 

 gions, — the colonists in America had the advan- 

 tage of conducting the fishery more immediately at 

 liome. Hence we find many notices of their suc- 

 cessful laboiu-s in this speculation. Their fishery 

 in 1730 was prosperous, and in 1731, we learn that 

 the New Englanders employed 1300 tons of ship- 

 ping in the trade f . 



Anderson, in his History of Commerce, men- 

 tions, that after the coasts of the Gulf and River 

 St Lawrence fell into the hands of the British, by 



* Scots Mag. vol. XXX. p. 5\Q,-5\\. According to Macpher- 

 son, the sum granted by the Irish Parliament for the encourage- 

 ment of the fishery;, was 1000/. 



t Macphersons Aiuials of Conuiierce. a. d. 1730;,-I. 



