30 A History of the American Whale Fishery. 
dozen vessels, some of them of a hundred tons burden, 
were fitting that spring at Provincetown for the Davis 
Straits fishery. “So many men are going on these 
voyages,’ says the account, ‘‘that not more than twelve 
or fourteen men will be left at home.’’ During the next 
two or three years the whaling seasons were poor, and 
many of the people on the Cape were in straitened cir- 
cumstances.* After 1741 the whaling voyages were 
interfered with by the depredations of French and 
Spanish privateers, and for some years the voyages to 
distant grounds seem to have been abandoned, as there 
were no reports of arrivals from or departures for the 
Davis Straits fishery.” 
The fishery seems to have survived in Cape Cod towns, 
however, and to have been in a fairly prosperous state 
‘ at the opening of the Revolution, for in 1775 there were 
thirty-six vessels engaged in whaling from the towns of 
Wellfleet, Barnstable and Falmouth. The vessels were 
from 75 to 100 tons burden and were engaged mainly in 
the northern fishery. 
As regards the whaling operations from towns about 
Boston, the facts are very meager during the years pre- 
ceding the Revolution. Before the opening of the cen- 
tury the business had been carried on in a small way at 
Salem. It is probable, therefore, that it was continued 
at that place and perhaps at other places along the 
coast. But just where or to what extent it is impossible 
to tell. Whether Boston was at this time an actual 
participant in whaling is hard to determine, since it is 
known that vessels from the whole colony were accus- 
tomed to make that place their port of entry and clear- 
ance. In 1775 Boston was credited with twenty vessels, 
and Lynn with two, averaging 100 tons burden, but how 
many of those registered from Boston were actually 
Boston vessels no one knows. 
86 Starbuck, p. 33. 
37 Starbuck, p. 38. 
