The Rise of American Whaling. 4I 
Braintree, Plymouth and Bristol were soon added to 
the list of whaling ports sending out one or more vessels. 
The whale products commanded good prices during 
the early years after the war, and for a time the business 
gave promise of good profits. But the boom was short 
lived. For many years sperm oil had been the most 
valuable product of the fishery. The chief market for 
sperm oil, however—the British market—had been 
practically closed to American shipments by an alien 
duty of £18 per ton. Oil which was easily worth £30 
before the war now brought scarcely £17, while to give 
a reasonable profit, over expenses, £25 was necessary.” 
The excessive prices on oil and bone fell rapidly. A num- 
ber of the ports which had entered the field so promptly 
withdrew their vessels. Thus Hingham, Newburyport, 
Braintree, Plymouth, Wellfleet, Mass., and Providence, 
and Bristol, R. I., all sent out one or more vessels in 
1784-1785, but none of them (except Wellfleet in 1786) 
sent any more until several years later." 
The condition of the industry again looked hopeless. 
The neutralization of Nantucket was suggested as a 
possible remedy for the unfortunate state of affairs, 
but the suggestion met with nofavor.® Finally, in 1785, 
the Massachusetts legislature came to the rescue with an 
act establishing a bounty on whale products. For every 
ton of oil imported into the commonwealth, the whale- 
men were to receive a bounty of £5 on white spermaceti 
oil; sixty shillings on brown or yellow sperm oil; and 
forty shillings on whale oil.” The only conditions were 
that the vessel be owned and manned wholly by inhabi- 
tants of that state, and that the oil be landed in some 
Massachusetts port. Inspectors were appointed by 
® Starbuck, p. 78. 
7 loc. cit. 
88 See Table II in Appendix I. 
® Macy, p. 129. 
7 Starbuck, p. 79. 
