The Rise of American Whaling. 45 
tioned the following places had sent out whaling vessels 
between 1785 and 1812: In Massachusetts, Gloucester 
and Wareham; in Rhode Island, Providence and Bristol; 
in Connecticut, New London, Norwich and East Haddam; 
in New York, Hudson and New York, none of which, 
however, sent more than five vessels in a single year. 
The relative importance of the different ports, the small 
scale on which the fishery was conducted and the fluctua- 
tions from year to year may be seen reflected in the 
records of clearances from these ports during the unset- 
tled period, as given in Table II of Appendix I. 
For a second time whaling, except from Nantucket, 
was stopped by war. There the people from force of 
necessity were obliged to keep the interests alive, both 
by whaling from sloops in neighboring waters and by 
sending out an occasional vessel on a longer voyage. 
Again, however, the islanders, knowing only the one 
pursuit, through their shipping, found themselves facing 
the hardships of actual want when this shipping wa- 
interfered with. Of the forty-six whaling vessels bes 
longing to the island when the war began, only twenty- 
three remained when peace was declared.” 
Through four decades the American whale fishery 
had lived a precarious existence of constant ups and 
downs. Foreign wars, unsettled conditions at home, 
restricted markets and unnatural stimulation had kept 
the business in a continual state of uncertainty. Imme- 
diately before the outbreak of the Revolution the whale 
fishery, after several years of unbroken success, had 
reached the highest point in size and prosperity in its 
whole history. But at no time in the thirty years from 
1785 to 1815 were the conditions stable long enough for 
the fishery to resume its former importance. Starbuck 
regarded 360 sail as a conservative estimate of the size 
of the fleet in 1775. Though exact figures are lacking 
* Macy, p. 205. 
