48 A History of the American Whale Fishery. 
duction of “A system of doing business on long credits.’’ 
The fishery was benefited in a way, since more ships and 
more men were thereby employed, but general business 
interests suffered. Merchants were hampered by being 
obliged to wait for bills to be paid and by having to 
borrow money to purchase their own stocks of goods. 
Owners of vessels who were not favored with successful 
voyages were soon financially embarrassed, and a general 
depression prevailed at Nantucket. 
At other ports the industry was not resumed on such 
an extensive scale as at Nantucket, and hence there were 
not the same financial difficulties. By the end of the 
year 1815 only five other ports besides Nantucket had 
sent out whaling vessels: New Bedford, Fairhaven, Sag 
Harbor, Hudson, and Westport—sending a total of 
eighteen sail, a little over a third the number sent from 
Nantucket. 
In the following year, 1816, six more towns were added 
to the list of whaling ports—Boston, Edgartown, New- 
port, Wareham, Rochester and Holmes Hole. But only 
the first three mentioned continued the business in the 
years immediately following. It was not until about 
two years afterward that whaling was once more on a firm 
basis, with prosperity again promising to smile on the 
industry. In 1818 the vessels began to return with 
good cargoes from profitable voyages. In the same year 
the “offshore fishing grounds’’ in the Pacific were first 
visited, and the plentiful supply of whales was reported. 
The prices of oil still remained relatively high, and though 
bone was not yet an important product, its price was 
higher than it had been before the war. The British 
northern whale fishery had failed during two successive 
years,‘ and in addition to the other European markets, 
there was a large demand for oil from the English mar- 
kets. These conditions seemed to give whaling the 
“Macy, p. 209. 
