Dechne of American Whaling. 75 
factor in hastening the decline of whaling, though to 
what extent it operated is hard to tell. To suggest what 
might have happened under different economic conditions 
fifty years ago may appear to be dangerous speculation. 
Yet had not the cotton mills sprung up, it seems safe to 
say the whaling fleet would have decreased less rapidly 
even in the face of increasingly adverse conditions. This 
is especially true of New Bedford, from which port more 
than half the fleet hailed subsequent to 1860. For 
many years the whale fishery and its allied industries of 
oil refining, cordage manufacture, boat and ship building 
and such like, had been the most important, almost 
the only important, business interests in the city. And 
the capital was repeatedly employed in the whaling 
business because the investors had grown up with it and 
had come to accept whaling ventures as the most natural 
thing in the world. 
About 1846, however, in the very year when whaling 
reached the climax of its glory, the manufacture of cotton 
goods was begun in New Bedford. Cotton milling was 
successful and profitable almost from the very start, 
and additional mills were put up from year to year. 
Among the names of the early financial promoters of 
cotton manufactures are many which had long been 
intimately associated with the whaling industry. As 
each additional year meant increasing risks on invest- 
ments in whaling, the surer field for capital in the local 
mills must have inevitably drawn capital away from the 
former industry. How great this factor was can never 
be known, but that it was an important one seems 
unquestionable. .The ‘‘Whalemen’s Shipping List,’’ for 
Febuary 4, 1873 says" “The continued purpose to sell 
whalers . . . shows the judgment of those who have 
long and successfully been engaged in the business 
1 “Whalemen’s Shipping List,’’ Annual Review for 1872, February 
4, 1873. 
