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100 = A - History of the ciLigia iis cough 
Rue eGR i eRe eR Rael. e RL 
1712,4and whalebone was not then Teeauale as of re 
value. Long Island, Nantucket and Cape Cod were the 
main whaling localities, and it seems probable that Boston 
remained the chief port for many years, with the exports 
going to British ports in Great Britain and in the West 
Indies. 
In 1678 a Boston merchant had sought permission to 
clear with a cargo of oil he had purchased at South- 
ampton, directly from that port to London, in order to 
avoid the risk of extra leakage during the voyage to New 
York.’ But it seems probable that this practice was 
not continued, for during the early years of the eighteenth 
century there was the same old trouble because of the 
trade going to colonial ports outside of New York rather 
than to that port. In 1720 the Nantucket whalers made 
a small shipment of oil to London, but whether this was 
their first venture in direct export trade is as uncertain as 
is our knowledge concerning the success of the enter- 
prise. At all events it was not until many years later 
that the practice was resumed. 
The trade in whale products, especially the export 
trade, apparently grew rapidly after the development of 
deep sea whaling, for of the industry in 1730 Holmes 
says,* the “whale fishery of the North American coasts 
must at this time have been very considerable, for there 
arrived in England . . . about the month of July, 
154 tons of train and whale oil and 9,200 of whale- 
bone.”’ These quantities must either include the pro- 
duct imported into England from the British fishery in 
Davis Strait, which had begun some years before, or else 
the ‘‘9,200 of bone’”’ means pounds and not tons. For it 
is incredible that the limited colonial industry should 
export an amount of bone equal to the annual ex- 
ports during the years when whaling was in the full tide 
“Macy, p. 42. 
* Starbuck, p. 14. 
* Holmes: American Annals, I, 126 
