102 A History of the American Whale Fishery. 
The people soon learned from experience how to take 
advantage of the different markets for oil. The sperm 
oil was sent mainly to England in the crude state, that is 
the “head matter’? and the body oil were generally 
mixed, for at that time there was not enough difference 
in price to pay for separating the two grades. The 
whale oil, coming chiefly from right whales, was shipped 
to Boston, or elsewhere in the colonies, and from these 
central markets it was distributed throughout the colonies 
or sent to the West Indies in the trade for molasses.° 
In 1761 the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Straits of 
Belle Isle fisheries were opened to the colonial whalemen,” 
and there were immediate prospects of increased profits. 
But the colonists were destined to be disappointed. In 
1755 England placed restrictive measures on American 
whaling operations in the form of an embargo, pending 
the expedition against the French in Arcadia. And the 
same year that the new fisheries were opened still more 
repressive measures were passed. Apparently as a part 
of the plan to encourage and develop the British whale 
fishery, still struggling inrivalry against the Dutch, 
Parliament laid a duty on all whale products exported to 
England from the colonies. The residents of Great 
Britain on the other hand were granted a bounty in which 
the colonists could not share. These conditions in 
themselves were not so hard, but by another act of the 
same year the colonists were not allowed to send their 
exports to any other markets. Hence in order to secure 
any export trade at all, the colonists were literally forced 
into paying the English duties. The New England 
merchants, as well as the London merchants, engaged in 
colonial trade protested against these injustices, sending 
petitions to Parliament asking for the removal of the 
duty. But it was not until about 1767 that the condi- 
tions were very much improved. 
® Starbuck, p. 52-53. 
© Starbuck, p. 39. 
