Whale Products in Commerce. 107 
tates was relatively small, the trade in whale products 
was proportionately more important than during the 
later days of greater whaling prosperity. 
Whaling was resumed after the war with marked 
activity especially at Nantucket. After the Revolution 
oil and bone had commanded excessive prices for a brief 
time, and now the belief that the first cargoes would 
bring similarly high prices acted as a great stimulus to 
renew the fishery. But the prices fell as low or even 
lower than for several years previous and many of the 
owners found themselves in financial difficulties as a 
result of doing business on credit and meeting with 
unsuccessful voyages. For two or three years the depres- 
sion in whaling interests was a rather serious question to 
those whose capital was invested. The unsettled period 
lasted until about 1818 or 1820 when the fishery was once 
more on a profitable basis as the result of successful voy- 
ages. The steadily increasing quantities of imports from 
1818 onward are the best indications of this growing 
prosperity. At the same time the export trade to dif- 
ferent parts of the world began to assume its former pro- 
portions. 
The exports of whale oil had surpassed any former 
record by the end of the year 1820, over one and a 
quarter million gallons being shipped that year. The 
sperm oil shipments were fluctuating up to about 1825, 
but after that year annual exports began to attain 
greater prominence. The foreign trade in whalebone 
was also relatively small during the years just after the 
close of the war but this fact is partially explained by 
the small total imports during that time. 
From 1825 until the decline of whaling interests began, 
about 1860, the trade in whale products grew with the 
growing industry. But the increase in the importance 
of the export trade was not keeping pace with the growth 
of the industry as a whole. In other words the fishery 
was finding the basis for its greater prosperity not so much 
