HISTORY AND DETAILS OF WHALING. 247 



f< In 1715, there were six vessels engaged in the whaling 

 business, (all sloops, from thirty to forty tons burden each,) and 

 which produced an income of nearly five thousand dollars." * 



As the enterprise increased, more capital was invested, larger 

 vessels were built, longer voyages were undertaken, and new 

 localities or grounds for whales were discovered. 



Fifty years later, — viz., from 1771 to 1775, — Massachusetts 

 alone employed annually one hundred and eighty-three vessels 

 in the North Atlantic Ocean, and one hundred and twenty- 

 one vessels of larger burden in the South Atlantic Ocean. 



" Look at the manner," says Burke, (1774,) " in which the 

 New England people carry on the whale fishery. While we 

 follow them among the tumbling mountains of ice, and behold 

 them penetrating into the deepest frozen recesses of Hudson's 

 Bay and Davis's Straits ; while we are looking for them be- 

 neath the arctic circle, we hear that they have pierced into the 

 opposite region of polar cold — that they are at the antipodes, 

 and engaged under the frozen serpent of the south. Falkland 

 Island, which seems too remote and too romantic an object for the 

 grasp of national ambition, is but a stage and resting place to 

 their victorious industry. Nor is the equinoctial heat more 

 discouraging to them than the accumulated winter of both the 

 poles. We learn that, while some draw the line and strike 

 the harpoon on the coast of Africa, others run the longitude, 

 and pursue their gigantic game, along the coast of Brazil." 



Such was the eloquent commendation given to the energy 

 and perseverance of New England whalers by one of the most 

 distinguished of British statesmen. 



" The first attempt to establish the sperm whale fishery from 

 Great Britain was made in 1775. Nine years later, the French 

 undertook to revive the prosecution of this business. The 

 king, Louis XVI., fitted out six ships himself from Dunkirk, 

 and procured his experienced harpooners from Nantucket ; 



* Macy's History of Nantucket. 



