HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN WHALE FISHERY. 53 



or elsewhere in the colonies, and there sold for country consumption, or 

 sent to the West Indies."* 



The seas continued to be infested with French and Spanish privateers 

 and pirateSjt and whalemen, especially those frequenting the ocean iu 

 the vicinity of the Western Islands, were, from the very nature of their 

 employment, constantly liable to depredations from these corsairs, 

 whether legalized or lawless. In March, 1771, the sloop Neptune, Cap- 

 tain Nixon, arrived in Newport from the mole, bringing with him por- 

 tions of the crews of three Dartmouth whalemen, who had been taken on 

 the south side of Hispaniola by a Spanish guarda coasta. These ves- 

 sels were commanded by Captain Silas Butler, William Roberts, and 

 Eichard Welding. Another whaling v< ssel belonging to Martha's Vine- 

 yard, commanded by Ephraim Pease, was also taken at about the same 

 time, but released in order to put on board of her the remaining prison- 

 ers. At this time Pease had taken 200 barrels of oil, and the Dart- 

 whale is under forty barrels ; but if over that size, it is raised sufficieutly out of the 

 ■water to cut the juuk froru the case, when it is. hoisted on deck. The case is then se- 

 cnred by one or both tackles, hove up to the plank-sheer, and an opening is made at 

 its root, of a suitable size to admit the case-bucket, when the oil is bailed out, or the 

 whole case is hove iu ou deck before being opened ; which finishes the catting-in of a 

 sperm-whale." The " head " or case oil is, when bailed out, as clear and limpid as wa- 

 ter, but after a short time thickens and hardeusinto a mass as purely white as the newly- 

 fallen snow. The body oil is of a coarser nature. For all practical purposes, the general 

 principles of " cutting-in " the sperm-whale will apply to the same process in regard to 

 the right or bone whale ; and for a thorough description of these cetaceans, the imple 

 ments used iu their capture, and the saving of the oil, the work quoted above will be 

 found an excellent authority. 



* Bancroft says (Hist. U. S., v, p. 265), in 1765 the colonists were not allowed to 

 export the chief products of their industry, such as sugar, tobacco, cotton, wool, iudigo, 

 ginger, dyeing-woods, whalebone, &c., to any place but Great Britain — not even to Ire- 

 land. Save in the matter of salt, wines, victuals, horses, and servants. Great Britain 

 was not only the sole market for the products of America, but the only store-house for 

 its supplies. 



This stringency must, however, have been somewhat relaxed as regards oil, for the 

 Boston News- Letter of September 8, 1768, gives the report from London, dated July 13, 

 that the whale and cod fisheries of New England " this season promised to turn out 

 extremely advantageous, many ships fully laden having already been sent to the Medi- 

 terranean markets." The success of the Americans seems to have again aroused the 

 jealousy of their English brethren, for in this same year an effort was made in Parlia- 

 ment to revive the bounty to English whalemen, with the intent to weaken the American 

 fishery. 



t The word " pirate " seems to have been in these days of a somewhat ambiguous sig- 

 nification, and was quite as likely to mean a privateer as a corsair. 



