HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN WHALE FISHERY. 87 



If she will not permit the application of your couchiug instruments, or, 

 if applied, they can work no effect, the old lady must be left to her fate, 

 and abandoned as incurable."* 



On the 21st of January, 178G, Mr. Adams, in a letter to Secretary 

 Ja}', writes : '^ It will take eighteen mouths more to settle all matters, 

 exclusive of ilie treatij of commerce.'''' \ And thus it continued. Argu- 

 ment and persuasion had no effect. Convinced in spite of themselves, 

 they still clung fondly, obstinately, perhaps foolishly, to their obnoxious 

 laws. As late as November, 1787, Mr. Adams writes to Mr. Jay: 

 " They are at present, both at court and in the nation at large, mucli 

 more respectful to me, and much more tender of the United States, than 

 they ever have been before; but, depend upon it, this will not last; 

 they will aim at recovering back the western lands, at taking away our 

 fisheries, and at the total ruin of our navigation, at least."| Mr. 

 Adams's position at the court of St. James was terminated, by his 

 urgent request, soon after this, and the question of commercial relations 

 between the two countries was still unsettled.§ 



This state of affairs was scarcely such as would occasion the utmost 

 harmony. The United States naturally resented this frigid manner of 

 treating our overtures for friendship. In August, 178G, Mr. Jefferson, 

 in a letter from Paris to Mr. Carmichael, writes : " But as to every other 

 nation of Europe, || I am persuaded Congress will never offer a treaty. If 

 any of them should desire one hereafter, I suppose they will make the 

 first overtures." ^ 



But while America was exerting herself so unsuccessfully to be allowed, 

 to live on terras of civility with England, the whale-fishery carried on 

 from within her borders was languishing. 



Like the effect of the heat of the sun on the iceberg, so was the effect 

 of foreign bounties ujiou the American fishery, dissolving it, breaking off 

 a fragment here and a fragment there. Lured by the promise of English 

 bounties, discouraged with the prospect in America, where the price for 

 oil would scarely repay the cost of procuring it and where there was no 



* Adams, ^iii, 363-4, In his reply to Mr. Bowdoin, under date of May 9, 1786, Mr. 

 Adams, after expressing surprise that such reasoning as his (Bowdoin's) has no effect 

 on the English cabinet, writes : " Mr. Jenkinson, an old friend of the British empire, is 

 still at his labors. He is about establishing a bounty upon fifteen ships to the south- 

 ward, and upon two to double Cape Horn, for spermaceti whales. Americana are to 

 take an oath that they mean to eettle in England, before they are entitled to the 

 bounty." In September, 1786, Mr. Adams writes to Mr. Jefferson from London, (viii, 

 414) : " The whalemen, both at Greenland and the southward, have been unsuccessful, 

 and the price of spermaceti-oil has risen above £50 per ton." 



t Adams, viii, 363-4, 389. 



X Ibid., 463. 



$ Works of Jefferson, ii, 18. Sec also article on Jefferson, by Parton, in Atlantic 

 Monthly for February, 1873. 



II Referring to Russia, Portugal, Spain, France, Sweden, Tuscany, and the Nether- 

 lands. 



U Jefferson, ii, 18. 



