HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN WHALE FISHERY. 113 



course of the consular agents sent out by our Government to protect the 

 interests of our whalemen. Many and bitter were the complaints at the 

 extortionate charges and percentages demanded by many of these 

 men.* 



As another important source of the decline in this business must be 

 regarded the scarcity and shyness of whales. Prior to the year 1830, a 

 ship with a capacity for 2,000 barrels would cruise in the Pacific Ocean 

 and return in two years with a cargo of sperm-oil. The same ship might 

 go to Delago or Woolwich Bay and fill with whale-oil in about fifteen 

 months, or to the coast of Brazil and return in nine months full of the 

 oil peculiar to the whales of those seas ; but, as has been previously re- 

 marked, this has all changed, and the length of the voyage has become 

 entirely disproportion ed to the quantity of oil returned. 



Briefly, then, this is the case. Whaling as a business has declined ; 

 1st, from the scarcity and shyness of whales, requiring longer and more 

 expensive voyages ; 2d, extravagance in fitting out and in refitting ; 3d, 

 the character of the men engaged ; 4th, the introduction of coal-oils. 



Of late years sperm whaling in the Atlantic Ocean has been revived 

 with some success, but the persistency with which any field is followed 

 up, makes its yield at least but temporary. It may perhaps be a ques- 

 tion worthy of serious consideration whether it is policy for the United 

 States Government to introduce the use of coal-oils into its light-house 

 and similar depaitments, to replace the sperm-oil now furnished from 

 our whaling ports, and thus still further hasten the ultimate abandon- 

 ment of a pursuit upon the resources of which it draws so heavily in 

 the day of its trouble,t or whether this market — the only aid asked from 

 the Government — may still continue at the expense of a few dollars 

 more per year. 



* In many cases justice (?) seenos to have been meted more in accordance with the 

 requirements of the income of our representatives than with those of abstract rifjht, 

 and it has happened that the case of an arbitrary, cruel captain against some unfor- 

 tunately weak and impecnnious sailor has been decided on the time-honored (among 

 barbarians) maxims that " might makes right," and " the king can do no wrong." 



t The London Mercantile Gazette, of October 22, 1852, said : ''The number of Ameri- 

 can ships engaged in the Southern whale-fisherj^ alone would of themselves be nearly 

 sufficient to man any ordinary fleet of ships-of-war which that country might require 

 to send to sea." Instances are not wanting, indeed, where whalemen have undertaken 

 yeoman's service for their country. Thus, in November, 184G, Captain Simmons, of 

 the Magnolia, and Capt. John S. Barker, of the Edward, both of New Bedford, hearing 

 that the garrison at Sau .Jos6, Lower California, was in imminent danger, landed their 

 crews and marched to its relief. Nor were their good services toward foreign govern- 

 ments in peace less honorable to the country than in war, for when the government 

 buildings at Honolulu were burning some years ago, and entire and disastrous destruc- 

 tion threatened, American whalemen rushed to the rescue and quenched the flames 

 already beyond the control of the natives. During the rebellion, of 5,956 naval offi- 

 cers, Massachusetts furnished 1,226, Maine 440, Connecticut 264, New Hampshire 175, 

 Rhode Island 102, and Vermont 81. 

 8 



