GENERAL HISTORY. 7 



of New England. By reason of it, no less 

 than one hundred and fifty of her vessels were 

 either captured or lost at sea, and great num- 

 bers of her seamen perished. 



In 1788 Great Britain had the honour of 

 opening the Pacific to the sperm whale fishery, 

 through the Amelia, Captain Shields, fitted out 

 at vast expense by Mr. Enderby, of London. 

 Her unprecedented success started numbers on 

 her track both from New England and the Old 

 Country ; and by 1820 the whole South Pacific 

 and Indian Oceans were traversed by intrepid 

 whalemen. In the seas of China too, and on 

 the coasts of Japan, they were adventuring on 

 the same enterprise, and striking the harpoon 

 into those mammoth denizens of the deep. 



Prostrated, however, by the Revolutionary 

 war, the New England branch of the whale 

 fishery had hardly recovered its former pros- 

 perity, when the last war with Great Britain, 

 from 1812 to 1815, again broke it up. But 

 upon the restoration of peace its recovery was 

 rapid; so that, by 1821, there were owned in 

 Nantucket alone (which had lost during the 



