THE AMERICAN WHALEMAN. 



site, the Okhotsk Sea; in the extreme polar regions; far up 

 in Behring Strait ; on the banks of Brazil ; across the whole 

 South Atlantic, and about the waters of Japan ! Almost 

 every sea is plowed by the keel of Our whalers, and the glo- 

 rious Stars and Stripes flutter in every gale. In the infan- 

 cy of our national enterprise, Burke was inspired to eulogize 

 the American whalers in terms so exalted that no more praise 

 need be spoken. We can only quote his glowing language 

 as applied to the early enterprise of our fathers. He said, 

 in the British Parliament, in 1774 : 



"Look at the manner 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 Bay and Davis 

 Strait; while we are looking for them beneath the Arctic 

 circle, we hear that they have pierced into the opposite re- 

 gion of polar cold ; that they are at the antipodes, and en- 

 gaged under the frozen serpent of the south. Falkland Isl- 

 and, which seemed too remote and too romantic an object 

 for the grasp of national ambition, is but the stage and rest- 

 ing-place for their victorious industry. Nor is the equinoc- 

 tial heat more discouraging than the accumulated winter of 

 both the Poles. We learn that while some of them draw 

 the line or strike the harpoon on the coast of Africa, others 

 run the longitude and pursue their gigantic game on the 

 coast of Brazil." 



The imagination of this eloquent statesman was thus stir- 

 red in contemplation of the short flights of our whalers in 

 the well-known waters of the North and South Atlantic. 

 Could he, were he alive to-day, with all his wealth of lan- 

 guage, find words to express his admiration of the enter- 

 prise which now grasps the w r aters of the world, and " runs 

 the line and strikes the harpoon " under every latitude ? 

 Since he spoke so eloquently we have advanced marvelousty. 



