68 The Story of the New England Whalers 



In 1732 American whalers went to Greenland 

 to hunt the whale among the ice fields off Cape 

 Desolation, and it is recorded that "Capt. Atkins, 

 returning from a whaling voyage thence, brought 

 a Greenland bear." Crossing the equator they 

 pursued the whales off the headlands of Brazil, 

 along the desert coasts of Patagonia, and among 

 the treeless Falklands. In 1767 no less than fifty 

 New England whalers went to far southern waters 

 "by way of experiment," as the chronicle says. 



A table of dates of the extension of the Nan- 

 tucket fishery, as found in the Merchants' Maga- 

 zine, November, 1840, is as follows: 



The Island of Disco, in the mouth of Baffin's Bay, 

 in the year 1751. 



Gulf of St. Lawrence, 1761. 

 Coast of Guinea, 1763. 

 Coast of Brazil, 1774. 



It was when inspired by the enterprise of Amer- 

 ican whalemen thus exhibited that Edmund 

 Burke, in his speech on Conciliation with Amer- 

 ica (now a schoolboy classic), said : 



No sea but is vexed by their fisheries. No climate 

 that is not a witness to their toils. Neither the perse- 



