MEMORIAL 



OP THK 



CITIZENS OF NANTUCKET, 



TO THE HONOURABLE THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRE- 

 SENTATIVES IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED. 



The memorial of the subscribers, citizens of the town of Nantuc&ef, 

 respectfully represents : 



THAT the intercourse maintained between different parts of tffe 

 nation, and the islands and countries of the Pacific ocean, has 

 become a matter of public interest, and deserving the protecting 

 care of the national legislature. The fur business, and the trade 

 carried on between the Pacific islands and coasts of China, as is 

 known to your honourable body, have afforded rich returns, and 

 increased the wealth of our common country. Besides this 

 employment of national industry and enterprise, they would 

 represent that there are engaged in the whale fishery, from 

 various parts of the country, upwards of forty thousand* tons of 

 shipping, requiring a capital of three millions of dollars, and the 

 services of more than three thousand seamen. Whether viewed 

 as a nursery of bold and hardy seamen, or as an employment of 

 capital in one of the most productive modes, or as furnishing an 

 article of indispensable necessity to human comfort, it seems to 

 your petitioners to be an object especially deserving the public 

 care. The increased extent of the voyages now pursued by the 



* Greatly under the true estimate, even at that period. 



