ISO APPENDIX. 



During the war of the American revolution, 

 this fishery was destroyed ; on the return of peace, 

 it recovered, by degrees, and, from 1787 to 1789, 

 ninety-one vessels, of five thousand eight hundred 

 and twenty tons, were annually employed in the 

 northern fishery, and thirty-one vessels, of four 

 thousand three hundred and ninety tons, in the 

 southern, with one thousand six hundred and 

 eleven seamen. The quantity of spermaceti oil 

 taken annually, from 1771 to 1775, was thirty- 

 nine thousand three hundred and ninety barrels, 

 and of whale oil eight thousand six hundred and 

 fifty. From 1787 to 1789, the quantity of sper- 

 maceti taken annually was seven thousand nine 

 hundred and eighty barrels, and whale oil thirteen 

 thousand one hundred and thirty. In the repre- 

 sentation made to Congress in the year 1790, by 

 the legislature of Massachusetts, it is stated that, 

 before the late war, about four thousand seamen, 

 and twenty-four thousand tons of shipping were 

 annually employed, from that State, in the whale 

 fishery, and that the produce thereof was about 

 £350,000 lawful money, or about 1,160,000 dol- 

 lars. A great part of this fishery has been car- 

 ried on from Nantucket, where it originated,, a 

 small island about fifteen miles in length, and two 

 or three miles in breadth, situated about thirty 



