SOUTH SEA WHALE F18HERV. 297 



the nature of a speculation than of a regular, industrious 

 pursuit. 



ESTHER. 



Are not high bounties given to the whale ships'? 



They were formerly. At one time,* as high as forty shil- 

 lings a ton was given; but, in 1824, these bounties were 

 entirely abolished, and so great was the expense of keeping 

 it up, that the whale fishery, as a source of national wealth, 

 may now be considered as of little importance. Olive, rape, 

 and linseed oil, and, for many purposes, even tallow might 

 be substituted for whale oil; if, therefore, the fishery should 

 decline even still more, its loss will probably be of little in- 

 jury to the country. I have already mentioned that the 

 whales are continually changing their haunts. The seas be- 

 tween Spitzbergen and Greenland are now abandoned, and 

 the whales resort to Davis's Straits and Baffin's Bay, or to 

 the sea on the coast of West Greenland. The various dis- 

 coveries of our Northern navigators have made us acquainted 

 with new and advantageous situations for the fishery; but it 

 has undergone so many revolutions that it probably will again 

 be necessary, in a few years, to follow the whale into new 

 and more inaccessible haunts. 



ESTHER. 



Mamma, you have not alluded to the South Sea fishery. 



MRS. F. 



That was not prosecuted by the English until about the 

 beginning of the American war, and it had previously been 

 entered into by the Americans, who, for a lengthened period, 

 have carried on the whale fishery with greater vigor and suc- 

 cess than perhaps any other people. For half a century after 

 its commencement, they found an ample supply of fish on 

 their own shores, but the whales having abandoned them, the 



* In 1749. 



