His CAPTORS. 25 



Atlantic Whale Fishery. Freiiqh Whaling Fleet. 



Burke said, but in the gristle, and not yet hard- 

 ened into the bone of manhood. 



By the year 1771, New England, through 

 her adventurous whale fishery, was both in the 

 North and South Atlantic Oceans, commanding 

 the admiration of the world, and eulogized by 

 the highest eloquence of the British Parliament 

 From the year 1771 to 1775, Massachusetts 

 alone employed in it annually three hundred 

 and four vessels, of twenty-seven thousand eight 

 hundred and forty-six tons burden. The quan- 

 tity of oil brought into Nantucket yearly at the 

 time of the breaking out of the Revolutionary 

 war, was thirty thousand barrels. 



Stimulated by their success, both France and 

 Great Britain now entered anew into this lu- 

 crative enterprise ; Louis XVI. himself fitting 

 out six ships from Dunkirk on his own account, 

 in 1784, which were furnished with experienced 

 harpooners and able seamen from Nantucket. 

 In 1790, France had about forty ships employed 

 in the fishery, but the wars consequent upon 

 the French Revolution at once swept them all, 

 and the whaling fleet of Holland also ; as did 

 the War for Independence likewise suspend 

 this lucrative branch of the commerce of New 



