26 THE WHALE AND 



Whaling Losses. Whaling Crosses. 



England. By reason of it, no less than one 

 hundred and fifty of her vessels were either cap- 

 tured ox lost at sea, and great numbers of her 

 seamen perished. 



In 1788 Great Britain had the honor of 

 opening the Pacific to the sperm whale fishery, 

 through the Amelia, Captain Shields, fitted out 

 at vast expense by Mr. Enderby, of London. 

 Her unprecedented success started numbers on 

 her track both from New England and Old, 

 and by 1820 the whole South Pacific and In- 

 dian Oceans were traversed by intrepid whale- 

 men ; and in the seas of China and on the 

 coasts of Japan they were drawing the line and 

 striking the harpoon into those mammoth den- 

 izens of the deep. 



Prostrated, however, by the Revolutionary 

 war, the New England branch of the whale 

 fishery had hardly recovered its former prosper- 

 ity, when the last war with Great Britain, from 

 1812 to 1815, again broke it up. But upon 

 the restoration of peace its recovery was rapid ; 

 so that by 1821 there were owned in Nantucket 

 alone (which had lost during the war twenty- 

 seven ships), seventy-eight whale ships, and six 

 whaling brigs. In 1844, the entire American 



