THE WHALE FISHERY. 



65 



used to kill the whale near the shore ; but now they go off to sea in sloops and whale boats in the 

 months of May, June, and July, between Cape Cod and Bermuda, where they lie by in the night, 

 and sail to and again in the day, and seldom miss of them ; they bring home the blubber in their 

 sloops. The true season for taking the right or whalebone whale is from the beginning of June 

 to the end of May; for the spermaceti whales, from the beginning of June to the end of August.'" 



CONDITION OF THE FISHERY FEOM 1720 TO 1775. About the middle of the eighteenth cen- 

 tury the value of oil increased by the opening up of new markets, and the people of New England 

 pushed forward with zeal in the whaling industry. The English, French, and Dutch had been 

 very successful in the northern fishery for whalebone whales, but had taken no part in the capture! 

 of sperm whales, leaving this work for the American fleet which began to grow rapidly in the 

 number and size of its vessels. In 1720 the whaling fleet of New England numbered only a few 

 sloops of about 36 tons each, making voyages east to Newfoundland and south to the Gulf Stream. 

 By 1731 the American fleet amounted to 1,300 toils, and the size of the vessels increased so that / 

 in 1746 schooners and brigs from 100 to 130 tons were employed. Just before the Revolutionary 

 war the whaling industry was very prosperous in New England, the fleet was large, and the profits 

 considerable. Voyages were made to the north and squth for sperm and right whales, but the chief 

 object of pursuit was the sperm whale, whose oil was nearly three times the value of that of the 

 right whale. The principal grounds visited for the sperm whale were.off the coast of Brazil and 

 Guiana, various parts of the West Indies, the Cape Verde and Western Islands, and eastward of 

 the Banks of Newfoundland. 



Scammon gives the following statistics to show the condition of the business from 1762 to 

 1770, inclusive : 



* Scoresby, in his account of the Whale Fishery of the British Colonies in America, states there were eighty vessels employed in the 

 American fisheries during the year 1763. 



''About 1774," says Scammon, " the fleet was augmented by still larger vessels, some of which 

 crossed the equator, and obtained full cargoes upon that noted ground called the ' Brazil Banks,' 

 while others cruised around Cape Verde Islands or the West Indies, in the Gulf of Mexico, Carib- 

 bean Sea, or upon the coast of the Spanish Main. Soon after they extended their voyages to the 

 South Atlantic, around the Falkland Islands, and to the coast of Patagonia, where fur-seal skins 

 and sea-elephant oil were sometimes obtained. In such instances these whaling and sealing 

 expeditious were called 'mixed voyages.'"* 



" Between the years 1770 and 1775," says Macy, "the whaling business increased to an extent 

 hitherto unparalleled. In 1770 there were a little more than one hundred vessels engaged ; and 

 in 1775 the number exceeded one hundred and fifty, some of them large brigs. The employment 



" SCAMMON : Marine Mammalia and American Whale Fishery, p. 206. 



SEC. v, VOL. ii 5 



