102 HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 



7. HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN WHALE FISHERY FROM 1750 TO 1815. 



The Dutch and English had carried on the whale-fishery in the northern seas for several years 

 prior to the settlement of New England by Englishmen. Along the shore of Massachusetts whales 

 were constantly being driven ashore and were secured by the inhabitants. In the early records 

 of the colonies we find numerous references to drift whales, but it was not until about the year 

 1712 that vessels were used, and those of but small tonnage, so that they ventured but on short 

 voyages. By the year 1730, however, the vessels were of larger class and generally sloop-rigged. 

 By the year 1750 there was a large fleet sailing from various ports in New England, which has 

 always been the enterprising center for the whale-fishery in this country. 



The following exhaustive review of the American whale-fishery during the period from 1750 to 

 1815 is quoted from Starbuck's History of the Whale Fishery printed in the report of the United 

 States Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries for 1875-'76 : 



BOUNTY TO ENGLISH WHALERS. "The period from 1750 to 1784 was the most eventful era to 

 the whale-fishery that it has ever passed through. For a large proportion of the time the business 

 was carried on under imminent risk of capture, first by the Spanish and French and after by the 

 English. The colonial Davis Strait fishery seems to have been quite abandoned, and the vessels 

 cruised mostly to the eastward of the Grand Banks, along the edge of the Gulf Stream and in the 

 vicinity of the Bahamas. In 1748 the English Parliament had passed a second act to encourage 

 this fishery. By it the premium on inspection of masts, yards, and bowsprits, tar, pitch, and tur- 

 pentine, and on British-made sail-cloth were to continue, and the duties on foreign-made sail-cloth 

 were remitted to vessels engaged in this pursuit. A bounty was also granted on all ships engaged 

 in whaling during the then existing war ; harpooners and others employed in the Greenland fish- 

 ery were exempted from impressment. The commissioners of customs were, under the re-quired 

 certificate, to pay the second twenty shillings per ton bounty granted by Parliament over the 

 first twenty previously granted.* The ships which had sailed during the previous March or April 

 were to be equal sharers in this bounty with those whose sailing had been delayed. All ships 

 built or fitted out for this pursuit from the American colonies conforming to this act were to be 

 licensed to whale, and in order to receive the bounties must remain in Davis Straits or vicinity 

 from May (sailing about May 1) until the 20th of August, unless sooner full or obliged to return 

 by accident. Foreign Protestants serving in this fishery for two years, and qualifying themselves lor 

 its prosecution, were to be treated as though they were natives.t The cause of this concession to 

 the colonies was a part of Lord Shirley's scheme to rid Acadia of the French. It was his desire 

 that George II should cause them to be removed to some other English colony, and settle Nova 

 Scotia with Protestants,! and to this end invitations were sent throughout Europe to induce 

 Protestants to remove thither. 'The Moravian Brethren were attracted by the promise of exemp 

 tion from oaths and military service. The good will of New England was encouraged by care for 

 its fisheries; and American whalemen, stimulated by the promise of enjoying an equal bounty 

 with the British, learned to follow their game among the icebergs of the Greenland seas.' 'The 

 New Euglanders of this period.' says Bancroft,]] ' were of homogeneous origin, nearly all tracing 

 their descent to the English emigrants of the reigns of "Charles the First and Charles the Second. 

 They were a frugal and industrious race. Along the sea-side, wherever there was a good harbor, 

 fishermen, familiar with the ocean, gathered in hamlets ; and each returning season saw them 



" * In sixth year of the reign of George II." " t Mass. Col. MSS., Maritime, vi, p. 316." 



" t The carryiug out of this scheme ami the destruction cf the colony of Acadians justly receives execration." 



" $ Bancroft's Hist, U. S., v, p. 46." " II Ibid., iv, p. 149." 



