. 



THE AMERICAN WHALE FISHERIES 229 



London merchants protested against this, sending 

 petitions to Parliament, but it was not until 1767 that 

 conditions were much improved. 



Just before the Revolution broke out the America^ 

 whale fishery was very prosperous. The annual pro 

 duction from 1771 to 1775 was estimated at not less 

 than forty-five thousand barrels of sperm oil, eight 

 thousand five hundred barrels of whale oil, am ; 

 seventy-five thousand pounds of bone. Sperm oil 

 fetched forty pounds per ton, head matter fifty 

 pounds per ton, whale oil seventy dollars per ton, 

 and whalebone fifty cents per pound on the average. 

 Most of the exports went to Great Britain where the. 

 increasing consumption of oil in lamps and in vario ./ 

 industries led to a large demand for whale product?. 



The revolution of 1775 put a stop to whaling, and 

 the trade in oil and bone practically ceased, except 

 to the West Indies. The previous year the colonial 

 whale fishery had reached its high-water mark with 

 a fleet of three hundred and sixty vessels of thirty- 

 three thousand aggregate tonnage. Of these at 

 least three hundred sail belonged to Massachusetts 

 ports. In 1775 in order " to starve New England " 

 the British Parliament passed an Act to restrict 

 colonial trade to British ports, placing an embargo 

 on fishing on the banks of Newfoundland or on any 

 other part of the North American coast. When 

 hostilities commenced the only port to carry on 

 whaling was Nantucket, the people of which town 

 were compelled to endeavour to follow this industry, 

 since it was the only one which yielded them any 



