THE AMERICAN WHALE FISHERIES 231 



by an alien import duty of eighteen pounds per ton. 

 Oil which fetched thirty pounds per ton before the 

 war now barely made seventeen pounds, and since 

 twenty-five pounds was the minimum required by 

 the whalers in order to clear their expenses it 

 follows that the industry languished. A number 

 of the American ports which had entered the 

 whaling business speedily withdrew from it, and it 

 was due to the courage and enterprise of the 

 Nantucket men that at this stage the industry did 

 not expire. 



When the state of the industry appeared hope- 

 less, the Massachusetts legislature came to the 

 rescue, and in 1785 passed a Bounty Act. For 

 every ton of oil imported into the States the whale- 

 men were to receive a bounty of five pounds on 

 white spermaceti oil, sixty shillings on brown or 

 yellow sperm oil, and forty shillings on whale oil. 

 The vessel had to be owned and manned wholly by 

 the inhabitants of Massachusetts, and landed at a 

 port in that state. During the war the lack of oil 

 had induced the people to use tallow candles, so 

 that the increased landings of oil which were the 

 result of this bounty could not be absorbed by the 

 population, with the result that over-production led 

 to a sharp fall in prices. 



Scammon states that by 1787-9 there were only 

 one hundred and twenty-two vessels engaged in 

 whaling from Massachusetts ports, and even this 

 list includes small vessels not engaged in reguta" 

 voyages. 



