THE AMERICAN WHALE-FLS EERY. 



209 



The breaking -out of the Revolutionary War paralyzed the whaling commerce, 

 which nearly proved ruinous to all those who were embarked in it. Nantucket, at 

 that time, had one hundred and fifty vessels. But on the return of peace it was 

 resumed, and but few years elapsed before it was again pursued with great vigor. 

 The first whale- ship that ventured into the Pacific was sent by the Nantucket 

 colony of whaling -men from England, in 1787,* and the first officer of the vessel, 

 Archelus Hammond, struck the first Sperm Whale known to have been captured in 

 that ocean. 



In the year 1789, a gentleman from Cape Cod, who had returned from service 

 in the East India Company, having seen Sperm Whales near Madagascar, communi- 

 cated the fact to some of the Nantucket whalemen, who, profiting by the knowl- 

 edge, in due time dispatched ships to that coast, which proved to be a rich whaling- 

 ground. From 1787 to 1789, inclusive, the American Whale-fishery was prosecuted 

 from the ports, and to the extent set forth in the following statement:")- 



In 1791, J six whale -ships Avere fitted out at Nantucket for the Pacific — the 

 first that ever sailed from the United States for those distant grounds. Their 



ardor will seldom permit them ; perhaps she is 

 asleep ; in that case he balances high the har- 

 poon, trying in this important moment to collect 

 all the energy of which he is capable. He 

 launches it forth — she is struck: from her first 



* Proceedings American Antiquarian Society, 

 No. 57, p. 28-29. 



Marine Mammals. — 27. 



movement, they judge of her temper, as well as 

 of their future success. Sometimes, in the im- 

 mediate impulse of rage, she will attack the 

 boat, and demolish it with one stroke of her 

 tail ; in an instant the frail vehicle disappears, 



f Hunt's Merchants' 3Iagazine, vol. iii, p. 370. 

 J Proc. American Antiquarian Society, p. 29. 



