Vlli 
treasury ; and while the subject was 
under discussion in the British Parlia¬ 
ment, in 1786, it was stated that the 
sums which that country had paid in 
bounties to the Greenland fishers, a- 
mounted to 1,265,461 pounds sterling. 
Six thousand seamen were employed in 
that fishery, and each cost the govern¬ 
ment £13 10s. per annum. The great 
encouragement given to that branch of 
commerce, caused so large a number to 
engage in it, that the oil market became, 
glutted, and it was found necessary to 
export considerable quantities. 
In 1786, the number of British ships 
engaged in the whale fishery to Davis’s 
Strait and the Greenland seas, was 139, 
besides 15 from Scotland; In 1787, 
notwithstanding the bounty had been 
diminished, the number of English ships 
was 217, and the following year 222. 
The charter right of the Island of 
Nantucket, was bought by Thomas May - 
hew, of Watertown, of Joseph Ferrick, 
steward to Lord Sterling, in 1641; and 
afterwards sold to Tristram Coffin, and 
his associates, who settled upon it in 
1659. On the 10th of Ma^, 1660, Sa¬ 
chems, Wonnook, and Nickannoose? 
for and in behalf of the nations of the 
/ 
