ch of a right-whaler on her homeward voyage. Scarcely even could
the slave-ships compare with it. Brought ashore, this noisome mass was
boiled in huge kettles, and the resulting oil sent to lighten the night in
all civilized lands. England was a good customer of the colonies, and
Boston shipowners did a thriving trade with oil from New Bedford or
Nantucket to London. The sloops and ketches engaged in this commerce
brought back, as an old letter of directions from shipowner to skipper
shows, "course wicker flasketts, Allom, Copress, drum rims, head snares,
shod shovells, window-glass." The trade was conducted with the same piety
that we find manifested in the direction of slave-ships and privateers. In
order that the oil may fetch a good price, and the voyage be speedy, the
captain is commended to God, and "That hee may please to take the Conduct
of you, we pray you look carefully that hee bee worshipped dayly in yor
shippe, his Sabbaths Sanctifiede, and all sinne and prophainesse let bee
Surpressed." In the Revolution the fisheries suffered severely from the
British cruisers, and when, after peace was declared, the whalemen began
coming back from the privateers, in which they had sought service, and the
wharves of Nantucket, New Bedford, and New London began again to show
signs of life, the Americans were confronted by the closing of their
English markets. "The whale fisheries and the Newfoundland fisheries were
the nurseries of British seamen," said the British ministry to John Adams,
who went to London to remonstrate. "If we let Americans bring oil to
London, and sell fish to our West India colonies, the British marine will
decline." For a long time, therefore, the whalers had to look elsewhere
than to England for a market. Nevertheless the trade grew. New Bedford,
which by the middle of the nineteenth century held three-fourths of the
business, took it up with great vigor. For a time Massachusetts gave
bounties to encourage the industry, but it was soon strong enough to
dispense with them. By 1789 the whalers found their way to the
Pacific--destined in later years to be their chief fishing-ground. In that
year the total whaling tonnage of Massachusetts was 10,210, with 1611 men
and an annual product of 7880 barrels sperm and 13,130 barrels whale oil.
Fifteen years earlier--before the war--the figures were thrice as great.

[Illustration: "SENDING BOAT AND MEN FLYING INTO THE AIR"]

Before this period, however, whaling