en duty of eighteen pounds five shillings the ton of
oil, which being more than equal to the price of the common whale-oil,
they are obliged to abandon that fishery. So that this people, who,
before the war, had employed upwards of three hundred vessels a year in
the whale-fishery (while Great Britain had herself never employed one
hundred), have now almost ceased to exercise it. But they still had the
seamen, the most important material for this fishery; and they still
retained the spirit for fishing: so that, at the re-establishment
of peace, they were capable, in a very short time, of reviving their
fishery in all its splendor. The British government saw that the moment
was critical. They knew that their own share in that fishery was as
nothing: that the great mass of fishermen was left with a nation now
separated from them: that these fishermen, however, had lost their
ancient market; had no other resource within their country to which they
could turn and they hoped, therefore, they might, in the present moment
of distress, be decoyed over to their establishments, and be added
to the mass of their seamen. To effect this, they offered extravagant
advantages to all persons who should exercise the whale-fishery from
British establishments. But not counting with much confidence on a long
connection with their remaining possessions on the continent of America,
foreseeing that the _Nantuckois_ would settle in them, preferably, if
put on an equal footing with those of Great Britain, and that thus they
might have to purchase them a second time, they confined their high
offers to settlers in Great Britain. The _Nantuckois_, left without
resource by the loss of their market, began to think of removing to the
British dominions; some to Nova Scotia, preferring smaller advantages in
the neighborhood of their ancient country and friends; others to Great
Britain, postponing country and friends to high premiums. A vessel was
already arrived from Halifax to Nantucket, to take off some of those
who proposed to remove; two families had gone on board, and others
were going, when a letter was received there, which had been written
by Monsieur le Marquis de la Fayette, to a gentleman in Boston, and
transmitted by him to Nantucket. The purport of the letter was to
dissuade their accepting the British proposals, and to assure them that
their friends in France would endeavor to do something for them. This
instantly suspended their design: not