lone, then, will remain
to furnish these supplies, and they must be received, even from them.
We must accept bread from our enemies, if our friends cannot furnish
it. This comes exactly to the point, to which that government has
been looking. She fears no rival in the whale-fishery, but America: or
rather, it is the whale-fishery of America, of which she is endeavoring
to possess herself. It is for this object, she is making the present
extraordinary efforts, by bounties and other encouragements: and her
success, so far, is very flattering. Before the war, she had not one
hundred vessels in the whale-trade, while America employed three hundred
and nine. In 1786, Great Britain employed one hundred and fifty-one
vessels; in 1787, two hundred and eighty-six; in 1788, three hundred
and fourteen, nearly the ancient American number: while the latter has
fallen to about eighty. They have just changed places then; England
having gained, exactly what America has lost. France, by her ports and
markets, holds the balance between the two contending parties, and gives
the victory, by opening and shutting them, to which she pleases. We have
still precious remains of seamen, educated in this fishery, and capable
by their poverty, their boldness, and address, of recovering it from
the English, in spite of their bounties. But this Arret endangers the
transferring to Great Britain every man of them, who is not invincibly
attached to his native soil. There is no other nation in present
condition to maintain a competition with Great Britain in the
whale-fishery. The expense, at which it is supported on her part, seems
enormous. Two hundred and fifty-five vessels, of seventy-five thousand
four hundred and thirty-six tons, employed by her, this year, in the
northern fishery, at forty-two men each; and fifty-nine in the southern,
at eighteen men each, make eleven thousand seven hundred and seventy-two
men. These are known to have cost the government fifteen pounds each, or
one hundred and seventy-six thousand five hundred and eighty pounds, in
the whole, and that, to employ the principal part of them from three to
four months only. The northern ships have brought home twenty, and the
southern sixty tons of oil, on an average; making eighty-six hundred
and forty tons. Every ton of oil, then, has cost the government twenty
pounds in bounty. Still, if they can beat, us out of the field, and
have it to themselves, they will think their money well e