principle, it was as true on the 29th of December 1787, as on the 20th
of September, 1788: it was then weighed against other motives, judged
weaker and overruled, and it is hard it should be now revived, to ruin
them.

The refinery for whale-oil, lately established at Rouen, seems to be
an object worthy of national attention. In order to judge of its
importance, the different qualities of whale-oil must be noted. Three
qualities are known in the American and English markets. 1st. That of
the spermaceti whale. 2nd. Of the Greenland whale. 3rd. Of the Brazil
whale. 1. The spermaceti whale found by the _Nantuckois_, in the
neighborhood of the Western Islands, to which they had gone in pursuit
of other whales, retired thence to the coast of Guinea, afterwards to
that of Brazil, and begins now to be best found in the latitude of
the Cape of Good Hope, and even of Cape Horn. He is an active, fierce
animal, and requires vast address and boldness in the fisherman. The
inhabitants of Brazil make little expeditions from their coast, and take
some of these fish. But the Americans are the only distant people, who
have been in the habit of seeking and attacking him, in numbers. The
British, however, led by the _Nantuckois_, whom they have decoyed into
their service, have begun this fishery. In 1785, they had eighteen ships
in it; in 1787, thirty-eight; in 1788, fifty-four, or, as some say,
sixty-four. I have calculated on the middle number, fifty-nine. Still
they take but a very small proportion of their own demand; we furnish
the rest. Theirs is the only market to which we carry that oil, because
it is the only one where its properties are known. It is luminous,
resists coagulation by cold, to the forty-first degree of Fahrenheit's
thermometer, and fourth of Reaumur's, and yields no smell at all: it is
used, therefore, within doors, to lighten shops, and even in the richest
houses, for antichambers, stairs, galleries, &c. It sells at the London
market for treble the price of common whale-oil. This enables the
adventurer to pay the duty of eighteen pounds five shillings sterling
the ton, and still to have a living profit. Besides the mass of oil
produced from the whole body of the whale, his head yields three or
four barrels of what is called head-matter, from which is made the solid
spermaceti, used for medicine and candles. This sells by the pound at
double the price of the oil. The disadvantage of this fishery is, that
the sailo