letely engrossed this branch
of the whale fishery, contentedly leaving to Great Britain and the
continental nations the monopoly of the northern or Arctic fisheries,
while they cruised the stormy, if milder, seas around their own shores.
For the resultant products, their best customer was the mother country,
and a lucrative commerce steadily grew up between the two countries. But
when the march of events brought the unfortunate and wholly unnecessary
War of Independence, this flourishing trade was the first to suffer, and
many of the daring fishermen became our fiercest foes on board their own
men-of-war.
The total stoppage of the importation of sperm oil and spermaceti was
naturally severely felt in England, for time had not permitted the
invention of substitutes. In consequence of this, ten ships were
equipped and sent out to the sperm whale fishery from England in 1776,
most of them owned by one London firm, the Messrs. Enderby. The next
year, in order to encourage the infant enterprise, a Government bounty,
graduated from L500 to L1000 per ship, was granted. Under this
fostering care the number of ships engaged in the sperm whale fishery
progressively increased until 1791, when it attained its maximum.
This method of whaling being quite new to our whalemen, it was
necessary, at great cost, to hire American officers and harpooners
to instruct them in the ways of dealing with these highly active
and dangerous cetacea. Naturally, it was by-and-by found possible
to dispense with the services of these auxiliaries; but it must be
confessed that the business never seems to have found such favour, or to
have been prosecuted with such smartness, among our whalemen as it has
by the Americans.
Something of an exotic the trade always was among us, although it did
attain considerable proportions at one time. At first the fishing was
confined to the Atlantic Ocean; nor for many years was it necessary to
go farther afield, as abundance of whales could easily be found.
As, however, the number of ships engaged increased, it was inevitable
that the known grounds should become exhausted, and in 1788 Messrs.
Enderby's ship, the EMILIA, first ventured round Cape Horn, as the
pioneer of a greater trade than ever. The way once pointed out, other
ships were not slow to follow, until, in 1819, the British whale-ship
SYREN opened up the till then unexplored tract of ocean in the western
part of the North Pacific, afterwards familia
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