increasing; the whale fishery recovered from its prostration and reached the climax of its development; the mackerel fishery, which was of only minor importance during the eighteenth century, became a notable industry; and other fisheries, such as the oyster, herring, and menhaden, assumed a position of commercial importance. For the sake of greater clearness, these various branches of the New England fisheries will be separately considered. THE WHALE FISHERY. Until after the close of the second war with Great Britain, the New England whale fishery had a precarious existence, sometimes prospering, when a relaxation of commercial restrictions extended the range of markets and caused prices to rise, only to meet with disaster again, when the market was suddenly limited and an excess of products brought about low prices. Capital was not lacking and whalemen were not wanting, but the continual state of uncertainty of political conditions permitted small chance of success in a business in which so long a time elapsed between the inception of the enterprise and the sale of the product. The opening of the French market in 1789 caused a temporary revival of whaling, but the French Revolution and the war between France and England abruptly terminated the short period of prosperity, the shipments to France after 1792 not even paying costs.1 Trouble between France and the United States in 1798, together with commercial legislation during Jefferson's administration, caused fresh disasters, and though there was a partial revival by 1812, the war with England broke out and put a complete stop to the industry. Many of the whale ships at sea when the war was declared were taken as prizes by the English naval vessels, and those which were fortunate enough to reach home were either converted into privateers or lay idle until hostilities were over. With the return of peace with England and the termination of the long series of European wars, the whaling industry revived and entered upon a long period of unexampled prosperity. By 1818, the gross tonnage of vessels employed in the whale fishery of the United States was 16,750 tons, the highest point reached up to that time since the beginning of the Federal Government.2 The next forty years witnessed an almost continual increase in the size of the fleet, and, though given no financial aid by the Federal Government, such as the cod fishery received, whaling soon took the lead among the fishing industries of the United States, the annual value of its products during the later years of this period amounting to considerably more than the value of the products of all the other fisheries combined. The demand for whale products at home and abroad grew so rapidly that, notwithstanding the rapid increase of production, prices tended to rise. The prices of Report of U. S. Commissioner of Navigation, 1910, p. 210. 'Macy, History of Nantucket, 150. STALINARY MAP 7. FISHING GROUNDS OF THE GULF OF MAINE. (From McFarland's History of the New England Fisheries.) sperm oil and whale oil were considerably higher in 1860 than in 1820, and the price of whalebone, which met with a constantly growing demand, advanced from 10 cents to about 90 cents a pound during the forty years. Year after year the whaling fleet grew in tonnage; larger ships were used; better methods were employed; all parts of the sea were visited by the intrepid whalers; and millions of gallons of oil and millions of pounds of whalebone were brought home to the New England ports to be sold in domestic and foreign markets. The documented tonnage of the whaling fleet of the United States, which had sunk to nothing in 1814, was 35,391 tons, gross tonnage, in 1820. Eleven years later it was 82,316 tons, and by 1841 it was 157,405 tons. From 1845 to 1860 it fell below 180,000 tons in only one year; several years it was more than 190,000 tons, reaching a maximum of 198,594 tons in 1858, and in 1860, when the period of decline was setting in, it measured 166,841 tons. From 1835 to 1860 the fleet averaged more than 600 vessels a year. The annual product averaged 118,000 barrels of sperm oil, 216,000 barrels of whale oil, and 2,324,000 pounds of whalebone, representing an average annual value of about $8,000,000.2 In the census of 1860, the value of the products of the whale fishery during 1859-60 was given as $7,749,305.3 Until 1791 the operations of the deep-sea whaling vessels of the United States were confined to the Atlantic Ocean. In that year a half dozen Nantucket whalers sailed around Cape Horn into the Pacific Ocean in search of sperm whales. The voyages proved successful, and during the next few years several more vessels went to the new hunting-grounds. When whaling was resumed, after the war of 1812, the Pacific grounds were again sought out. For a time the Pacific whalers cruised only along the coast of Chile; but as whales became scarce in that region, voyages were made farther and farther into the Pacific, to both the southern and the northern parts of the ocean. By 1821 whaling-vessels reached the Japanese coast; not many years later the whaling-grounds along the northwest coast of North America were discovered; then the grounds along the Kamchatka and in the Okhotsk Sea were visited; and in 1848 a vessel from Sag Harbor made a successful trip into the Arctic Ocean. By 1835 most of the deep-sea whaling was carried on in the Pacific Ocean. Often the New England whaler would come home by the eastern route, sometimes cruising for a while in the Indian Ocean about the island of Madagascar or at the entrance of the Red Sea, to secure a possible addition to his cargo. Throughout the long period of prosperity in the whaling industry, whale products constituted an important item in the foreign trade of the United States. Though the larger part of the oil was taken by the 1Tower, History of the American Whale Fishery, 128. 2Goode, Fisheries and Fishery Industries of United States, sec. v. II, p. 170. "Tower, History of the American Whale Fishery, 43. domestic market, millions of gallons of oil, as well as millions of pounds of spermaceti candles, were exported, and nearly all the whalebone was sold in foreign markets. New York and Boston were the important centers of the export trade. Until about 1840 the chief foreign markets for sperm oil were in the West Indies and South America, most of the whalebone exported went to France and the Hanse towns, and the exports of whale oil were sold chiefly to the Hanse towns, Holland, and Belgium. Afterwards England became the chief market for spermaceti, and also bought large quantities of whalebone, while the whale oil continued to be exported to the ports of northern Europe, to the West Indies, and to South America. For the two decades following 1840 the average annual exports of sperm oil exceeded 710,000 gallons, while those of whale and other fish exceeded 1,193,000 gallons; the quantity of whalebone exported was about 1,604,000 pounds.1 With the exception of an occasional vessel from Philadelphia, Newark, or Wilmington, the whaling fleet of this period was made up of vessels from the ports of New England and New York, Massachusetts contributing by far the largest number. Of New York ports, Sag Harbor sent out the largest number of vessels, its largest fleet numbering 63 vessels, in 1846. The ports of Maine, though acquiring prominence in other fisheries during this period, took only a small part in the whale fishery and after 1845 abandoned it altogether. Portsmouth (New Hampshire) was a whaling port for a few years, but sent out only a small number of vessels. Rhode Island took a much larger share in the industry than either Maine or New Hampshire. There were as many as 25 whaling-vessels registered at one time from Warren, and Providence and Newport each had several vessels during the years in which the industry was at the height of its prosperity. In Connecticut, New London was the leading whaling port, usually standing next to New Bedford and Nantucket in the number of vessels registered. Mystic and Stonington also had small fleets.2 In Massachusetts the whaling industry flourished especially. Here the industry was started, and here it reached the highest stage of development. Dozens of Massachusetts ports had vessels engaged in whaling and thousands of Massachusetts people gained a livelihood from the industry. Of the many towns engaged in whaling, New Bedford was by far the most prominent, the vessels registered there usually composing, after 1840, about half of the entire whaling fleet of the nation. Before the Revolution the little town of Nantucket had been the leading whaling port, and during the early years of this period Nantucket had the largest whaling fleet of any New England port, but the shallowness of the water on the bar at the harbor entrance prevented the entry of the large whaling-vessels of 200 and 300 tons, which came into use 'See Commerce and Navigation of United States, 1840-1860. |