The Sulphur-Bottom, River St. Lawrence, Ninety Foot Long; They Are
But Seldom Killed, As Being Extremely Swift.
The grampus, thirty feet long, never killed on the same account.
The killer or thrasher, about thirty feet; they often kill the other
whales with which they are at perpetual war.
The black fish whale, twenty feet, yields from eight to ten barrels.
The porpoise, weighing about 160 lb.
In 1769 they fitted out 125 whalemen; the first fifty that returned
brought with them 11,000 barrels of oil. In 1770 they fitted out 135
vessels for the fisheries, at thirteen hands each; four West-
Indiamen, twelve hands; twenty-five wood vessels, four hands;
eighteen coasters, five hands; fifteen London traders, eleven hands.
All these amount to 2158 hands, employed in 197 vessels. Trace their
progressive steps between the possession of a few whale-boats, and
that of such a fleet!
The moral conduct, prejudices, and customs of a people who live two-
thirds of their time at sea, must naturally be very different from
those of their neighbours, who live by cultivating the earth. That
long abstemiousness to which the former are exposed, the breathing
of saline air, the frequent repetitions of danger, the boldness
acquired in surmounting them, the very impulse of the winds, to
which they are exposed; all these, one would imagine must lead them,
when on shore, to no small desire of inebriation, and a more eager
pursuit of those pleasures, of which they have been so long
deprived, and which they must soon forego.
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