Richmond Enquirer

WHALE FISHERY.

The British Parliament has recently ordered an account of the Greenland, Davis' Straits, and Southern Whale Fisheries of Great Britain to be printed. The statements embrace the tonnage, duty, bounty, and product for thirty years past, with the exception of such documents as were destroyed by fire.

It appears from this account that in 1818 and 1820, 155 ships were engaged in both hemispheres. This number is the greatest ever employed in that business at one time by the British—it is now reduced to 115, of which only 41 are in the Southern fishery.

Great importance is deservedly attached by the British and French governments to this source of individual enterprise and national wealth. They accordingly encourage it by a liberal bounty on the quantity imported. The sums paid by government on 750 tons of spermaceti and train oil taken by 41 ships last year, amount to nearly $3,000 dollars.

Our own government, it is true, exempt from duty the oil brought in by American vessels, owned and commanded by American citizens. But the facts ought to be known, that at this moment there are employed in the Southern whale fishery from the port of Nantucket alone, nearly twice as many ships as are engaged in that fishery from all the ports of England and France—and that most of the whaling ships belonging to both these countries are commanded by persons from Nantucket and New Bedford, who have been drawn from their homes by foreign allurements.

[Nantucket Inq.