That the common whale-oil sells there but for about twenty pounds
sterling, the ton, and of course the duty amounts to a prohibition. This
duty was originally laid on all foreign fish-oil, with a view to favor
the British and American fisheries. When we became independent, and of
course foreign to Great Britain, we became subject to the foreign
duty. No duty, therefore, which France may think proper to lay on this
article, can drive it to the English market. It could only oblige the
inhabitants of Nantucket to abandon their fishery. But the poverty
of their soil offering them no other resource, they must quit their
country, and either establish themselves in Nova Scotia, where, as
British fishermen, they may participate of the British premium, in
addition to the ordinary price of their whale-oil, or they must accept
the conditions which this government offers, for the establishment they
have proposed at Dunkirk. Your Excellency will judge, what conditions
may counterbalance, in their minds, the circumstances of the vicinity
of Nova Scotia, sameness of langague,[sp.] laws, religion, customs,
and kindred.
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