So that this people, who,
before the war, had employed upwards of three hundred vessels a year in
the whale-fishery (while Great Britain had herself never employed one
hundred), have now almost ceased to exercise it. But they still had the
seamen, the most important material for this fishery; and they still
retained the spirit for fishing: so that, at the re-establishment
of peace, they were capable, in a very short time, of reviving their
fishery in all its splendor. The British government saw that the moment
was critical. They knew that their own share in that fishery was as
nothing: that the great mass of fishermen was left with a nation now
separated from them: that these fishermen, however, had lost their
ancient market; had no other resource within their country to which they
could turn and they hoped, therefore, they might, in the present moment
of distress, be decoyed over to their establishments, and be added
to the mass of their seamen. To effect this, they offered extravagant
advantages to all persons who should exercise the whale-fishery from
British establishments.
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