They have just changed places then; England
having gained, exactly what America has lost. France, by her ports and
markets, holds the balance between the two contending parties, and gives
the victory, by opening and shutting them, to which she pleases. We have
still precious remains of seamen, educated in this fishery, and capable
by their poverty, their boldness, and address, of recovering it from
the English, in spite of their bounties. But this Arret endangers the
transferring to Great Britain every man of them, who is not invincibly
attached to his native soil. There is no other nation in present
condition to maintain a competition with Great Britain in the
whale-fishery. The expense, at which it is supported on her part, seems
enormous. Two hundred and fifty-five vessels, of seventy-five thousand
four hundred and thirty-six tons, employed by her, this year, in the
northern fishery, at forty-two men each; and fifty-nine in the southern,
at eighteen men each, make eleven thousand seven hundred and seventy-two
men. These are known to have cost the government fifteen pounds each, or
one hundred and seventy-six thousand five hundred and eighty pounds, in
the whole, and that, to employ the principal part of them from three to
four months only.
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