5065. MARKETS, Fish oil.—
The duty
on whale oil [in the British markets] 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 language,
laws, religion, customs and kindred.
Remaining in their native country, to which
they are most singularly attached, excluded
from commerce with England, taught to look
to France as the only country from which they
can derive sustenance, they will in case of
war become useful rovers against its enemies.
Their position, their poverty, their courage,
their address, and their hatred will render
them formidable scourges on the British commerce.—
To Count de Montmorin. Washington ed. ii, 312.
(P.
1787)
