University of Virginia Library

9. CHAPTER IX.

The colony had now reached a point when its policy
must have an eye to its future destinies. If it were intended
to push it, like a new settlement, a very different
course ought to be pursued from the one hitherto adopted.
But the governor and council entertained more moderate
views. They understood their real position better. It was
true that the Peak, in one sense, or in that which related
to soil and products, was now in a condition to receive
immigrants as fast as they could come; but the Peak had its
limits, and it could hold but a very circumscribed number.
As to the group, land had to be formed for the reception
of the husbandman, little more than the elements of soil
existing over so much of its surface. Then, in the way of
trade, there could not be any very great inducement for
adventurers to come, since the sandal-wood was the only
article possessed which would command a price in a foreign
market. This sandal-wood, moreover, did not belong
to the colony, but to a people who might, at any
moment, become hostile, and who already began to complain
that the article was getting to be very scarce. Under
all the circumstances, therefore, it was not deemed
desirable to add to the population of the place faster than
would now be done by natural means.

The cargoes of the two vessels just arrived were divided
between the state and the governor, by a very just process.

The governor had one-half the proceeds for his own private
use, as owner of the Rancocus, without which vessel
nothing could have been done; while the state received
the other moiety, in virtue of the labour of its citizens as
well as in that of its right to impose duties on imports and
exports. Of the portion which went to the state, certain
parts were equally divided between the colonists, for immediate
use, while other parts of the cargo were placed in
store, and held as a stock, to be drawn upon as occasion
might arise.

The voyage, like most adventures in sandal-wood, teas,
&c., in that day, had been exceedingly advantageous, and
produced a most beneficent influence on the fortunes and
comforts of the settlement. A well-selected cargo of the
coarse, low-priced articles most needed in such a colony,
could easily have been purchased with far less than the proceeds
of the cargo of tea that had been obtained at Canton,
in exchange for the sandal-wood carried out; and
Saunders, accordingly, had filled the holds of both vessels
with such articles, besides bringing home with him a considerable
amount in specie, half of which went into the
public coffers, and half into the private purse of governor
Woolston. Money had been in circulation in the colony
for the last twelve months; though a good deal of caution
was used in suffering it to pass from hand to hand. The
disposition was to hoard; but this fresh arrival of specie
gave a certain degree of confidence, and the silver circulated
a great deal more freely after it was known that so
considerable an amount had been brought in.

It would scarcely be in our power to enumerate the
articles that were received by these arrivals; they included
everything in common use among civilized men,
from a grind-stone to a cart. Groceries, too, had been
brought in reasonable quantities, including teas, sugars,
&c.; though these articles were not so much considered
necessaries in America fifty years ago as they are to-day.
The groceries of the state as well as many other articles,
were put into the hands of the merchants, who either purchased
them out and out, to dispose of at retail, or who
took them on commission with the same object. From
this time, therefore, regular shops existed, there being

three on the Reef and one on the Peak, where nearly
everything in use could be bought, and that, too, at prices
that were far from being exorbitant. The absence of import
duties had a great influence on the cost of things, the
state getting its receipts in kind, directly through the
labour of its citizens, instead of looking to a custom-house
in quest of its share for the general prosperity.

At that time very little was written about the great fallacy
of the present day, Free Trade; which is an illusion
about which men now talk, and dispute, and almost fight,
while no living mortal can tell what it really is. It is wise
for us in America, who never had anything but free trade,
according to modern doctrines, to look a little closely into
the sophisms that are getting to be so much in vogue;
and which, whenever they come from our illustrious ancestors
in Great Britain, have some such effect on the imaginations
of a portion of our people, as purling rills and
wooded cascades are known to possess over those of certain
young ladies of fifteen.

Free trade, in its true signification, or in the only signification
which is not a fallacy, can only mean a commerce
that is totally unfettered by duties, restrictions, prohibitions,
and charges of all sorts. Except among savages,
the world never yet saw such a state of things, and probably
never will. Even free trade ports have exactions that,
in a degree, counteract their pretended principle of liberty;
and no free port exists, that is anything more, in a strict
interpretation of its uses, than a sort of bonded ware-house.
So long as your goods remain there, on deposit
and unappropriated, they are not taxed; but the instant
they are taken to the consumer, the customary impositions
must be paid.

Freer trade—that is, a trade which is less encumbered
than some admitted state of things which previously existed
— is easily enough comprehended; but, instead of
conveying to the mind any general theory, it merely shows
that a lack of wisdom may have prevailed in the management
of some particular interest; which lack of wisdom is
now being tardily repaired. Prohibitions, whether direct,
or in the form of impositions that the trade will not bear,
may be removed without leaving trade free. This or that

article may be thrown open to the general competition,
without import duty or tax of any sort, and yet the great
bulk of the commerce of a country be so fettered as to put
an effectual check upon anything like liberal intercourse.
Suppose, for instance, that Virginia were an independent
country. Its exports would be tobacco, flour, and corn;
the tobacco crop probably more than equalling in value
those portions of the other crops which are sent out of the
country. England is suffering for food, and she takes off
everything like imposts on the eatables, while she taxes tobacco
to the amount of many hundred per cent. Can that
be called free trade?

There is another point of view in which we could wish
to protest against the shouts and fallacies of the hour.
Trade, perhaps the most corrupt and corrupting influence
of life — or, if second to anything in evil, second only to
politics — is proclaimed to be the great means of humanizing,
enlightening, liberalizing, and improving the human
race! Now, against this monstrous mistake in morals, we
would fain raise our feeble voices in sober remonstrance.
That the intercourse which is a consequence of commerce
may, in certain ways, liberalize a man's views, we are
willing to admit; though, at the same time, we shall insist
that there are better modes of attaining the same ends.
But it strikes us as profane to ascribe to this frail and mercenary
influence a power which there is every reason to
believe the Almighty has bestowed on the Christian church,
and on that alone; a church which is opposed to most of
the practices of trade, which rebukes them in nearly every
line of its precepts, and which, carried out in its purity,
can alone give the world that liberty and happiness which
a grasping spirit of cupidity is so ready to impute to the
desire to accumulate gold!

Fortunately, there was little occasion to dispute about
the theories of commerce at the Reef. The little trade
that did exist was truly unfettered; but no one supposed
that any man was nearer to God on that account, except
as he was farther removed from temptations to do wrong.
Still, the governing principle was sound; not by canting
about the beneficent and holy influences of commerce, but
by leaving to each man his individuality, or restraining it

only on those points which the public good demanded.
Instead of monopolizing the trade of the colony, which his
superior wealth and official power would have rendered
very easy, governor Woolston acted in the most liberal
spirit to all around him. With the exception of the Anne,
which was built by the colony, the council had decided, in
some measure contrary to his wishes, though in strict accordance
with what was right, that all the vessels were the
private property of Mark. After this decision, the governor
formally conveyed the Mermaid and the Abraham to the
state; the former to be retained principally as a cruiser and
a packet, while the last was in daily use as a means of conveying
articles and passengers, from one island to the other.
The Neshamony was presented, out and out, to Betts, who
turned many a penny with her, by keeping her running
through the different passages, with freight, &c.; going
from plantation to plantation, as these good people were in
the practice of calling their farms. Indeed, Bob did little
else, until the governor, seeing his propensity to stick by
the water, and ascertaining that the intercourse would
justify such an investment, determined to build him a
sloop, in order that he might use her as a sort of packet
and market-boat, united. A vessel of about forty-five tons
was laid down accordingly, and put into the water at the
end of six months, that was just the sort of craft suited to
Bob's wishes and wants. In the mean time, the honest
fellow had resigned his seat in the council, feeling that he
was out of his place in such a body, among men of more
or less education, and of habits so much superior and
more refined than his own. Mark did not oppose this step
in his friend, but rather encouraged it; being persuaded
nothing was gained by forcing upon a man duties he was
hardly fitted to discharge. Self-made men, he well knew,
were sometimes very useful; but he also knew that they
must be first made.

The name of this new sloop was the Martha, being thus
called in compliment to her owner's sober-minded, industrious
and careful wife. She (the sloop, and not Mrs.
Betts) was nearly all cabin, having lockers forward and
aft, and was fitted with benches in her wings, steamboat
fashion. Her canvas was of light duck, there being very

little heavy weather in that climate; so that assisted by a
boy and a Kannaka, honest Bob could do anything he
wished with his craft. He often went to the Peak and
Rancocus Island in her, always doing something useful;
and he even made several trips in her, within the first few
months he had her running, as far as Betto's group. On
these last voyages, he carried over Kannakas as passengers,
as well as various small articles, such as fish-hooks, old
iron, hatchets even, and now and then a little tobacco.
These he exchanged for cocoa-nuts, which were yet scarce
in the colony, on account of the number of mouths to
consume them; baskets, Indian cloth, paddles which the
islanders made very beautifully and with a great deal of
care; bread-fruit, and other plants that abounded more at
Betto's group than at the Reef, or even on the Peak.

But the greatest voyage Betts made that season was
when he took a freight of melons. This was a fruit which
now abounded in the colony; so much so as to be fed even
to the hogs, while the natives knew nothing of it beyond
the art of eating it. They were extraordinarily fond of
melons, and Bob actually filled the cabin of the Martha
with articles obtained in exchange for his cargo. Among
other things obtained on this occasion, was a sufficiency
of sandal-wood to purchase for the owner of the sloop as
many groceries as he could consume in his family for twelve
months; though groceries were high, as may well be supposed,
in a place like the Reef. Betts always admitted
that the first great turn in his fortune was the money made
on this voyage, in which he embarked without the least
apprehension of Waally, and his never-ceasing wiles and
intrigues. Indeed, most of his sales were made to that
subtle and active chief, who dealt very fairly by him.

All this time the Rancocus was laid up for want of
something to freight her with. At one time the governor
thought of sending her to pick up a cargo where she could;
but a suggestion by a seaman of the name of Walker set
him on a different track, and put on foot an adventure
which soon attracted the attention of most of the sea-faring
portion of the community.

It had been observed by the crew of the Rancocus, not
only in her original run through those seas, but in her two

subsequent passages from America, that the spermaceti
whale abounded in all that part of the ocean which lay to
windward of the group. Now Walker had once been
second officer of a Nantucket craft, and was regularly
brought up to the business of taking whales. Among the
colonists were half a dozen others who had done more or
less at the same business; and, at the suggestion of Walker,
who had gone out in the Rancocus as her first officer,
captain Saunders laid in a provision of such articles as
were necessary to set up the business. These consisted
of cordage, harpoons, spades, lances, and casks. Then
no small part of the lower hold of the Henlopen was stowed
with shook casks; iron for hoops, &c., being also provided.

As the sandal-wood was now obtained in only small
quantities, all idea of sending the ship to Canton again,
that year, was necessarily abandoned. At first this seemed
to be a great loss; but when the governor came to reflect
coolly on the subject, not only he, but the council generally,
came to the conclusion that Providence was dealing
more mercifully with them, by turning the people into this
new channel of commerce, than to leave them to pursue
their original track. Sandal-wood had a purely adventitious
value, though it brought, particularly in that age, a most
enormous profit; one so large, indeed, as to have a direct
and quick tendency to demoralize those embarked in the
trade. The whaling business, on the other hand, while it
made large returns, demanded industry, courage, perseverance,
and a fair amount of capital. Of vessels, the
colonists had all they wanted; the forethought of Saunders
and the suggestions of Walker furnished the particular
means; and of provisions there was now a superabundance
in the group.

It was exceedingly fortunate that such an occupation
offered to interest and keep alive the spirit of the colonists.
Man must have something to do; some main object to live
for; or he is apt to degenerate in his ambition, and to fall
off in his progress. No sooner was it announced that
whales were to be taken, however, than even the women
became alive to the results of the enterprise. This feeling
was kept up by the governor's letting it be officially known

that each colonist should have one share, or “lay,” as it
was termed, in the expected cargo which share, or “lay,”
was to be paid for in provisions. Those actually engaged
in the business had as many “lays” as it was thought they
could earn; the colony in its collected capacity had a certain
number more, in return for articles received from the
public stores; and the governor, as owner of the vessels
employed, received one-fifth of the whole cargo, or cargoes.
This last was a very small return for the amount of capital
employed; and it was so understood by those who reaped
the advantages of the owner's liberality.

The Rancocus was not fitted out as a whaler, but was
reserved as a ware-house to receive the oil, to store it until
a cargo was collected, and then was to be used as a means
to convey it to America. For this purpose she was stripped,
had her rigging thoroughly overhauled, was cleaned out
and smoked for rats, and otherwise was prepared for service.
While in this state, she lay alongside of the natural
quay, near and opposite to some extensive sheds which had
been erected, as a protection against the heats of the climate.

The Henlopen, a compact clump of a brig, that was
roomy on deck, and had stout masts and good rigging, was
fitted out for the whaler; though the Anne was sent to
cruise in company. Five whale-boats, with the necessary
crews, were employed; two remaining with the Anne, and
three in the brig. The Kannakas were found to be indefatigable
at the oar, and a good number of them were used
on this occasion. About twenty of the largest boys belonging
to the colony were also sent out, in order to accustom
them to the sea. These boys were between the ages
of eight and sixteen, and were made useful in a variety of
ways.

Great was the interest awakened in the colony when the
Henlopen and the Anne sailed on this adventure. Many
of the women, the wives, daughters, sisters, or sweethearts
of the whalers, would gladly have gone along; and so intense
did the feeling become, that the governor determined
to make a festival of the occasion, and to offer to take out
himself, in the Mermaid, as many of both sexes as might
choose to make a trip of a few days at sea, and be witnesses

of the success of their friends in this new undertaking.
Betts also took a party in the Martha. The
Abraham, too, was in company; while the Neshamony was
sent to leeward, to keep a look-out in that quarter, lest the
natives should take it into their heads to visit the group,
while so many of its fighting-men, fully a hundred altogether,
were absent. It is true, those who stayed at home
were fully able to beat off Waally and his followers; but
the governor thought it prudent to have a look-out. Such
was the difference produced by habit. When the whole
force of the colony consisted of less than twenty men, it
was thought sufficient to protect itself, could it be brought
to act together; whereas, now, when ten times twenty were
left at home, unusual caution was deemed necessary, because
the colony was weakened by this expedition of so
many of its members. But everything is comparative with
man.

When all was ready, the whaling expedition sailed; the
governor leading on board the Mermaid, which had no less
than forty females in her—Bridget and Anne being among
them. The vessels went out by the southern channel,
passing through the strait at the bridge in order to do so.
This course was taken, as it would be easier to turn to
windward in the open water between the south cape and
the Peak, than to do it in the narrow passages between the
islands of the group. The Mermaid led off handsomely,
sparing the Henlopen her courses and royals. Even the
Abraham could spare the last vessel her foresail, the new
purchase turning out to be anything but a traveller. The
women wondered how so slow a vessel could ever catch a
whale!

The direction steered by the fleet carried it close under
the weather side of the Peak, the summit of which was
crowded by the population, to see so unusual and pleasing
a sight. The Martha led, carrying rather more sail, in
proportion to her size, than the Mermaid. It happened, by
one of those vagaries of fortune which so often thwart the
best calculations, that a spout was seen to windward of the
cliffs, at a moment when the sloop was about a league
nearer to it than any other vessel. Now, every vessel in
the fleet had its whale-boat and whale-boat's crew; though

the men of all but those who belonged to the Henlopen
were altogether inexperienced. It is true, they had learned
the theory of the art of taking a whale; but they were
utterly wanting in the practice. Betts was not the man
to have the game in view, however, and not make an effort
to overcome it. His boat was manned in an instant, and
away he went, with Socrates in the bows, to fasten to a
huge creature that was rolling on the water in a species of
sluggish enjoyment of its instincts. It often happens that
very young soldiers, more especially when an esprit de
corps has been awakened in them, achieve things from
which older troops would retire, under the consciousness
of their hazards. So did it prove with the Martha's boat's
crew on this occasion. Betts steered, and he put them
directly on the whale; Socrates, who looked fairly green
under the influence of alarm and eagerness to attack, both
increased by the total novelty of his situation, making his
dart of the harpoon when the bows of the fragile craft were
literally over the huge body of the animal. All the energy
of the negro was thrown into his blow, for he felt as if it
were life or death with him; and the whale spouted blood
immediately. It is deemed a great exploit with whalers,
though it is not of very rare occurrence, to inflict a death-wound
with the harpoon; that implement being intended
to make fast with to the fish, which is subsequently slain
with what is termed a lance. But Socrates actually killed
the first whale he ever struck, with the harpoon; and from
that moment he became an important personage in the
fisheries of those seas. That blow was a sort of Palo Alto
affair to him, and was the forerunner of many similar successes.
Indeed, it soon got to be said, that “with Bob
Betts to put the boat on, and old Soc to strike, a whale
commonly has a hard time on't.” It is true, that a good
many boats were stove, and two Kannakas were drowned,
that very summer, in consequence of these tactics; but
the whales were killed, and Betts and the black escaped
with whole skins.

On this, the first occasion, the whale made the water
foam, half-filled the boat, and would have dragged it under
but for the vigour of the negro's arm, and the home character
of the blow, which caused the fish to turn up and

breathe his last, before he had time to run any great distance.
The governor arrived on the spot, just as Bob
had got a hawser to the whale and was ready to fill away
for the South Cape channel again. The vessels passed
each other cheering, and the governor admonished his
friend not to carry the carcass too near the dwellings, lest it
should render them uninhabitable. But Betts had his anchorage
already in his eye, and away he went, with the
wind on his quarter, towing his prize at the rate of four or
five knots. It may be said, here, that the Martha went
into the passage, and that the whale was floated into shallow
water, where sinking was out of the question, and Bob and
his Kannakas, about twenty in number, went to work to peel
off the blubber in a very efficient, though not in a very
scientific, or artistical manner. They got the creature
stripped of its jacket of fat that very night, and next morning
the Martha appeared with a set of kettles, in which the
blubber was tried out. Casks were also brought in the
sloop, and, when the work was done, it was found that that
single whale yielded one hundred and eleven barrels of oil,
of which thirty-three barrels were head-matter! This was
a capital commencement for the new trade, and Betts conveyed
the whole of his prize to the Reef, where the oil was
started into the ground-tier of the Rancocus, the casks of
which were newly repaired, and ready stowed to receive it.

A week later, as the governor in the Mermaid, cruising
in company with the Henlopen and Abraham, was looking
out for whales about a hundred miles to windward of the
Peak, having met with no success, he was again joined by
Betts in the Martha. Everything was reported right at the
Reef. The Neshamony had come in for provisions and
gone out again, and the Rancocus would stand up without
watching, with her hundred and eleven barrels of oil in
her lower hold. The governor expressed his sense of
Betts' services, and reminding him of his old faculty of
seeing farther and truer than most on board, he asked him
to go up into the brig's cross-trees and take a look for
whales. The keen-eyed fellow had not been aloft ten
minutes, before the cry of “spouts—spouts!” was ringing
through the vessel. The proper signal was made to the
Henlopen and Abraham, when everybody made sail in the

necessary direction. By sunset a great number of whales
were fallen in with, and as Capt. Walker gave it as his
opinion they were feeding in that place, no attempt was
made on them until morning. The next day, however,
with the return of light, six boats were in the water, and
pulling off towards the game.

On this occasion, Walker led on, as became his rank
and experience. In less than an hour he was fast to a very
large whale, a brother of that taken by Betts; and the
females had the exciting spectacle, of a boat towed by an
enormous fish, at a rate of no less than twenty knots in an
hour. It is the practice among whalers for the vessel to
keep working to windward, while the game is taking, in
order to be in the most favourable position to close with
the boats, after the whale is killed. So long, however, as
the creature has life in it, it would be folly to aim at any
other object than getting to windward, for the fish may be
here at one moment, and a league off in a few minutes
more. Sometimes, the alarmed animal goes fairly out of
sight of the vessel, running in a straight line some fifteen
or twenty miles, when the alternatives are to run the
chances of missing the ship altogether, or to cut from the
whale. By doing the last not only is a harpoon lost, but
often several hundred fathoms of line; and it not unfrequently
happens that whales are killed with harpoons in
them, left by former assailants, and dragging after them a
hundred, or two, fathoms of line.

It may be well, here, to explain to the uninitiated reader,
that the harpoon is a barbed spear, with a small, but stout
cord, or whale line fastened to it. The boat approaches
the fish bow foremost, but is made sharp at both ends that
it may “back off,” if necessary; the whale being often
dangerous to approach, and ordinarily starting, when struck,
in a way to render his immediate neighbourhood somewhat
ticklish. The fish usually goes down when harpooned,
and the line must be permitted to “run-out,” or he would
drag the boat after him. But a whale must breathe as
well as a man, and the faster he runs the sooner he must
come up for a fresh stock of air. Now, the proper use of
the harpoon and the line is merely to fasten to the fish;
though it does sometimes happen that the creature is killed

by the former. As soon as the whale re-appears on the
surface, and becomes stationary, or even moderate his
speed a little, the men begin to haul in line, gradually
closing with their intended victim. It often happens that
the whale starts afresh, when line must be permitted to run
out anew; this process of “hauling in” and “letting run”
being often renewed several times at the taking of a single
fish. When the boat can be hauled near enough, the
officer at its head darts his lance into the whale, aiming at
a vital part. If the creature “spouts blood,” it is well;
but if not hit in the vitals, away it goes, and the whole business
of “letting run,” “towing,” and “hauling in” has
to be gone over again.

On the present occasion, Walker's harpooner, or boat-steerer,
as he is called, had made a good “heave,” and
was well fast to his fish. The animal made a great circuit,
running completely round the Mermaid, at a distance
which enabled those on board her to see all that was passing.
When nearest to the brig, and the water was curling
off the bow of the boat in combs two feet higher than her
gunwale, under the impulse given by the frantic career of
the whale, Bridget pressed closer to her husband's side,
and, for the first time in her life, mentally thanked Heaven
that he was the governor, since that was an office which
did not require him to go forth and kill whales. At that
very moment, Mark was burning with the desire to have
a hand in the sport, though he certainly had some doubts
whether such an occupation would suitably accord with the
dignity of his office.

Walker got alongside of his whale, within half a mile
of the two brigs, and to-leeward of both. In consequence
of this favourable circumstance, the Henlopen soon had its
prize hooked on, and her people at work stripping off the
blubber. This is done by hooking the lower block of a
powerful purchase in a portion of the substance, and then
cutting a strip of convenient size, and heaving on the fall
at the windlass. The strip is cut by implements called
spades, and the blubber is torn from the carcass by the
strain, after the sides of the “blanket-piece,” as the strip
is termed, are separated from the other portions of the animal
by the cutting process. The “blanket-pieces” are

often raised as high as the lower mast-heads, or as far as
the purchase will admit of its being carried, when a transverse
cut is made, and the whole of the fragment is lowered
on deck. This “blanket-piece” is then cut into pieces
and put into the try-works, a large boiler erected on deck,
in order to be “tryed-out,” when the oil is cooled, and
“started” below into casks. In this instance, the oil was
taken on board the Abraham as fast as it was “tryed-out”
on board the Henlopen, the weather admitting of the
transfer.

But that single whale was from being the only fruits
of Betts' discovery. The honest old Delaware seaman took
two more whales himself, Socrates making fast, and he
killing the creatures. The boats of the Henlopen also took
two more, and that of the Abraham, one. Betts in the
Martha, and the governor in the Mermaid towed four of
these whales into the southern channel, and into what now
got the name of the Whaling Bight. This was the spot
where Betts had tryed out the first fish taken, and it proved
to be every way suitable for its business. The Bight
formed a perfectly safe harbour, and there was not only a
sandy shoal on which the whales could be floated and kept
from sinking, a misfortune that sometimes occurs, but it
had a natural quay quite near, where the Rancocus, herself,
could lie. There was fresh water in abundance, and
an island of sufficient size to hold the largest whaling establishment
that ever existed. This island was incontinently
named Blubber Island. The greatest disadvantage was the
total absence of soil, and consequently of all sorts of herbage;
but its surface was as smooth as that of an artificial
quay, admitting of the rolling of casks with perfect ease.
The governor no sooner ascertained the facilities of the
place, which was far enough from the ordinary passage to
and from the Peak to remove the nuisances, than he determined
to make it his whaling haven.

The Abraham was sent across to Rancocus Island for a
load of lumber, and extensive sheds were erected, in time
to receive the Henlopen, when she came in with a thousand
barrels of oil on board, and towing in three whales that she
had actually taken in the passage between Cape South and
the Peak. By that time, the Rancocus had been moved,

being stiff enough to be brought from the Reef to Blubber
Island, under some of her lower sails. This moving of
vessels among the islands of the group was a very easy
matter, so long as they were not to be carried to windward;
and, a further acquaintance with the channels, had let the
mariners into the secret of turning up, against the trades
and within the islands, by keeping in such reaches as
enabled them to go as near the wind as was necessary,
while they were not compelled to go nearer than a craft
could lie.

Such was the commencement of a trade that was destined
to be of the last importance to our colonists. The
oil that was brought in, from this first cruise, a cruise that
lasted less than two months, and including that taken by
all the boats, amounted to two thousand barrels, quite filling
the lower hold of the Rancocus, and furnishing her
with more than half of a full cargo. At the prices which
then ruled in the markets of Europe and America, three
thousand five hundred barrels of spermaceti, with a due
proportion of head matter, was known to be worth near
an hundred thousand dollars; and might be set down as
large a return for labour, as men could obtain under the
most advantageous circumstances.