firm, the Messrs. Enderby. The next year, in order to encourage
the infant enterprise, a Government bounty, graduated from L500
to L1000 per ship, was granted. Under this fostering care the
number of ships engaged in the sperm whale fishery progressively
increased until 1791, when it attained its maximum.

This method of whaling being quite new to our whalemen, it was
necessary, at great cost, to hire American officers and
harpooners to instruct them in the ways of dealing with these
highly active and dangerous cetacea. Naturally, it was by-and-
by found possible to dispense with the services of these
auxiliaries; but it must be confessed that the business never
seems to have found such favour, or to have been prosecuted with
such smartness, among our whalemen as it has by the Americans.

Something of an exotic the trade always was among us, although
it did attain considerable proportions at one time. At first
the fishing was confined to the Atlantic Ocean; nor for many
years was it necessary to go farther afield, as abundance of
whales could easily be found.

As, however, the number of ships engaged increased, it was
inevitable that the known grounds should become exhausted, and
in 1788 Messrs. Enderby's ship, the EMILIA, first ventured round
Cape Horn, as the pioneer of a greater trade than ever. The way
once pointed out, other ships were not slow to follow, until, in
1819, the British whale-ship SYREN opened up the till then
unexplored tract of ocean in the western part of the North
Pacific, afterwards familiarly known as the "Coast of Japan."
From these teeming waters alone, for many years an average