necessarily have various opinions and prejudices, which contribute
something in forming their characters in society; so those of the
Friends are well known: obedience to the laws, even to non-
resistance, justice, goodwill to all, benevolence at home, sobriety,
meekness, neatness, love of order, fondness and appetite for
commerce. They are as remarkable here for those virtues as at
Philadelphia, which is their American cradle, and the boast of that
society. At schools they learn to read, and to write a good hand,
until they are twelve years old; they are then in general put
apprentices to the cooper's trade, which is the second essential
branch of business followed here; at fourteen they are sent to sea,
where in their leisure hours their companions teach them the art of
navigation, which they have an opportunity of practising on the
spot. They learn the great and useful art of working a ship in all
the different situations which the sea and wind so often require;
and surely there cannot be a better or a more useful school of that
kind in the world. Then they go gradually through every station of
rowers, steersmen, and harpooners; thus they learn to attack, to
pursue, to overtake, to cut, to dress their huge game: and after
having performed several such voyages, and perfected themselves in
this business, they are fit either for the counting house or the
chase.

The first proprietors of this island, or rather the first founders
of this town, began their career of industry with a single whale-
boat, with which they went to fish for cod; the small distance from
their shores at which they caught it, enabled them soon to increase
their business, and those early successes first led them to conceive
that they might likewise catch the whales, which hitherto sported
undisturbed on their banks. After many trials and several