During the war of the American revolution, this fishery was destroyed; on the return of peace, it recovered, by degrees, and, from 1787 to 1789, ninety-one vessels, of five thousand eight hundred and twenty tons, were annually employed in the northern fishery, and thirty-one vessels, of four thousand three hundred and ninety tons, in the southern, with one thousand six hundred and eleven seamen. The quantity of spermaceti oil taken annually, from 1771 to 1775, was thirty-nine thousand three hundred and ninety barrels, and of whale oil eight thousand six hundred and fifty. From 1787 to 1789, the quantity of spermaceti taken annually was seven thousand nine hundred and eighty barrels, and whale oil thirteen thousand one hundred and thirty. In the representation made to Congress in the year 1790, by the legislature of Massachusetts, it is stated that, before the late war, about four thousand seamen, and twenty-four thousand tons of shipping were annually employed, from that State, in the whale fishery, and that the produce thereof was about £350,000 lawful money, or about 1,160,000 dollars. A great part of this fishery has been carried on from Nantucket, where it originated, a small island about fifteen miles in length, and two or three miles in breadth, situated about thirty miles from the coast. Before the revolutionary war, this small island had sixty-five ships, of four thousand eight hundred and seventy-five tons, annually employed in the northern, and eighty-five ships, of ten thousand two hundred tons, in the southern fishery. From 1787 to 1789, it had only eighteen ships, of one thousand three hundred and fifty tons, in the northern, and eighteen ships, of two thousand seven hundred tons, in the southern fishery. For many years past, this fishery has been carried on from this island, and from New Bedford, a large commercial and flourishing town on the coast, in its neighbourhood, and has employed from fifteen thousand to eighteen thousand tons of shipping, principally in the Southern Seas. Although Great Britain has, at various times, given large bounties to her ships employed in this fishery, yet the whalemen of Nantucket and New-Bedford, unprotected and unsupported by any thing but their own industry and enterprise, have generally been able to meet their competitors in a foreign market. The value of spermaceti and common whale oil, whale bone, and spermaceti candles, exported since 1802, has been as follows:-- Whale (common) Spermaceti oil oil and bone. and candles. _Dolls._ _Dolls._ 1803 280,000 175,000 1804 310,000 70,000 1805 315,000 163,000 1806 418,000 182,000 1807 476,000 139,000 1808 88,000 33,000 1809 169,000 136,000 1810 222,000 132,000 1811 78,000 273,000 1812 56,000 141,000 1813 2,500 10,500 1814 1,000 9,000