The revival of the English whale-fishery was due to the fostering care of Sir Robert Walpole’s government. In 1733 a bonus of 30s. per ton was offered to owners of whaling ships, increased to 40s. in 1740. Then the fishery began to flourish. Previously there were only from three to six ships going north, but in 1749 there were 40, soon increased to over a hundred from Hull and London. In 1787 there were 162 English and 23 Scottish whalers, and in 1788 there were 255 ships going to the Spitsbergen seas and Davis Strait, bringing back 5989 tons of oil, 380 tons of whalebone, and 13,386 skins of seals and bears. It was then considered safe to reduce the bounty, the British whale-fishery being established on a firm basis. From 1788 to 1790 London was the chief port, Hull being a good second in 1788 with 29 sail for Spitsbergen, and 7 for Davis Strait. Whitby began the whaling business in 1753. Mr Pitt, by an Act of Parliament (26 Geo. III, c. 41) enumerated the conditions constituting a whaling ship, the crew, boats, implements, lines, etc., with so many apprentices according to tonnage, to be indentured between the ages of 12 and 20. The Act was altered and amended by later Acts down to that of 1815 (55 Geo. III, c. 32). The whalers were vessels of 300 to 400 tons, doubled and strengthened with plates of half-inch iron round the stem. The working of the sails was arranged so as to be done by the fewest men, a bentick boom being fitted for the foresail instead of tacks and sheets[108]. The look-out had to be many hours at the mast-head, watching the ice and looking out for whales. As this duty had often to be performed in the intensest cold, the “crow’s-nest” was invented to protect the look-out men from the weather. The improved top-gallant crow’s-nest, used since 1807, was invented by Scoresby. It was fixed at the head of the main top-gallant mast, with nothing above it and consisted of a cylindrical frame 4½ feet by 2½, covered with painted canvas, open above, and closed below with a square hatch which served as the entrance. There was a small seat, and places for the telescope and other instruments. A screen worked on the upper hoop of the crow’s-nest, 2 to 3 feet long and 1 foot high, which was moveable, and adjusted to windward. The vessels carried six or seven boats, carvel-built, 26 to 28 feet long by 5 feet 9 inches beam, of fir planks half an inch thick; the keel, gunwales, stern and stem posts being of oak. They had six oars, 16 feet long, the steer oar being 18 to 20 feet. The oars were fixed to thole-pins by rope grummets. When the ship reached the fishing ground, the boats were kept at the davits, ready to lower. The whale lines, beautifully “flaked down” in the boats, were of 2½-inch rope, and a total of 4320 feet of length was carried in the six lines supplied to each boat, each line being 120 fathoms. A bollard for passing them round was fixed near the boat’s stem.