With the port of Whitby, from whence the Henrietta sailed, we have already drawn certain comparisons. We only add the general result of the fishery of 1786, 1787, and 1788, when twenty ships sailed from this port yearly for Greenland. The catch per ship, for each of these years, was about three and a half whales; but, including the next three years, one of which was most disastrous, the average catch would hardly reach three fish per ship.
But the best comparisons of my Father’s successes are with those of the Greenland whalers from _Hull_; these comparisons being rendered most satisfactory because of the ample records before me of the whale fishery of that port. The records referred to are comprised in an elaborate and carefully kept manuscript, kindly entrusted to me for the present object, belonging to Mr. James Simpson, painter, of Hull, in which an admirable abstract is preserved of the whale-fishing enterprise of the port during a consecutive period of fifty-nine years, from 1772 to 1830 inclusive.
From this document, for the comparison at present designed, we obtain the following information:—During the twenty years, from 1772 to 1791, reaching my Father’s commencement, 266 ships (including repeated voyages) sailed from Hull to the Greenland whale-fishery, and obtained, altogether, an amount of produce of 9377 tuns of oil, averaging 35·25 tuns a voyage for each ship. In the six years _before_ my Father’s commencement,—1786 to 1791,—158 ships (gross amount) obtained 4975 tuns of oil, or 31·5 on the average. And in the next six years, corresponding exactly with those of my Father’s successful enterprise in the Henrietta,—1792 to 1797,—ninety-two Greenland whalers, from Hull, procured 5464 tuns of oil, or 59·4 tuns per ship a year.
My Father’s average success, taken in comparison of these various _home_ results, we hence gather, was about _four times_ as great as the ordinary success (within the limited periods specified) of the British whalers generally. It was also _four times_ as great as the usual average of the _Whitby_ whalers; in like proportion above the average of the _Hull_ whalers during the previous twenty years; and more than double the Hull average for the same actual period!