Page:Journal of a Voyage to Greenland, in the Year 1821.djvu/251



the importance of the Greenland Fishery, in its direct objects of procuring an article of great profit to the nation; and, collaterally, as a nursery of seamen for our navy, there can be no doubt. But the fishery is now carried on by individuals at very extraordinary and increased expense, while the late frequent failures, the losses of ships crushed among the ice, and, above all, the vast reduction in the price of oil, owing to the substitution of coal gas to light this metropolis, have considerably dispirited enterprise. It is evident, that a continuance of such failures alone, without other casualties to which the speculation is liable, may quite extinguish adventure, and, finally, deprive the nation of the advantages of the northern whale fishery.

The failures of late seasons have principally arisen