wholly with American seamen, and belonged to the island of Nantucket. The vessel lay at the Horsley-Downs, a little below the Tower, and was the first which displayed the thirteen stripes of America in any British port."
Notwithstanding this early indication of activity, the whale fishery did not quickly assume its former proportions, owing to the heavy bounties of other governments and the embarrassment to our commerce from the Napoleonic wars. Not till after the second war with England did the American industry regain its ascendancy. These reasons explain the late appearance of its whaling vessels in the Pacific. In 1847, when the industry was near its height, it is estimated that the total number of vessels of all nations engaged was about 900, and that of this number more than 800 were Americans, representing an investment of $20,000,000 and an annual product of $13,000,000.
The whaling vessels visiting the Hawaiian Islands soon increased. Six arrived the year after the first one appeared in 1819, the year following more than thirty are reported, and in 1822 twenty-four whalers were seen in Honolulu at one time. From that period forward to the Civil War, when the American whaling fleet was almost swept from the ocean by the Confederate cruisers, the whaling interest was the prominent feature of the island commerce. The number of vessels entered at the port of Honolulu for twenty years from 1824 was 2008, of which 1712 were whalers, and more than three fourths of them were American. The business reached its culmination about 1845, when the local government reported that 497 whalers, manned by 14,905 sailors,
