The New Hampshire Gazette And Historical Chronicle

LONDON March 12.

A petition of several of the merchants of New England and London, has been presented to the House of Commons, setting forth, that among the many happy effects arising from the reduction of Canada and the cessions made to the Crown of England by the late peace, one of the most beneficial tendency is the discovery and actual exercise of a Whale Fishery in the gulph and river St. Lawrence, and that, in the year 1761 the Province of the Massachusetts Bay fitted out, from Boston, and other parts, ten vessels, from 70 to 80 tons burthen for the said Fishery ; and that the success of these vessels were such as to encourage the sending out of fifty vessels in 1762, for the same purpose ; and that, in 1763 more than eighty vessels were employed in the same manner; and that in 1762 and 1763, there were imported into England upwards of ninety tons of Whale Finn, being the produce of the said Fishery ; and that, upon the importation of the Finn a duty of thirty one pound two shillings and six pence per ton was required, and paid ; and that the weight of this duty is rendered much heavier by the great reduction made in the price of Dutch Whale Finn, since the commencement of this trade from about 20l. to about 18l. per ton : and that the encouraging of a British Whale Fishery and enabling the English subjects to rival the Dutch and other foreign importers has been judged by parliament a matter of so much consequence, that by one act, made in the sixth year of the reign of his late Majesty a bounty of 20l. per ton, and by another act made in the twenty second year of the said reign, an additional bounty of 20l. per ton was granted upon all Ships employed in the Greenland and Davis's Streights fishery ; and, notwithstanding this encouragement the British fishery has not imported a sufficient quantity of Oyl and Finn to equal the demand for those articles: so necessary to the English manufactures: and that the petitioners apprehend, that it cannot be the design of Parliament to grant a bounty to one part of his Majesty's subjects, in order to encourage the importing of Oyl and Whale Finn and to discourage another part, by laying a duty upon the same materials, and that the Petitioners, ask for no bounty, but are content that the inhabitants of Great-Britain should enjoy the preference above themselves:- but hope they shall not be burthened with a tax upon the importation of that very commodity for which others of their fellow subjects are rewarded with a bounty, and therefore praying the House, to take the premisses into consideration and to grant the Petitioners such relief, as to the House shall seem meet.

We hear that in consequence of the above Petition the duty on Whale Finn will certainly be taken off.