On a voyage of two or three years, moreover, there was always plenty of time tomorrow.

Brave and resourceful seamen were these New England adventurers and deep-sea hunters who made nautical history after their own fashion.

They flourished coeval with the merchant marine in its prime, and they passed from the sea at about the same time and for similar reasons.

Modernity dispensed with their services, and young men found elsewhere more profitable and easier employment.
The great days of Nantucket as a whaling port were passed before the Revolution wiped out her ships and killed or scattered her sailors.
It was later discovered that larger ships were more economical, and Nantucket harbor bar was too shoal to admit their passage.

For this reason New Bedford became the scene of the foremost activity, and Nantucket thereafter played a minor part, although her barks went cruising on to the end of the chapter and her old whaling families were true to strain.