Today's #MobyDick quote 🧵: But look at this matter in other lights; weigh it in all sorts of scales; see what we whalemen are, and have been. Why did the Dutch in De Witte's time have admirals of their whaling fleets? Why did Louis XVI. of France,... 🌱

...at his own personal expense, fit out whaling ships from Dunkirk, and politely invite to that town some score or two of families from our own island of Nantucket? Why did Britain between the years 1750 and 1788 pay her whalemen in bounties upwards of £1,000,000? And lastly, how comes it that...