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An American Quaker Colony in France, 1787 - 1812 by Kenneth L. Carroll EVEN BEFORE THE American Revolution Nantucket began to send its Quaker sons and daughters out to the American mainland. As early as 1771 Friends began to move to the Piedmont section of North Carolina, especially into the area of New Garden Monthly Meetings. (1) Even earlier, in 1762, a group of Quakers from Nantucket had made their way to Nova Scotia. (2) By the end of the American Revolution certain factors built up to send forth even more — to the American mainland, to Nova Scotia, to Milford Haven in Wales, and to Dunkirk in France. Nantucket, heavily Quaker in the eighteenth century, had tried to remain neutral during the American Revolution. (3) The island's inhabitants therefore suffered great hardships at the hands of both sides, and the whaling industry almost completely collapsed. After the War there was continuing distress, as a result of the heavy duty which was placed on American sperm oil in England (the major market for this product which was used for lighting the streets of London). (4) Quite naturally there arose the idea of transferring the whale fishery to England in order to retain the market and to escape the ruinous duty. William Rotch and his son Benjamin left Nantucket for England on July 4, 1785, and arrived in London twenty-three days later. After examining the English coast from Southampton to Falmouth they decided (1) Stephen B. Weeks, Southern Quakers and Slavery (Baltimore 1896), pp. 107-108. (2) Arthur Garratt Dorland, A History of the Society of Friends [Quakers] in Canada (Toronto, 1927), pp. 30-32. (3) Lydia S. Hinchman, "William Rotch and the Neutrality of Nantucket during the Revolutionary War," Bulletin of the Friends Historical Society of Philadelphia, (1904-1907), 49-55, and Early Settlers of Nantucket (Philadelphia, 1901), pp. 111-119. (4) William Rotch, Memorandum Written by William Rotch in the Eightieth Tear of his Age (Boston, 1916), pp. 111-119.
