Not wanting to short-shrift the Nantucketers while patting the English on the back, Melville does go on to say, "Be it distinctly recorded here, that the Nantucketers were the first among mankind to harpoon with civilized steel the great Sperm Whale [In 1712 Captain Christopher Hussey, out for Right Whales near Nantucket, was blown next to a Sperm Whale in a storm -- and this was the start of something big.]; and that for a half century they were the only people of the whole globe who so harpooned him" [presumably only in the Atlantic Ocean]. But another kudo for the English Enderbys: Their ship Syren opened up the Japanese Whaling Ground in 1819 -- ship's master Captain Coffin of Nantucket (!).
The rest of the chapter is a digression into a commentary about the excellent food on English whalers -- a remarkable revelation, considering that the gustatory fare on the English mainland was never considered of gourmet reputation. The explanation seems to be that the English emulated the Dutch whalers who outfitted their ships with banquet-worthy provisions, including great quantities of beer and "geneva" (gin), which may account for the eventual primacy in the whale fishery of the Nantucket Yankee/Quaker and his parsimonious rations of rum.