64 HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 



been carried on in the bays of those islands for ' two or three years,' evidently meaning the black- 

 . whale fishery ; for in smother part he says: ' I hear not that they have found any spermaceti in 

 any of those whales;' but subsequently he states in the same letter: 'I have heard from credible 

 persons that there is a kind of whale having great teeth, as have the spermaceti, at Elentheria and 

 others of the Bermuda Islands. One of this place, John Perinchief, found one there dead, driven 

 upon an island, and though I think ignorant of the business, yet got a great quantity of sperma^ 

 ceti out of it.' He says again: 'It seems they have not so much oil as ours (meaning the black 

 whale), but the oil, I hear, is at first like spermaceti, but they clarify it, I think, by the fire.' 



"But in volume iii, Philosophical Transactions," continues Beale, "in a letter from the 

 same place, written a year or two afterwards, we find something like a beginning of the sperm- 

 whale fishery threatened by a Mr. Richard Stafford, who informs us that he has killed several 

 black whales himself, and who is represented as a very intelligent gentleman. He says : ' Great 

 stores of whales make use of our coast ; ' but in another part he states : ' But here have been seen 

 spermaceti whales driven upon the shore. These have divers teeth about the bigness of a man's 

 wrist. I have been,' says he, 'at the Bahama Islands, and there have seen of this same sort of 

 whale, dead on the shore, with spenna all over their bodies. Myself and about twenty others 

 have agreed to try whether we can master and kill them, for I could never hear of any of that 

 sort that was killed by any man, such is their fierceness and swiftness.' He concludes by remark- 

 ing that 'one such whale would be worth many hundred pounds.' A weighty reason for the 

 establishment of the fishery, no doubt. The same writer, in another part of his letter, states: 

 ' There is one island among the Bahamas, which some of our people are settled upon, and more 

 are coming thither. It is called New Providence, where many rare things might be discovered, 

 if the people were bui. encouraged.' This same New Providence afterwards became so famous as 

 a whale-fishing station by the exertions of our American descendants. But even before these 

 needy adventurers commenced their career of spermaceti hunting, we have had it proved to us 

 that the Indians who inhabited the shores of America used to voyage out to sea and attack this 

 animal from their canoes, and pierce him with their lances of wood or other instruments of the 

 same material, which were barbed, and which, before they were plunged into his flesh, were 

 fastened by a short warp, or piece of rope, to a large block of light wood, which was thrown over 

 board the moment the barbed instrument was thrust into its body, which, being repeated at every 

 rising of the whale, or when they were so fortunate as to get near enough to do so, in a few 

 instances, by a sort of worrying-to-death system, rewarded the enterprising savage with the 

 lifeless body of his victim, but which in most cases was that of a very young one ; and even this, 

 when towed to the shore, it was impossible for them to turn over, so that they were obliged to 

 content themselves with flinching the fat from one side of the body only. 



" But although, as has been before stated, Mr. Richard Stafford had threatened to commence 

 the sperm-whale fishery at the Bahama Islands, it appears rather doubtful whether he did so or 

 not, when we come to peruse the letter of the Hon. Paul Dudley, F. R. S., published in 17:34, Phil. 

 Trans., vol. xxxiii, an extract of which states: 'I very lately received from Mr. Atkins, an inhabit- 

 ant of Boston, in New England, who used the whale-fishery for ten or twelve years (black whales), 

 and was one of the first that went out a fishing for the spermaceti whales about the year 1720.' 

 It also appears in this account that the fishery even then was very little understood, for Mr. 

 Atkins himself says 'he never saw, nor certainly heard of a spermaceti female taken in his life,' 

 for he states 'the cows of that species of whale, being much more timorous than the males, and 

 almost impossible to come at, unless when haply found asleep upon the water, or detained by 

 their calves.' In another part of this letter the Hon. Paul Dudley states: ' Our people formerly 



