28 HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 



This corresponds also with statements gathered by Starbuek from various sources to the 

 effect that the years 1737, 1738, and 1739 were very unfortunate ones for the people of Province- 

 town, Sandwich, and adjacent ports, insomuch that some of the inhabitants took into serious 

 consideration a change of residence. 



The people of Yarmouth preserve a tradition that the early whale fishery of that region had 

 for its object the capture of humpbacks and right whales. As has been suggested, the number 

 of humpbacks taken must have been very considerable, yet the right whales must also have been 

 plenty in early days. 



The Plymouth colonists, according to Thacher,* were inclined at first to settle on Cape Cod, 

 because large whales of the best kind for oil and bone came daily alongside, and played about 

 the ship, while the master (presumably of the "Mayflower") and his mate, and others experienced- 

 in fishing, preferred it to the Greenland fishery. In February, 1738, the Yarmouth whalemen had 

 killed but one large whale during the season ; the bone of that being from 8 to 9 feet long. This 

 was of course a right whale, and the thing in the occurrence remarkable to the recorder was that 

 a great many more had not been taken the same winter. In March, 1736, the boats of Province- 

 town took a large whale which produced 100 barrels of oil. Humpbacks rarely yield more 

 than 50 barrels, and probably would not have been classed among the numerous '-large whales" 

 taken in those years. Another argument in favor of the supposed early abundance of the right 

 whale in these waters, was that upon their becoming scarce, a large fleet was forthwith dispatched 

 to Davis' Straits, where none but whalebone whales occur. The sperm-whale fishing of Cape Cod 

 was not inaugurated until about 1826, or at least not in a permanent way, though Starbnck gives 

 nine vessels from "Cape Cod" in 1789, eight of which cruised in the "Straits of Belleisle," six of 

 which obtained about 50 barrels each of sperm oil, the other two about 80 barrels each. 



In the early records of the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay Colonies are numerous orders 

 relating to drift whales, among which we find the following : "At a session of the general court, 

 the first of the 8th mouth, 1645," it was ordered as one of the duties of the Auditor-General, 

 " that he shall take notice and looke aft r wafes, strayes, goods lost, shipwrecks, whales, &c., or 

 any such things of y* like nature, w r y e pticuler owner is not knowne ; and y e country may claiine 

 a priviledge in or comon right unto.'H July 4, 1656, it was " ordered by the court that wheras 

 the countrey hath receiued great dammage by a defect in the order about the barrell of oyle due for 

 euery whale taken on drift or cast on shore as is expressed in the said order by leakquage of 

 Caske or otherwise; tho court bane ordered that for the future all such oyle as shalbee due and 

 payable as aforsaid shalbee deliuered att Boston, viz, a full barrell of march aiitable oyle for euery 

 whale and the fraight therof discharged by those that deliuer it, the said oyle to bee deliuered att 

 Boston to such as the Treasurer shall appoint from yeare to year and a receipt taken from such 

 as to whome it is deliuered shalbee a discharge to those that deliuer it."} In 1661 it was 

 "enacted by the Court and the Authentic therof that whosoeuer taketh any whale on drift att 

 sea without those bounds and limites alreddy sett and bring them on shore hee shall have the one 

 halfe and the Countrey the other halfej and the Countrey to allow Caske for theirej?te of the oyle. 

 That whosoeuer shall find any whale on shore on the Cape or elsewhere that is out of any Townese 

 bounds and is on the Countreyes bounds or liinittes shall allow the Countrey two hogsheads of oyle 

 cleare and payed to the Countrey ." 



On the 3d of June, 1662, it was resolved that "wheras there hath bine much controversye 

 occa tioned for want of a full and cleare settlement of matter relateing into such whales as by Gods 



Quoted by Starbuek, 1. a., p. ;>. t Plymouth Colony Records, XI, p. 20 



tRecords of Massachusetts, II, p. 143. $ Hid., XI. p. 66. 



