THE WHALING TRADE BEGINS 15 



In 1610, Poole, finding that he could not land on 

 Bear Island owing to the ice, stood away to the north- 

 west, reached Spitsbergen, and worked along the 

 western side to Hakluyt Headland, where the ice 

 barred further advance. On his way up and down the 

 coast he gave many of the capes and bays the names 

 they still bear, and generally did so well that on his 

 return he was put in the place of Hudson, who had 

 left the service two years before, and made a sort of 

 special commissioner by the Muscovy Company " for 

 certain years upon a stipend certain " to make further 

 discoveries round Spitsbergen and to ascertain whether 

 there was an open sea further northward than had 

 already been found. In addition to searching for the 

 open polar sea, he was to convoy the Mary Margaret, 

 in which were six Biscay ners " expert in the killing of 

 the whale," to Bear Island, and thence to Whale Bay in 

 Spitsbergen. In short, Poole was to start the British 

 whaling trade, the Mary Margaret being the first 

 British vessel to be employed in that lucrative but 

 hazardous occupation ; and she was under the com- 

 mand of Thomas Edge, whose name is l borne by 

 Edge's Island. 



The beginning was so promising that in 1613, two 

 years afterwards, a fleet of seven vessels went out to take 

 part in the fishery and clear away the foreigners who 

 had come to share in the good fortune ; the company 

 claiming the islands on the ground of their purely 

 imaginary discovery by Willoughby, the Dutch resting 

 their claim on the real discovery by Van Heemskerck. 

 In this fleet as chief pilot was William Baffin his 

 second recorded voyage. By him, who as usual kept 



