I()15. A MIXED CHARACTER. 227 



pilot. This is not the first Dutch ship that was 

 employed on the whale fishery. One Jan Mayen, 

 the preceding year, discovered an island to the 

 northward of Iceland in about 71° of latitude, 

 which still bears his name ; and which for several 

 years was a sort of fishing station of the Dutch, 

 till their frequent visits and the boiling their blub- 

 ber on shore frie-htened awav all the whales and 

 sea morses ; of late years it has rarely been ap- 

 proachable on account of the ice. From Cherry 

 Island, Poole proceeded to Spitzbergen ; and being 

 in Foul Sound, the said Alan Salowes came on 

 board and reported, that his merchant (the Dutch- 

 man) " had broke his necke down a clifife." Here 

 also Poole met with one Thomas Marmaduke, of 

 Hull, in a ship called the Hopewell, which, how- 

 ever, soon left them and stood to the northward. 

 " This ship," (Poole says,) " as we were afterward 

 informed, discovered as farre as 82 degrees : two 

 degrees beyond Hakluyt's Headland." This is the 

 highest degree of latitude mentioned to which any 

 ship had yet proceeded, except we give credit to 

 the account supposed to have been received from 

 Adams by the Jesuits of Japan, 



This voyage is chiefly curious on account of the 

 rapid progress which appears to have been made in 

 the art of killing whales by the help of the 

 Biscayans; not fewer than thirteen having been 

 taken by Poole's ship alone, besides many others 

 by a vessel from London, by another from Hull, 



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