II 



SPITZBERGEN AND THE DUTCH PREEMINENCE 



ON APRIL 4, 1594, the thirty-five-ton barque Grace, Sil- 

 vester Wyet master, sailed from Bristol, England, for 

 ''train oil" and the ''fins of whales." She crossed the Atlantic 

 to the northern shore of Nova Scotia, salvaged several hundred 

 "fins" — by which is meant whalebone — from the wrecks of 

 two Biscayan ships, searched the shores of the Gulf of St. 

 Lawrence for stranded whales, and after fishing for cod off 

 Newfoundland, returned to Bristol in the early autumn. 



Another English voyage is recorded as early as 1576, "to the 

 country called Labrador, which joins Newfoundland, where the 

 Biscay men go in search of whales." And in that same year an 

 English trading company formed, under the difficult name of 

 "Merchants Adventurers of England for the Discovery of 

 Lands, Territories, Isles, Dominions, and Seigniories, un- 

 known and not before that late Adventure or Enterprise by 

 Sea or Navigation commonly frequented." This company, 

 later known as the Muscovy Company and protected by a 

 twenty-year monopoly from the Queen, did most of the English 

 whaling in Arctic waters during the unsettled years from 1610 

 to 1622. It was in 1610 that they first sent out two ships, little 

 vessels of about seventy tons, to Cherrie Island, for whaling 

 and exploring. They found "great store of whales" in Deere 

 Sound and brought back blubber to be tried out at home. 

 Evidently trying out on shore wa^ understood and practised, 

 for the company officers were much disgusted to see a cargo of 

 blubber instead of a cargo of oil, and told their agents so in no 

 uncertain terms. Train oil was now much in demand and the 

 company consequently sent out two vessels the next year, with 

 detailed instructions concerning the sorts of whale to be found 



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