22 WHALING 



and what to do with each sort; the ship's discipline; the need 

 of learning all the technique of whaling that their Basque 

 harpooners could teach them; and, by no means least, the proper 

 attitude for Englishmen to display in the event of their meet- 

 ing with ''any stranger." The little company included ''six 

 Biskayners, expert men for the killing of the whale;" on the 

 twelfth of June these "Biskayners" killed the first whale of the 

 voyage and tried out the "first Oyle that ever was made in 

 Greenland." And the next year the company sent out two more 

 vessels. 



But such success could hardly fail to incite others to go and 

 do likewise, and upon arriving at Cherrie Island, in 1612, the 

 Muscovy Company's vessels there met with a Dutch whaler, 

 another from San Sebastian, and two English vessels not of 

 their company — all of which they promptly and haughtily 

 termed "interlopers." Then and there began the international 

 squabbling which for some years enlivened and hampered 

 Spitzbergen whaling. 



When that first Dutch ship appeared on the whaling horizon 

 the English seem to have got a certain chilly comfort in ob- 

 serving that the Dutch, "to keep their wont in following of the 

 Enghsh steps," had been "brought thither by an English man 

 and not out of any knowledge of their own Discoveries." More- 

 over, the Englishman, who had been employed by the Muscovy 

 Company in voyages of exploration some years before, had been 

 obliged to leave his own country for debt and, having fled to 

 Holland, had there found employment as pilot of this expedition. 

 This appears to have been little short of treason, in the eyes of 

 the Muscovy Company's men, and they made the most of it. 

 Perhaps it was some encouragement to their own rather negative 

 virtue of having found their own way there; encouragement 

 they certainly needed, for as one whaling season succeeded an- 

 other the Dutch became, after the first few years, steadily more 

 formidable rivals. 



It was there at Spitzbergen that whaling was first organized 

 on a large scale. It is believed that the Basques had long ago 

 found their way thither after whaling on the coast of Norway; 



