18 WHALE-FISHERY. 



of the sixteenth century, the number of vessels an- 

 nually employed by the united nations, amounted 

 to a fleet of 50 or 60 sail*. 



The first attempt by the English to capture the 

 whale, of which we have any satisfactory account, 

 was made in the year 1594. Different ships were 

 fitted out for Cape Breton, at the entrance of the 

 Gulf of St Lawrence, part of which were destined for 

 the walrus-fishery, and the remainder for the whale- 

 fishery. The Grace of Bristol, one of these vessels, 

 took on board 700 or 800 whale-fins or laminae of 

 whalebone, which they found in the Bay of St 

 George, where two large Biscayan fishermen had 

 been wrecked three years before. This is the first 

 notice I have met with of the importation of this 

 article into Great Britain f. 



However doubtful it might have appeared at one 

 time, whether the English or the Dutch were the 

 first discoverers of Spitzbergen, the claim of the 

 English to the discovery and first practice of the 

 whale-fishery on the coasts of these islands, stands 

 undisputed:!:. 



* Beschryvmg, vol. i. p. i. 



t Hackluyt's Voyages, vol. iii. p. 241. 



X The Dutch allow that the English preceded them to the 

 Greenland or Spitsbergen whale-fishery, four years. — Beschry- 

 ving der Walv. vol. i. p. 2. 



