^2 WHALE-FISHERY. 



and the rest of their men. Captain Edge now or- 

 dered the cargo of the Elizabeth, consisting of sea- 

 horse hides and hhihher taken at Cherry Island, of 

 little Worth, to be landed, and the oil and whale- 

 fins procured by his own crew to be taken in. In 

 performing this, they brought the ship so light that 

 she upset and was lost. Captain Edge then agreed 

 with Thomas Marmaduke, master of the Hull ship, 

 to take in the goods saved, at the rate of 5/. per ton, 

 which being done, they set sail homewards on the 

 211st of August, and arrived in Hull on the 6th of 

 September, from whence the company's goods were 

 shipped for London*. 



This was the first instance in which the Russia 

 Company embarked in the whale-fishery at Spitz- 

 bergenf. 



Though the English had thus by rapid steps dis- 

 covered and established a whale-fishery on the coasts 

 of Spitzbcrgen, of vast national as well as private 



* Edge's " English and Dutch Discoveries/' — Purchas's 

 Pilgrimes/' vol. iii. p. 46?. 



t Anderson, in his History of Commerce, under the year 

 1597, mentions, that the Russia Company now commenced 

 the fishing for whales near Spitzbei-gen. It is evident, how- 

 ever, that the Spitzbergen fishery did not commence so early 

 by several years ; and it is probable that the voyage of Edge, 

 in l6ll, was the first of the fishery on t\\U coast. 



