LAWS OF THE FISKERY. 331 



might be omitted as unnecessary at the present day, 

 and likewise the first clause of the 1st article; for 

 the principle of humanity is happily not so far 

 extinct that any British seaman should need a le- 

 gal order to induce him to save, protect and nou- 

 rish a fellow-creature in distress ! 



The following circumstance, which occurred n 

 good many years ago, has a tendency to illustriite 

 the existing Greenland laws, and to set them in a 

 prominent liglit. 



During a storm of wind and snow, several ships 

 were beating to windward, under easy sail, along the 

 edge of a pack. When the stonn abated, and the 

 weather cleared, the ships steered towards the ice. 

 Tv;o of the fleet approached it, about a mile asun- 

 der, abreast of each other, when the crews of each 

 ship accidentally got sight of a dead fish, at a little 

 distance within some loose ice. Each ship now 

 made sail, to endeavour to reach the fish before the 

 other ; v.hich fish being loose, would be a prize to the 

 first who should get possession of it. Neither ship 

 could outsail the other, but each continued to press 

 forward towards the prize. The little advantage 

 one of them had in distance, tiie other compensated 

 with velocity. On each bov/ of the two ships, was 

 stationed a principal officer, armed with a harpoon, 

 in readiness to discharge. But it so happened, tha^ 

 the ships came in contact with each other, v/hen 

 y/ithin a few yards of the fish, and in consequcncs 



