WHALE FISHERIES. 



293 



ESTHER. 



Why did this fishery cease? 



MRS. F. 



From the same cause that has occasioned the cessation of 

 the whale fishery in many other places, namely, the want of 

 fish. Whether the whales, from a sense of the danger to 

 which they exposed themselves in coming southwards, no 

 longer left the icy sea, or that the race had nearly been de- 

 stroyed, we cannot determine, but it is certain that they gra- 

 dually became less numerous in the Bay of Biscay, and, at 

 length, ceased almost entirely to frequent that sea; and the 

 fishermen being obliged to pursue their prey upon the banks 

 of Newfoundland and the coasts of Iceland, the French fishery 

 rapidly fell off. The voyages of the Dutch and English to 

 the northern ocean, in order to discover a passage to India, 

 though they failed in their main object, laid open the haunts 

 of the whale. The companions of Barentz, who discovered 

 Spitzbergen (in 1596), and of Hudson, who soon afterwards 

 explored the same seas, represented to their countrymen the 

 amazing number of whales with which they were crowded, 

 and vessels were, in consequence, fitted out by each nation, 

 the harpooners and crew being Biscayans. The Muscovy 

 Company strove to monopolise the exclusive right of fishing 

 in the seas round Spitzbergen, but the attempt was not tole- 

 rated. After several encounters between them and the Dutch, 

 the conviction became general, that there was room enough 

 for all parties in the northern seas, and, in order to avoid the 

 chance of coming into collision again, they parcelled Spitz- 

 bergen and the adjacent ocean into districts, which they 

 respectively assigned to the different European nations; and 

 the Dutch soon acquired a decided superiority over all their 

 competitors. 



ESTHER. 



Were the whales very plentiful 1 

 25* 



