

NORTH ATLANTIC RIGHT WHALE. 147 



of New England "great store of whales, and crampusse." ' Higgeson lived at Salem. Richard 

 Mather, who came to Massachusetts Bay in 1635, likewise tells of "mighty whales spewing 

 up water in the air, like the smoke of a chimney, and making the sea about them white and 

 hoary, as is said in Job, of such incredible bigness that I will never wonder that the body of 

 Jonas could be in the belly of a whale" (Sabine's Report, p. 42) . 2 Starbuck shows that one of 

 the motives for the establishment of the Massachusetts Bay Colony was the promise of a good 

 return from the fisheries, and in the original charter the colonists were "given and graunted 

 .... all fishes royal fishes, whales, balan, sturgeons, and other fishes, of what kinde or nature 

 soever that shall at any tyme hereafter be taken in or within the saide seas or waters." The 

 Massachusetts colonists were quick to avail themselves of such whales as were drifted to their 

 shores. Thus, John Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay Colony writes that in April, 1635, 

 "some of our people went to Cape Cod, and made some oil of a whale, which was cast on shore. 

 There were three or four cast up, as it seems there is almost every year." 3 These were proba- 

 bly Right Whales, at this season moving northward, and the amount of oil yielded was thus 

 sufficient to induce the people to sail across the Bay to render it. 



Concerning the capture of whales on our coasts previous to 1650, no record appears to 

 have come down to us. There is an old poem on New England written by William Morrell, 

 who came to Plymouth in 1623. It was published in London, on his return to England, and 

 implies that whales were already an object of pursuit on our shores, for 



"The mighty whale doth in these harbours lye, 

 "Whose oyle the careful mearchant deare will buy." 4 



Certain it is, however, that Right Whales were common in their season, and that the colonists 

 were beginning to make serious efforts for their capture. This is evident from the frequent 

 orders of the General Court concerning the granting of fishing privileges, and the many refer- 

 ences to ' drift ' whales which after being harpooned, had escaped, only to die and drift ashore. 

 Controversy waxed high over the title to possession of such 'drift fish,' for it has ever been 

 the whaleman's law that he who first struck the whale has the prior claim. If, therefore, 

 such title could not be shown, either by the identification of the harpoon (marked so as to be 

 known) or by some other sign, then the finder of the dead animal was entitled to all or part 

 of his find. 



It is clear that for some time previous to 1650 the settlers of Cape Cod and Massachu- 

 setts Bay undertook to carry out the intention of the Mayflower's master, "to fish for whale 



1 New-Englands Plantation. Or a short and true Description of the Commodities and Discommodities of that countrey. 

 Written in the year 1629, by Mr. Higgeson, a Reverend Divine, now there resident. Reprinted in Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., 

 1806, ser. 1, vol. 1, p. 119. 



1 Starbuck, A. History of the American whale fishery. Rept. U. S. Comm. Fish and Fisheries for 1875-6, 1878, p. 5. 



3 Winthrop, John. History of New England from 1630 to 1649, 1825, vol. 1, p. 157. 



4 Reprinted in Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., 1806, ser. 1, vol. 1, p. 130. 



