His CAPTORS. 23 



Arctic Whaling Colony. First Nantucket Whale Killing. 



it was for a considerable time doubtful which 

 of the two would be most important to the 

 mother country. When in its most flourishing 

 state, near 1680, the Dutch whale fishery em- 

 ployed two hundred and sixty ships and four- 

 teen thousand seamen. This singular village 

 and Bay of Smeerenburg, where there were 

 seen at one time by the Dutch navigator Zorg- 

 drager no less than one hundred and eighty- 

 eight vessels, afford, perhaps, the most remark- 

 able instance on record of what commerce can 

 do against unyielding laws of Nature, and over 

 obstructions which it would seem impossible to 

 surmount. But how soon does Nature, if ever 

 temporarily displaced, resume her sway. Now 

 that the whales have long since deserted those 

 parts, even the site of the old Arctic colony is 

 hardly discernible, and the English branch of 

 the Greenland whale fishery is all that is pros- 

 ecuted in those seas, and that with very mod- 

 erate success. 



The first person that is recorded to have kill- 

 ed a whale among the people of New England 

 was one William Hamilton, somewhere between 

 1660 and 1670. In the town records of Nan- 

 tucket, there is a copy of an agreement entered 



