I'.tos.j Mini, The North Atlantic Ki</lit Whale. 315 



In Mourt's 'A brief Relation of the Discovery and Plantation of New 

 England,' published originally in 1622, 1 we find enumerated among the 

 advantages offered by Plymouth as a place of settlement the following: 

 "Thirdly, Cape Cod was like to be a place of good fishing; for we saw daily 

 great whales of the best kind for oil and bone, come close aboard our ship, 

 and in fair weather swim and play about us; there was once one, when the 

 sun shone warm, came and lay above water, as if she had been dead, for a 

 good while together, within half a musket-shot of the ship. ..." This was, 

 of course, early in the month of December, 1620, and the species referred 

 to could not have been other than that here under consideration. 



/accheus Macy, in his account of Nantucket, 2 dated "Nantucket, 15th 

 of 5th month, 1792," alludes briefly to the whale-fishery, in which he says: 

 "The whale fishery began at Nantucket in the year 1690. One Ichabod 

 Paddock came from Cape Cod to instruct the people in the art of killing 

 whales, in boats from the shore. This business flourished till about the year 

 1760, when the whales appeared generally to have deserted the coast. . . .In 

 the year 1718, the inhabitants began to pursue whales on' the ocean, in small 

 sloops and schooners, from thirty to forty-five tons. The blubber was 

 brought home in large square pieces, and tried or boiled in try-houses. In 

 a few years, vessels from sixty to eighty tons were employed and the oil 

 boiled out in try works at sea. When the late war began with Great Britain 

 we had a fleet of about one hundred and forty sail, consisting of large sloops, 

 schooners, and brigs. But when the war ended, we were reduced to about 

 thirty old hulks. Our voyages are now long and distant. . . ."(/. c., p. 157). 



William Douglass, in his 'Summary, Historical and Political,. . . .of the 

 British Settlements in North America' (London, 1760), in speaking of the 

 New England Whale-fishery (Vol. I, pp. 296-298) says: "W T hales, that is 

 the true or bone whales go southward (they are passengers according to 

 the seasons) towards winter, and return northward in the spring. Formerly, 

 in New-England Cape-cod embayed them, but being much disturbed (they 

 seem to have some degree of reason) they keep a good offing .... 



"New-England whaling at present is by whaling sloops or schooners 

 with two whale-boats and thirteen men; each boat has an harpooner, a 

 steersman, and four rowers; the whale-boats do not use thaughts, but 

 nooses for their oars, upon account of expedition; because only by letting 

 go their oars, without loosing of them, they keep expeditiously long side of 

 the whale. The best place of striking a whale is in her belly, about one- 

 third from her gills; the fast is a rope of about twenty-five fathom; then a 



1 Here quoted from Massachusetts Hist. Coll., 2d ser., Vol. IX, p. 36. 



2 A short Journal of the first settlement of the island of Nantucket, with some of the most, 

 remarkable things that have happened since, to the present time. Coll. Massachusetts Hi>t. 

 Soc., Ill, 1794, pp. 155-161. 



