EARLY HISTORY OF WHALING 71 



about our ships, some by estimation of sixty feet 

 long, and being the ingendring time they roared 

 and cried terriblie." 1 



The Muscovy Company was the first of the great 

 English Joint-stock Corporations of foreign trade. 

 It was incorporated by a charter signed on the 

 6th February, 1555, under the name of " Merchants 

 Adventurers of England for the Discovery of lands, 

 territories, isles, dominions and seigniories, unknown 

 and not before that late adventure or enterprise 

 by sea or navigation commonly frequented. V2 

 Sebastian Cabot was made the life governor. 

 " After his death the same fellowship shall in places 

 convenient and honest assemble together to elect 

 and choose one Governor or two and twenty-eight 

 of the most sad, discreete and honest persons " ; 

 of whom four were to be Consuls, and the remaining 

 twenty-four assistants to the " saide Governour." 



The Company was afterwards re-incorporated by 

 statute, and the corporate name shortened to 

 " Fellowship of English Merchants for Discovery 

 of New Trades " (i2th February, I576-;). 3 



The Company, as its popular name indicates, was 

 mainly engaged in the trade to Russia by the north- 

 east, and the whaling business was subsidiary to 

 this. In the re-incorporation referred to the Queen 

 granted a monopoly of the right to kill whales and 

 make train oil for a period of twenty years to Sir 



1 Hakluyt, " Voyages," Dent's Everyman Edition, Vol. i., p. 410. 



9 Ibid., p. 318. 



8 Patent Rolls, ig Eliz., Part XII. 



