76 A HISTORY OF THE WHALE FISHERIES 



had been cast away three years earlier, from which 

 they extracted seven or eight hundred whale fins; 

 all the train oil was lost though the casks remained. 

 After this Wyet was informed that whales which 

 had been wounded in the Grand Bay and escaped 

 capture eventually stranded on shore on the Isle of 

 Assumption or Natiscotec " which lieth in the very 

 mouth of the great river that runneth up to Canada." 

 So he sailed across without, however, meeting with 

 any stranded whales. They then went back to 

 Newfoundland to fill up with codfish, returning 

 safely " first in Combe and staid there a seven night, 

 and afterward in Hungrod in the river of Bristoll 

 by the grace of God the 24 of September, 1594." 



Prior to the voyage of the Grace it appears to 

 have been customary for English privateers to lay 

 in wait for Spanish ships on the return voyage from 

 Newfoundland, whither they went for fish and 

 train oil. Thus in April, 1591, the ship of Peter 

 de Hody, merchant of Bayonne, returning from 

 Newfoundland laden with dry and green fish and 

 fourteen hogshead of train oil, was taken by a ship 

 of war appointed by Sir Walter Raleigh and brought 

 to Uphill near Bristol. 1 The same year the ship 

 Holy Ghost of St Jean de Luz belonging to 

 Martin, Adam, John and Michael Haurgues, laden 

 with fish and oil from Newfoundland, was captured 

 by the Elizabeth Bonaventure and Dudley, 

 English men-of-war, and taken to Milford and there 

 Sold. She appears to have been improperly 



1 State Papers, Eliz. t Domestic, Vol. ccxlii., p. 231. 



