53 NIMMOD OP THE SEA ; OR, 



a very early period in their commercial history, is shown 

 by Alfred's account of Ohther's adventures ; and we find in 

 Hakluyt's voyages that, in 1598, an honest merchant requests, 

 in a letter to a friend of his, ' to be advised and directed in 

 the course of killing a whale.' The answer conveyed the 

 information that ' all the necessary officers were to be had 

 from Biscay, whose people had pursued the hazardous busi- 

 ness since a.d. 1390.' 



"The English went on, from 1598, unrivaled with their 

 whale-fishery in Greenland, until 1612, when the Dutch first 

 resorted thither ; whereupon the English-Russia Company's 

 ships seized the oil, fishing-tackle, etc., of the Dutch, and 

 obliged them to return home, threatening that, if they were 

 ever found in those seas tliereafter, prizes would be made of 

 their ships and cargoes. The English whalers claimed that 

 their master, the King of Great Britain, had the sole right 

 of the fishery, by virtue of the first discovery thereof. The • 

 natural result of this peculiarly English proceeding was, that 

 in 1613, while the English sent thirteen ships, the Dutch sent 

 eighteen ships, four of which were men-of-war of the States, 

 and they fished in spite of the English companies' preten- 

 sions. 



"In 1617 the quarrels ran very high between the English 

 and the Dutch. The former persisted in seizing one part , 

 of the oil ; and this is the first time mention is made that 

 the fins or whalebone were taken home with the blubber, al- 

 though probably before this date it came into use for wom- 

 en'* stays, etc., through the. Biscay fishermen. The whales, 

 never having been disturbed, resorted to the bays and the 

 seas near the shores, and their blubber was easily landed, 

 and the oil extracted in boilers which were left standing 

 from year to year. But after the violation of their sanctna- 

 ly the whales became less frequent in the bays, jind common- 

 est among the ice farther from the land. The ships follow- 



