OEDEE OF CETACEA. 45 



classic process of hunting was establislied and regulated, of which 

 we shall soon have to treat. 



From the year 1372 whalers from Biscay arrived at the great 

 bank of Newfoundland, whence they pushed on as far as the Gulf of 

 St. Lawrence and the coasts of Labrador. In the fourteenth century, 

 whaling vessels were fitted out at Bordeaux for the Arctic Seas, 

 which went up as far as Greenland, and even to Spitzbergen. 



The success of the people of Biscay excited the jealousy and the 

 cupidity of other nations. As they were not protected by the 

 national flag, they were interfered with, and were at last excluded 

 from the whaling- grounds, either by force or by heavy contributions 

 being levied on them ; and so, from the commencement of the 

 seventeenth century, their trade began to decline. It was defini- 

 tively lost for them and for France, when, in 1636, the Spaniards 

 seized upon fourteen large ships manned by Biscayans, which had 

 just returned from Greenland, with rich cargoes of blubber and 

 whalebone. 



The Biscayan whalers now decided to play only a secondary part. 

 They found themselves reduced to act as guides to their powerful 

 rivals ; they taught the art of whaling to the Dutch, and even to 

 the English. With the Dutch the pursuit and capture of Whales 

 became rapidly of very great importance. Supported by rich 

 companies, this new field of enterprise became a source of great 

 prosperity for Holland, until the beginning of the eighteenth cen- 

 tury. But at this period it was paralysed by the maritime war ; 

 and after the peace it was never again started on the same scale. 



WhUst the whaling was giving to the Dutch such splendid 

 results, it did not prosper in the hands of English outfitters and 

 sailors. But this persevering and active nation redoubled its 

 efforts, so as to ensui-e success. In 1732 England granted rich 

 prizes to all whaling ships, and even went so far as to double those 

 prizes in 1749. From that time forwards this branch of maritime 

 industry increased rapidly in England. 



Pursued in their natural latitudes by a merciless war, the 

 Whales gradually took their departure, going more and still 

 farther north. Till towards the fifteenth century, the whaling 

 went on along the French coasts of the ocean, that is to say, ia the 

 Gulf of Gascony.* It was, as we have said, the privilege of the 



* There is no reason to suppose that the Greenland Eight Whale ever inhabited 



