THE AMERICAN WHALE-FIS HEBY. 189 



soon after explored the same seas, represented to their countrymen the amazmg 

 number of whales with which they were crowded.* Vessels were in consequence 

 fitted out for the northern whale-fishery by the English and Dutch, the harpooners 

 and a part of the crew being Biscayans. They did not, however, confine their 

 efforts to a fair competition with each other as fishers. The Muscovy Company 

 obtained a royal charter, prohibiting the ships of all other nations from fishing in 

 the seas round Spitzbergen, on pretext of its having first been discovered by Sir 

 Hugh Willoughby. There can, however, be no doubt that Barentz, and not Sir 

 Hugh, was its original discoverer ; though, supposing that the fact had been other- 

 wise, the attempt to exclude other nations from the surrounding seas on such a 

 ground was not one that could be tolerated. The Dutch, who were at that time 

 prompt to embark in a commercial pursuit that gave any hope of success, eagerly 

 entered on this new career, and sent out ships fitted equally for the purposes of 

 fishing and of defense- against the attacks of others. The Muscovy Company having 

 attempted to vindicate its pretensions by force, several encounters took place between 

 their ships and those of the Dutch. The conviction at length became general that 

 there was room enough for all parties in the northern seas ; and in order to avoid 

 the chance of coming into collision with each other, they parceled Spitzbergen and 

 the adjacent ocean in districts, which they respectively assigned to the English, 

 Dutch, Hamburgers, French, Danes, etc. The Dutch, thus left to prosecute the 

 fishery without having their attention diverted l)y hostile attacks, speedily acquired 

 a decided superiority over all their competitors. When the Europeans first began 

 to prosecute the fishery on the coast of Spitzbergen, whales were everywhere 

 found in vast nuinbers. Ignorant of the strength and stratagems of the formid- 

 able foe by which they were now assailed, instead of betraying any symptoms of 

 fear, they surrounded the ships and crowded all the bays. Their capture was, in 

 consequence, a comparatively easy task, and many were killed which it was after- 

 ward necessary to abandon, from the ships being already full. While fish were 

 thus easily obtained, it was the practice to boil the blubber on shore in the north, 

 and fetch home only the oil and whalebone ; and perhaps nothing can give a more 

 vivid idea of the extent and importance of the Dutch fishery in the middle of the 

 seventeenth century, than the fact that they constructed a considerable village (the 



* Doctor Lindeman states in liis work upon f erence with their whale - fisheries on the coast of 



ih.e yihale-fisheTj {Die arhiische Fischerei der Deut- Jutland." He further mentions, that "the first 



schen Seesfadte, 1620 to 1868), "in the thirteenth English whaling -shi^is were sent out from Hull 



and fourteenth centuries the Hanseatic cities car- in 1598, to the coasts of Iceland and the region 



ried on war with Denmark on account of inter- of the North Cape." 



