SPERM WHALE FISHERY 
139 
were employed in the capture of so immense an animal, 
possessing such enormous strength, by which their barbed 
spears or lances of wood must have been frequently 
shivered to atoms, or drawn from the flesh of the whale 
by the resistance the blocks of wood to which they were 
attached must have occasioned, when the animal became 
frightened into its utmost speed ; and when we know at 
the present time, that by their powerful actions and 
convulsive movements the best-tempered iron, of which 
our harpoons and lances are made, frequently becomes 
twisted to pieces, while the boats which are used in the 
chase are often thrown high into the air with the head, 
or broken to fragments by one blow of the tail, of this 
enormous creature. 
But although, as has been before stated, Mr. Richard 
Stafford had threatened to commence the sperm whale 
fishery at the Bahama islands, it appears rather doubtful 
whether he did so or not, when we come to peruse the 
letter of the Hon. Paul Dudley, f. r» s., published in 
1724, Phil . Trans . vol. xxxiii., an extract of which 
states, “ I very lately received from one Mr. Atkins, an 
inhabitant of Boston, in New England , who used the 
whale fishery for ten or twelve years (black whales), and 
was one of the first that went out a-fishing for the sperma 
ceti whales about the year 1720.” It also appears in this 
account, that the fishery even then was very little under- 
stood, for Mr. Atkins himself says, “ he never saw, nor 
certainly heard of a sperma ceti female taken in his life, 52 
for he states, “ the cows of that species of whale, being 
much more timorous than the males, and almost impos- 
