56 
A VOYAGE TO SPITZBERGEN 
The great ship of St. John de Luz staied still; the cap- 
taine of hir being content that his men should hould on their 
work, and his whale-strikers to continue fishing, upon con- 
dicon granted that he should have onelie one-half of all the 
oile w ch he should make. 4 Ther were also in the same har¬ 
bour 2 small ships, — the one of Biska, and the other a 
Flemish flie-boat; besides another little pinace, of St. John 
de Luz, w ch was on the east side of the iland, within L. 
Elesmere Baye, marked with b. 
On the 23 d of July, about 9 a-clock in the euening, wee 
sent forth 2 shallops, w th men, to goe kill some venison; who 
retourned againe w th IT bucks and does slaine: yet had they 
no dog w th them, but onelie peeces. And they brought also 
aboard the skinne of a white beare w ch they had kil’d. 
The 25 th of July, the Desire came to us into Joseph’s Bay 
out of Green Harbour, and tooke in 30 tonnes of blubber to 
make up hir full ladeing: for shee was to come w th us, one of 
the first, for England. 
The 29 th of July, wee had some trouble w th great 
troubiJdwth ice; the water being verie rough, and the winde 
ice. 
bloweing hard at east-south-east, w ch brought some 
ilands of ice towards our ships, wherof some fell ’thwart our 
hauses: so that wee were faine, w th pikes and oares, to keepe 
it cleare of our ships; and also glad to lett fall our sheat- 
anchor, to keep us from being driuen upon the lee shoare. 
In this harbour, ther was killed great store of venison, 3 
or 4 white beares, and some sea-morses, w ch the Hollanders 
4 Baffin says in his narrative, that, the Holland ships would have fought if the 
Spanish ship would have stood by them. The apparent want of spirit of the Spaniards 
may be explained by the following passage from Sir William Monson’s Naval Tracts: 
“ The King of Spain is so cautious not to give offence, that when Greenland (Spitz- 
bergen) was discovered by the English, and some of his Biscay subjeots repaired 
thither to kill the whale for oil, —being more expert than any other nation, —the 
king, considering what wrong was done to the King of England by it, and that it might 
concern him in the like case to have the Indies encroached upon, prohibited his sub¬ 
jects from going to Greenland to molest or hinder the English in their fishing.” — 
Churchill's Coll., vol. iii. p. 344. 
