CHAPTER I.
CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE NORTHERN WHALE FISHERIES.
In the early ages of the world, when beasts of prey began to multiply and annoy the vocations of man, the personal dangers to which he must have been occasionally exposed would oblige him to contrive some means of defence. For this end, he would naturally be induced, both to prepare weapons, and also to preconceive plans for resisting the disturbers of his peace. His subsequent rencounters with beasts of prey would, therefore, be more frequently successful, not only in effectually repelling them when they should attack him, but also, in some instances, in accomplishing their destruction. Hence, we can readily and satisfactorily trace to the principles of necessity the adroitnessand courage evidenced by the unenlightened nations of the world, in their successful attacks on the most formidable of the brute creation; and hence we can conceive that necessity may impel the indolent to activity, and the coward to actions which would not disgrace the brave. For man to attempt to subdue an animal whose powers and ferocity he regarded with superstitious dread, and the motion of which he conceived would produce a vortex sufficient to swallow up his boat, or any other vessel in which he might approach it—an animal of at least six hundred times his own bulk, a stroke of the tail of which might hurl his boat into the air, or dash it and himself to pieces—an animal inhabiting at the same time an element in which he himself could not subsist; for man to attempt to subdue such an animal, under such circumstances, seems one of the most hazardous enterprizes of which the intercourse with the irrational world could possibly admit. And yet this animal is successfully attacked, and seldom escapes when once he comes within reach of the darts of his assailer.
It seems to be the opinion of most writers on the subject of the whale-fishery, that the Biscayans were the first who succeeded in the capture of the whale. This opinion, though perhaps not correct, deserves to be mentioned in the outset of an investigation into the probable origin of this employment. A species of whale,probably theBalæna rostrata, was a frequent visitor to the shores of France and Spain. In pursuit of herrings and other small fishes, these whales would produce a serious destruction among the nets of the fishermen of Biscay and Gascony. Concern for the preservation of their nets, which probably constituted the whole of their property, would naturally suggest the necessity of driving these intruding monsters from their coasts. With this view, arrows and spears, and subsequently gunpowder, would be resorted to. Finding the whales timid and inoffensive, the fishers would be induced to approach some individual of the species, and even to dart their spears into its body. Afterwards they might conceive the possibility of entangling some of the species, by means of a cord attached to a barbed arrow or spear. One of these animals being captured, and its value ascertained, the prospect of emolument would be sufficient to establish a fishery of the cetaceous tribe, and lead to all the beneficial effects which have resulted in modern times.
Those authorities, indeed, may be considered as unquestionable, which inform us that the Basques and Biscayans, so early as the year 1575, exposed themselves to the perils of a distant navigation, with a view to measure their strength with the whales, in the midst of an element constituting the natural habitation of these enormous animals; that the English, in 1594, fitted an expedition for Cape Breton,intended for the fishery of the whale and the walrus, (sea-horse,) pursued the walrus-fishing in succeeding years in high northern latitudes, and, in 1611, first attacked the whale near the shores of Spitzbergen; and that the Hollanders, and subsequently other nations of Europe, participated in the risk and advantages of these northern expeditions. Some researches, however, on the origin of this fishery, carried on in the northern seas, will be sufficient to rectify the error of these conclusions, by proving that the whale-fishery by Europeans may be traced as far back at least as the ninth century.
The earliest authenticated account of a fishery for whales is probably that contained in Ohthere’s voyage, by Alfred the Great. This voyage was undertaken about 890, by Ohthere, a native of Halgoland, in the diocese of Dronthein, a person of considerable wealth in his own country, from motives of mere curiosity, at his own risk, and under his personal superintendence. On this occasion, Ohthere sailed to the northward, along the coast of Norway, round the North Cape, to the entrance of the White Sea. Three days after leaving Dronthein, or Halgoland, “he was come as far towards the north as commonly the whale-hunters used to travel.” Here Ohthere evidently alludes to the hunters of the walrus, or sea-horse; but subsequently, he speaks pointedly as to a fishery for somespecies of cetaceous animals having been at that period practised by the Norwegians. He told the king, that with regard to the common kind of whales, the place of most and best hunting for them was in his own country, “whereof some be forty-eight ells of length and some fifty,” of which sort, he affirmed, that he himself was one of the six who, in the space of three (two) days, killed threescore.
From this it would appear, that the whale-fishery was not only prosecuted by the Norwegians so early as the ninth century, but that Ohthere himself had personal knowledge of it. The voyage of Ohthere is a document of much value in history, both in respect to the matter of it, and the high character of the author by whom it has been preserved. By a slight alteration in the reading of the Saxon manuscript, as suggested by Turner, in his History of the Anglo-Saxons, it is possible to suppose that the threescore animals slain by Ohthere in two days were not whales but dolphins. This supposition removes the improbability of the exploit recorded, and does not contradict or explain away the fact of larger whales having been likewise hunted and captured.
A Danish work, which there is reason to believe is of a date much earlier than that which we assign to the first fishery of the Basques, declares that the Icelanders were in the habit of pursuing the whales, which they killedon the shore, and that these islanders subsisted on the flesh of some one of the species. And Langebek does not hesitate to assert, that the fishery of the whale (hovlfangst, by which he probably means a species ofdelphinus,) was practised in the most northern countries of Europe in the ninth century.
Under the date of 875, in a book entitled the “Translation and Miracles of St. Vaast,” mention is made of the whale-fishery on the French coast. In the “Life of St. Arnould, bishop of Soissons,” a work of the eleventh century, particular mention is made of the fishery by the harpoon, on the occasion of a miracle said to have been performed by the saint. There are also different authorities for supposing that a whale-fishery was carried on near the coast of Normandy and Flanders, from the eleventh to the thirteenth century.
The English, it is to be expected, did not remain long behind their continental neighbours in this lucrative pursuit. It is difficult to determine whether the whales referred to in the few early documents which we possess, were such as were run on the English shore by accident, or subdued by the English on the high sea. By Acts of Parliament,A.D.1315 and 1324, the wrecks of whales, cast by chance upon the shore, or whales or great sturgeonstakenin the sea, were to belong to the king. HenryIV.gave, in 1415, to the church of Rochester, the tithe of the whales taken along the shoresof that bishopric. In the sixteenth century, the inhabitants of the shores of the Bay of Biscay were the most distinguished whale-fishers. At first, they confined their attacks to those animals, probably theBalæna rostrataof Linnæus, which used to present themselves in the Bay of Biscay at a certain season every year. Gradually becoming bolder, the Biscayans advanced towards the coasts of Iceland, Greenland, and Newfoundland, in the pursuit. The Icelanders united their energies with the Biscayans, and conducted the whale-fishery on so extensive a scale, that, towards the end of the sixteenth century, the number of vessels annually employed by the united nations amounted to a fleet of fifty or sixty sail.
The first attempt of the English to capture the whale, of which we have any satisfactory account, was made in the year 1594. Different ships were fitted out for Cape Breton at the entrance of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, part of which were destined for the walrus-fishery, and the remainder for the whale-fishery. The Grace, of Bristol, one of these vessels, took on board 700 or 800 whale-fins, or laminæ of whalebone, which they found in the Bay of St. George, where two large Biscayan fishermen had been wrecked three years before. This is the first notice I have met with of the importation of this article into Great Britain.
However doubtful it might have appeared at one time whether the English or the Dutch first visited Spitzbergen, the claim of the English to the discovery and first practice of the whale-fishery on the coasts of these islands stands undisputed, the Dutch themselves allowing that the English preceded them four years. The merchants of Hull, who were ever remarkable for their assiduous and enterprizing spirit, fitted out ships for the whale-fishery so early as the year 1598, which they continued regularly to prosecute on the coasts of Iceland and near the North Cape for several years; and after the re-discovery of Spitzbergen by Hudson, in 1607, they were the first to push forward to its coasts. Captain Jonas Poole was, in the year 1610, sent out on a voyage of discovery by the “Company for the Discovery of unknown Countries,” the “Muscovy Company,” or the “Russia Company,” as it was subsequently denominated. On his return, the company fitted out two ships for the fishery; the Marie Margaret, of 160 tons, under the direction of Thomas Edge, factor; and the Elizabeth, of 60 tons, Jonas Poole, master. In this voyage, both ships were lost, but the cargo was brought home in a Hull ship.
Such a novel enterprize as the capture of whales, which was rendered practical, and even easy, by the number in which they were found, and the convenience of the situations in which they occurred—an enterprize at the same timecalculated to enrich the adventurers far beyond any other branch of trade then practised—created a great agitation, and drew towards it the attention of all the commercial people of Europe. With that eagerness which men invariably display in the advancement of their worldly interests, but which is seldom directed with equal vigour to objects of higher and eternal importance, the mercantile spirit was concentrated on this new quarter, and vessels from various ports began to be fitted for the fishery. In the next year, three foreign ships made their appearance along with the two belonging to the Russia Company. The English, jealous of the interference of the Dutch, would not allow them to fish, and obliged them to return home. In the following year, the English Russia Company obtained a royal charter, excluding all others, both natives and foreigners, from the fishery, and they equipped seven armed vessels for the purpose of maintaining their prerogative. In the course of the season, the English attacked the foreign vessels, and took from them the greater proportion of the blubber, or oil, and whale-fins, which they had procured, driving them, together with some English ships fitted out by private individuals, out of the country. In 1614, a company was established in Amsterdam, and a charter obtained for three years; ships of war were sent out, and the Hollanders, in defiance of the English, were able to fish without interruption.The English got but half-laden, and the Dutch made but a poor fishing. After various disagreements, and the arrival of the vessels of other powers on the fishing-stations, which tended to divide the quarrel, a conference for the purpose of adjusting their differences ensued between the captains of the rival nations, and they agreed at length to a division of those fine bays and commodious harbours with which the whole coast of Spitzbergen abounded. The English obtained the first choice, and a greater number of bays and harbours than any of the rest. After the English, the Dutch, Danes, Hamburghers, and Biscayans, and, finally, the Spaniards and French, took up their positions. Thus we perceive the origin of the names of the different places called English Bay, Hollanders’ Bay, Danes’ Bay, etc.
These arrangements having been adopted, each nation prosecuted the fishery in its own possession, or along the sea-coast, which was free for all. It was understood, however, that the ships of any nation might resort to any of the bays or harbours whatever, for the convenience of awaiting a favourable wind, taking refuge from a storm, or any other emergency. To prevent the prosecution of the fishery in bays belonging to other nations, it was agreed that whenever a boat was lowered in a strange harbour, or happened to row into the same, the harpoon was always to be removed from its rest, so as not to be in readiness for use.
All the early adventurers on the whale-fishery were indebted to the Biscayans for their superintendence and help. They were the harpooners, and the coopers “skilful in setting up the staved cask.” At this period, each ship carried two principals; the commander, who was a native, was properly the navigator, as his chief charge consisted in conducting the ship to and from Greenland; the other, who was called by the Dutch, specksynder, or cutter of the fat, as his name implies, was a Biscayan, and had the unlimited control of the people in the fishery, and, indeed, every operation belonging to it was entirely confided to him. When, however, the fishery became better known, the commander assumed the general superintendence, and the specksynder, or specksioneer, is now the principal harpooner, and has the “ordering of the fat,” and the extracting or boiling of the oil of the whale, but serves under the direction of the commander.
The Dutch pursued the whale-fishery with more vigour than the English, and with still better effect. It was no uncommon thing for them to procure such vast quantities of oil that empty ships were required to take home the superabundant produce. In 1622, the charter of the Amsterdam Company was renewed for twelve years, and the charter of the Zealand Society was extended about the same time, whereby the latter were allowed to establishthemselves in Jan Mayen Island, and to erect boiling-houses and cooperages in common with their associates. The privileges of these companies, occasioning the exclusion of all other persons belonging to the United Provinces, produced a considerable degree of discontent, when the fishery, towards the expiration of these last charters, was in its most flourishing state. The states-general of Friesland were induced to grant a charter to a company formed in that province, which endowed them with similar privileges to those of the other companies of Holland. The Frieslanders, in the year 1634, perceived the advantage of procuring the sanction of the Zealand and Amsterdam companies to their right to participate in the fishery, and after negotiation, the three companies, according to stipulated conditions, contracted a triple union. The Dutch followed the whale-fishery with perseverance and profit, and were successfully imitated by the Hamburghers and other fishermen of the Elbe, but the English made only occasional voyages.
It became apparent to the adventurers in the whale-fishery, that considerable advantages might be realized could Spitzbergen be resorted to as a permanent residence, and they were desirous of ascertaining the possibility of the human species subsisting throughout the winter in this inhospitable climate. The English merchants offered considerable rewards, and the Russia Company procured the reprieve of someculprits who were convicted of capital offences, to whom they promised pardon and a pecuniary remuneration if they would remain a single year in Spitzbergen. The fear of immediate death induced them to comply; but when they were carried out and showed the desolate, frozen, and frightful country they were to inhabit, they shrank back with horror, and solicited to be returned home to suffer death in preference to encountering such appalling dangers. With this request the captain who had them in charge humanely complied, and on their return to England the company interceded on their behalf, and procured pardon.
Probably it was about the same time that nine men, who were by accident separated from one of the London fishing-ships, were left behind in Spitzbergen; all of them perished in the course of the winter, and their bodies were found in the ensuing summer shockingly mangled by beasts of prey. The same master who abandoned these poor wretches to so miserable a fate was obliged, by the drifting of the ice towards the shore, to leave eight of his crew, who were engaged in hunting reindeer for provision for the passage home, in the year 1630. These men, like the former, were abandoned to their fate; for on proceeding to the usual places of resort and rendezvous, they perceived with horror that their own, together with all the other fishing-ships, had departed. By means of the provisions procured by hunting,the fritters of the whale left in boiling the blubber, and the accidental supplies of bears, foxes, seals, and sea-horses, together with the judicious application of the buildings which were erected in Bell Sound, where they took up their abode, they were enabled not only to support life, but even to maintain their health little impaired, until the arrival of the fleet in the following year. It is surely permitted us to hope, that amidst the retirement and dreariness of these frozen regions, these hardy sailors found opportunities for serious reflection and prayer to the God of heaven, and that their minds, with eternity so near to them, were sufficiently acquainted with the one way of salvation to yield themselves to Him who is able to preserve his servants unto life eternal.
The preservation of these men revived in the Dutch the desire of establishing colonies, and in consequence of certain encouragements proclaimed throughout the fleet, seven men volunteered their services, were landed at Amsterdam Island, furnished with the needful articles of provisions, etc., and were left by the fleet on the 30th of August, 1633. About the same time, another party, likewise consisting of seven volunteers, were landed on Jan Mayen Island, and left by their comrades to endure the like painful service with the former. On the return of the fleet in the succeeding year, this last party were all found dead from the effects of the scurvy; but the other, which wasleft in Spitzbergen, nine degrees further towards the north, all survived. Other seven volunteers proposed to repeat the experiment in Spitzbergen during the ensuing winter, and were quitted by their comrades on the 11th of September, 1634. They all fell victims to the scurvy.
The Dutch, encouraged by the hope that the profitable nature of the whale-fishery would continue unabated, incurred very great expenses in making secure, ample, and permanent erections, which they gradually extended in such a degree that at length they assumed the form of a respectable village, to which, from the Dutch words “smeer,” signifying fat, and “bergen,” to put up, they gave the name of Smeerenberg. Their expectations of continued success were not, however, justified, and the fishery began to decline so rapidly from the year 1636-7, to the termination of the company’s charters, that their losses are stated on some occasions to have exceeded their former profits. On the expiration of the charters, in the year 1642, their renewal was refused by the states-general, and the trade was laid entirely open to all adventurers. It increased in consequence almost tenfold; and on the dissolution of the monopoly, the shipping in the whale-fishery commerce accumulated to between two and three hundred sail. Prior to the time when the trade was laid open, the Jan Mayen whale-fishery, like that of Spitzbergen, attained its maximum. The prodigious destruction of whales occasioned their withdrawal,and the island was at length abandoned as a whale-fishing station.
The whale-fishery of the Dutch was somewhat suspended by the war with England in 1653; but between the years 1660 and 1670, four or five hundred sail of Dutch and Hamburgh ships were yearly visitants to the coasts of Spitzbergen, while the English sometimes did not send a single ship. The British government saw with regret such a profitable and valuable speculation entirely laid aside. To encourage, therefore, its renewal, an Act of Parliament was passed in 1672, whereby the rigours of the Navigation Act were dispensed with, and its essential properties so modified for the ten following years that a vessel for the whale-fishery, being British-built, and having a master and one-half of the crew British subjects, might carry natives of Holland, or other expert fishers, to the amount of the other half. In the year 1693 was formed the “Company of Merchants of London, trading to Greenland,” to whom was granted an extension of the indulgences allowed by this Act of Parliament. From various losses, combined, probably, with unskilful management, this company was so unfortunate that, before the conclusion of their term, their capital of £82,000 was entirely expended. These circumstances tended much to discourage the subjects of Great Britain from making any vigorous attempt to renew the fishery. The direct importation of Greenlandproduce into England being inconsiderable, its importation from Holland or other foreign states was permitted; whalebone, however, was required to be brought into the country in fins only, and not cut, or in any way manufactured; nor could it be landed before the duty chargeable thereon was secured or paid, under penalty of the forfeiture of the goods and double their value. Immense sums were annually paid to foreigners for whalebone at this period.
It was not, it appears, until the whale-fishery was on the decline at Spitzbergen, that the Davis’s Strait fishery was resorted to. The Dutch sent their first ships in the year 1719. The shipping employed in the Greenland and Davis’s Strait whale-fisheries, in 1721, by foreign nations, amounted to three hundred and fifty-five sail. When, by the lapse of some years, the unfavourable impression produced on the minds of speculative persons by the immense losses suffered by English adventurers in the whale-fishery had partly worn off, the propriety of attempting this trade was suggested by Henry Elking, and was proposed to the directors of the well-known South Sea Company. The British legislature, by exempting the produce of the Greenland Seas from existing duties on the condition of its being imported in British ships, held out encouragements to the company similar to those offered to former adventurers. The South Sea Company caused a fleet of twelve new ships, about 306 tons’ burden each,to be built in the river Thames, equipped each vessel with the necessary supplies of cordage, casks, and fishing instruments, and engaged for their use the duke of Bedford’s wet-dock at Deptford, where boiling-houses and other conveniences were constructed. In the spring of 1725, the fleet being all in readiness, put to sea, and returned safe with twenty-five and a half whales. The proceeds of this voyage, though scarcely sufficient to pay the expenses incurred by the fitments and the hire of foreign harpooners, were yet superior to those of any succeeding year during the period in which the company pursued the trade. For eight successive years the company persevered in the whale-fishery, with indifferent or bad success, and after the season of 1732 were compelled to abandon it. In 1736, a London ship, which visited the whale-fishery, procured a cargo of seven fish—a degree of success which was fortunately different from that of most of the antecedent English whalers. The English government offered a bounty of twenty shillings per ton on the burden or tonnage of all British whale-fishing ships of 200 tons or upwards; and this, in 1749, was increased to forty shillings per ton.
Gradually the British whale-fishery began to assume a respectable and hopeful appearance. The combined fleets of England and Scotland, in the year 1752, amounted to forty sail; in 1753, to forty-nine; in 1754, to sixty-seven, in1755, to eighty-two; and in the year following, to eighty-three sail—which was the greatest number of ships employed in the trade for the twenty years following; while the least number amounted to forty sail during the same period. On the establishment of the British whale-fishery, the legislature directed its attention to the means for securing the perpetuity of the trade, and the economical application of the bounty. These enactments were not carried in the House of Commons without considerable debate. In 1768, the king of Prussia, interesting himself in the Greenland fishery, caused some ships to be equipped from Emden; and in 1784, the king of France attempted the revival of the whale-fishery, by equipping, at his own expense, six ships in the port of Dunkirk. In 1785, the king of Denmark, in imitation of the English, granted a bounty of about thirty shillings sterling per ton, to all vessels in the Greenland and Iceland fisheries, on the condition of the ships being fitted out and their cargoes sold in a Danish port.
The Act of the British Parliament of 1786, embodying several additional regulations on the subject of the whale-fishery, and rehearsing and revising former acts, has ever since been considered the fundamental act on the subject of the Greenland and Davis’s Strait whale-fishery. By accounts laid upon the table of the House of Commons during this session, it appeared that the bounties granted for the encouragementof the British whale-fisheries, carried on in the Greenland Sea and Davis’s Strait, from the year 1733, when bounties were first given, to the end of 1785, had amounted to £1,064,272. 18s.2d.for England, and £202,158. 16s.11d.for Scotland. By a subsequent act, the bounty was reduced to twenty-five shillings per ton, from the 25th of December, 1792, to the 25th of December, 1795; and from this period until the expiration of the act in 1798, to twenty shillings per ton, at which latter rate it has continued ever since. From a list, it appears, that in 1788, 255 British ships sailed for the whale-fishery, of which 129 were of a burden under 300 tons; 97 of 300 to 350 tons; 16 of 350 to 400 tons; 11 of 400 to 500 tons; 1 of 565 tons; and 1 of 987 tons. They were fitted out from the ports of London, Hull, Liverpool, Whitby, Newcastle, Yarmouth, Sunderland, Lynn, Leith, Ipswich, Dunbar, Aberdeen, Bo’ness, Glasgow, Montrose, Dundee, Exeter, Whitehaven, Stockton, Greenock, Scarborough, Grangemouth, and Queensferry.