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THE
NORTHERN WHALE-FISHERY.
THE
NORTHERN
WHALE-FISHERY.
BY
CAPTAIN SCORESBY, F.R.S.E.
LONDON:
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY:
_Instituted 1799._
PREFACE.
The following pages are an abridgment, with some modifications
and additions, of the second volume of captain (now the rev. Dr.)
Scoresby’s work on the Arctic Regions and Whale-fishery, Edinburgh,
1820; the substance of the former volume having already appeared
in this Monthly Series. The second chapter of the work, on the
comparative view of the whale-fisheries of different European
nations, has been entirely omitted, as less interesting, it is
supposed, to the general reader, than the other chapters.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE NORTHERN WHALE-FISHERIES 9
CHAPTER II.
SITUATION OF THE EARLY WHALE-FISHERY—THE
MANNER IN WHICH IT WAS CONDUCTED—AND THE
ALTERATIONS WHICH HAVE TAKEN PLACE 29
CHAPTER III.
ACCOUNT OF THE MODERN WHALE-FISHERY, AS CONDUCTED
AT SPITZBERGEN 40
CHAPTER IV.
ACCOUNT OF THE DAVIS’S STRAIT WHALE-FISHERY,
WITH STATEMENTS OF EXPENSES AND PROFITS OF
A FISHING-SHIP 149
CHAPTER V.
METHOD OF EXTRACTING OIL AND PREPARING WHALE-BONE,
WITH A DESCRIPTION OF THESE ARTICLES,
AND REMARKS ON THE USES TO WHICH THE SEVERAL
PRODUCTS OF THE WHALE-FISHERY ARE APPLIED 157
CHAPTER VI.
NARRATIVE OF PROCEEDINGS ON BOARD THE SHIP
ESK, DURING A WHALE-FISHING VOYAGE TO THE
COAST OF SPITZBERGEN, IN THE YEAR 1816; PARTICULARLY
RELATING TO THE PRESERVATION OF THE
SHIP UNDER CIRCUMSTANCES OF PECULIAR DANGER 175
THE
NORTHERN WHALE-FISHERY.
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
adroitness and 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
the _Balæna 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 some species
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 killed on 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 of _delphinus_,) 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 sturgeons _taken_ in the sea, were
to belong to the king. Henry IV. gave, in 1415, to the church of
Rochester, the tithe of the whales taken along the shores of 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 the
_Balæna rostrata_ of 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 time calculated 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 establish themselves 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 some culprits 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 was left 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
Greenland produce 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, in 1755, 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 encouragement of 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. 18_s._ 2_d._ for England, and £202,158. 16_s._ 11_d._ 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.