[Illustration: From an old English print.]
[Illustration: A rare old English print of the Eighteenth Century.]
[Illustration: A “cachalot” on the seacoast of Holland. People have always shown intense interest in drift whales.]
[Illustration: Whale-hunting in Westmannshaven Bay, Norway.
The Norwegians were the earliest whalers of which we have any records.]
[Illustration: The Dutch boiling oil on shore in a huge “try-works,” which was the early method of preparing the oil.]
In 1612 the Dutch became the leaders and were still very active about 1680, employing two hundred and sixty ships and fourteen thousand seamen, and during the last part of the seventeenth century they furnished nearly all Europe with oil. To them is attributed the improvements in the harpoon, the line, and the lance, and to their early prominence in the industry we owe the very name “whale,” a derivation from the Dutch and German word “wallen,” meaning to roll or wallow. They established a whaling settlement at Spitzbergen, only eleven degrees from the North Pole, where they boiled the oil; in fact, during the early days of whaling all nations “tried out” their oil on land. The Dutch continued to be the leaders until about 1770, when the English superseded them owing to the royal bounties.
The history of American whaling really begins with the settlement of the New England Colonies. When the “Mayflower” anchored inside of Cape Cod, the Pilgrims saw whales playing about the ship, and this was their chief reason for settling there. It afterwards proved that the products of the whale formed an important source of income to the settlers on Massachusetts Bay.
The subject of drift, or dead whales which were washed ashore, first attracted the colonists, and there are numerous references to them on record. It was the invariable rule for the government to get one-third, the town one-third, and the owner one-third, and in 1662 it was voted that a portion of every whale should be given to the church. The whale fishery increased steadily, so that in 1664 Secretary Randolph could truthfully write to England, “The new Plymouth colony made great profit by whale killing.” The success of the settlers on Cape Cod and elsewhere encouraged Salem to consider ways and means of whaling; for as early as 1688 one James Loper, of Salem, petitioned the Colonial authorities for a patent for making oil, and four years later some Salem whalers complained that Easthamptonites had stolen whales that bore Salem harpoons. As early as 1647 whaling had become a recognized industry in Hartford, Conn., but for some reason did not prosper.