“A belief in the existence of _Brownie_, the tutelar saint of husbandry, is beginning to be exploded; but the fairies or _trows_ have still a “local habitation and a name.” They occupy small stony hillocks or _knowes_, and whenever they make an excursion abroad, are seen mounted on bulrushes riding in the air. If a person should happen to meet them, without having a Bible in his pocket, he is directed to draw a circle round him, on the ground, and in God’s name forbid their nearer approach, after which they commonly disappear. They are said to be very mischievous, not only shooting cattle with their arrows, but even carrying human beings with them to the hills. Child-bed women are sometimes taken to nurse a prince, and although the appearance of the body remain at home, yet the immaterial part is removed. Such persons are observed to be very pale and absent; and it is generally some old woman who enjoys the faculty of bringing soul and body together.” Vol. ii. p. 73. No. II. In order to make this little work as complete as possible, I have annexed the following accounts of the Dutch, English, and American whale-fisheries. The two former I have compiled from authentic documents, and the latter is extracted from the late valuable work of Mr. Pitkin on the Commerce of the United States. _Dutch Whale Fishery._--Towards the latter end of the sixteenth century, the whale-fishing on the coast of Spitzbergen became considerable. It was entirely in the hands of the English till the year 1578. This fishery was first carried on by a company, which sent thither annually a few ships, to the exclusion of the rest of their countrymen, and who also endeavoured to exclude foreigners. In the year 1613, the company’s ships amounted to seven sail, who, on their arrival at Spitzbergen, found there fifteen Dutch, French, and Flemish ships, besides English interlopers. Next year, the Dutch sent eighteen sail, of which four were men of war. In 1615, the king of Denmark sent a squadron of three men-of-war to assert his exclusive right, but with such indifferent success, that his majesty thought fit to give up the point. In 1617, our company were more lucky than in any other year, and actually made one thousand nine hundred tun of oil. The Dutch made, for many years after, very indifferent voyages; and, as their great statesman, M. De Witt, well observes, had certainly been forced to relinquish the trade, _had it not been laid open by the dissolution of their Greenland Company_, to which he attributes their having in his time, beat the English, and almost all other nations, out of that trade, which they then carried on to a prodigious extent. The following is a list of the ships sent from Holland to the Greenland and Davis’ Straits whale-fishery, from the year 1661 to 1788, both inclusive, with an account of the number of whales catched each year: