The most distinguished whale-fishers in the world, during a century and a half, or more, were the _Dutch_, with whose ordinary successes the comparison may, with propriety, first be made. Within the long interval of 107 years, ending with 1778, the produce of 57,590 whales was brought into Holland by 14,167 ships, (reckoning repeated voyages,) yielding an average of four and one-fifteenth whales per ship. During the ten years more immediately preceding my Father’s commencement,—from 1769 to 1778, for instance,—the average produce of the Dutch _Greenland_ whale-fishery, per ship, a year, (ninety ships, on an average being employed,) was about three and a half “fish.” In the ten years beginning with 1779, (sixty sail being regularly sent out,) the average was about three and three-quarters. And in the ten years, from 1785 to 1794, passing within the period of my Father’s early enterprises, (sixty ships being then also annually engaged in the fisheries of Greenland and Davis’ Strait), the catch was 2294 whales, giving an average of three and eight-tenths whales per ship for each year. Hence my Father’s success, compared with these various averages of the Dutch fleet, rises, in respect of the number of whales captured, in the remarkable proportion of above three and a half to one. But we turn to _home_ comparisons, which as to the object in view is of more importance to us,—though the materials for obtaining _general_ results are, I regret to find, but very scanty. As to the whale-fishery of _Great Britain_, in 1787 and 1788, we find (_Arctic Regions_, ii. p. 112,) 505 cargoes were obtained in the two years, amounting to 15,894 tuns of oil, or 31·5 tuns per ship a year. The records in hand of the Greenland fishery from _Scotland_, in the years just preceding my Father’s commencement, relate only to the period from 1785 to 1788. In each of the two latter years, when thirty-one ships were employed in the trade, the average success per ship was only two and four-fifths whales. The general average for Scotland seems, indeed, at this period to have been low; but, soon after the commencement of the present century, the enterprise and perseverance of our northern sailors began, not only to assert their proper position, but to recompense for past inferiority,—their whale-fishery of these more recent times becoming second to none, either in the ability with which it was pursued, or the success with which it was rewarded. With the port of Whitby, from whence the Henrietta sailed, we have already drawn certain comparisons. We only add the general result of the fishery of 1786, 1787, and 1788, when twenty ships sailed from this port yearly for Greenland. The catch per ship, for each of these years, was about three and a half whales; but, including the next three years, one of which was most disastrous, the average catch would hardly reach three fish per ship.