In 1620 the leviathan was familiar enough to Cape Cod Bay to forestall any necessity of hunting him in the far seas. The schools of mackerel and cod there made rich feeding for the whales which not infrequently met their death when greed tolled them to shoal waters and they were left high and dry by the receding tides. Then Indians or whites made their kill, and the rights in these “drift-whales” were a fruitful source of trouble. In 1662 the agents of Yarmouth had appeared at court “to debate and have determined a difference about whales”; and in 1690 an order was passed “to prevent contests and suits by whale-killers.” But contests there were between one man and another, and town and province, as evidenced in 1693 by a dispute with a county sheriff who had seized two whales for the Crown; and in 1705 by a letter from William Clapp to “Squier” Dudley, of Boston, a better testimony to Clapp’s business enterprise than to his scholarship. “I have liveed hear at the Cap this 4 year,” wrote Clapp, “and I have very often every year sien that her Maiesty has been very much wronged of har dues by these country people.” And he would be willing to remedy the evil “if your honor see case to precure a commishon of his Exalency for me with in strocktions I shall by the help of god be very faithful in my ofes.” And that Clapp got his appointment is shown by the Governor’s endorsement on his letter: “Commission for William Clapp, Lt. at the Cape. Warrant to prize drift whales, a water baylif.” But the towns were tenacious of their rights, and usually assured the parson’s salary from their profit. Mr. Cotton of Yarmouth looked there for his forty pounds a year; Mr. Avery of Truro, for his larger stipend; and some of the whaling-profits were also used for school maintenance.