"The whale fishery is a practice of long standing in the world. It is supposed that the Norwegians began to prosecute this hazardous and arduous enterprise as early as the closing part of the ninth century. From rather vague statements, on this subject, which have come down to us, it would seem that they confined themselves to the capturing of a few whales in their bays and harbors. "The shores of the Bay of Biscay, where the Normans formed early settlements, became famous through them for the whale fishery there earned on. In the same region, it was first made a regular commercial pursuit; and as the whales visited the bay in large numbers, the traffic was convenient and easy. "The Biscayans maintained it with great vigor and success in the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries. "We find from a work of Noel, 'Upon the Antiquity of Whale Fishing,' that, in 1261, a tithe was laid upon the _tongues_ of whales imported into Bayonne, they being then a highly esteemed species of food. In 1338, Edward III. relinquished to Peter de Puyanne a duty of six pounds sterling laid on each whale brought into the port of Biarritz, to indemnify him for the extraordinary expenses he had incurred in fitting out a fleet for the service of his majesty. "The Biscayans, however, soon gave up the whale fishery for the want of fish, which ceased to come southward, no longer leaving the icy seas. "In process of time, voyages both of the Dutch and English were undertaken to discover a passage through the Northern Ocean to India; and though they entirely failed in their primary object, yet they laid open the remote haunts of the whale, and immediately began to prosecute the enterprise of their capture. Even then, it was said, they employed the Biscayans as their harpooners, and for a considerable part of their crew. The Dutch and English prosecuted the business with varied success, each claiming the ground for whale fishery in the seas around Spitzbergen. Large companies were formed, and many ships were sent to those northern regions, each armed and prepared to maintain his right and supremacy over the seas. Thus one party would obtain a charter from its own government, to the exclusion of the other and all others--at the same time, each claiming the prior right of possession by discovery. "At length, in 1618, a general engagement took place, in which the English were defeated. Hitherto the two governments had allowed the fishing adventurers and companies to fight out their own battles; but in consequence of this event, it was considered prudent by each party to divide the Spitzbergen bay and seas into fishing stations, where the companies might fish and not trouble each other.