History has not preserved his name; like the great warriors that lived before Agamemnon, he sank into an obscure grave for want of a Homer to celebrate his exploits. We only know that the Biscayans were the first _civilised_ people that in the fourteenth and fifteenth century fitted out ships for the whale fishery. At first the bold men of Bayonne and Santander contented themselves with pursuing their prey, (most likely rorquals) in the neighbouring seas, but as the persecuted whales diminished in frequency, they followed them farther to the north, until they came to the haunts of the real whale, whose greater abundance of fat rewarded their intrepidity with a richer spoil. Their success naturally roused the emulation and avidity of other seafaring nations, and thus, towards the end of the sixteenth century, we see the English, and soon after the Dutch, enter the lists as their competitors. At first our countrymen were obliged to send to "Biskaie for men skilful in catching the whale, and ordering of the oil, and one cooper, skilful to set up the staved casks," (Hakluyt's _Voyages_, i. 414); but soon, by their skill, their industry and perseverance, together with the aid and encouragement granted by the legislature, they learnt to carry on the whale fishery on more advantageous terms than the original adventurers, whose efforts became less enterprising as their success was more precarious. The first attempts of the English date as far back as the year 1594, when some ships were sent out to Cape Breton for morse and whale fishing. The fishing proved unsuccessful, but they found in an island 800 whale fins or whalebone, part of the cargo of a Biscayan ship wrecked there three years before, which they put on board and brought home. This was the first time this substance was imported into England. Hull took the lead in the Greenland whale fishery in 1598, thirteen years after the first company for that purpose had been formed in Amsterdam, and as both maritime nations gave it every encouragement, not only on account of its profits, but also from considering it as one of the best nurseries for their seamen, it gradually grew to a very important branch of business. Some idea may be formed of the extent to which the Dutch engaged in the whale fishery during the last century, by stating that for a period of forty-six years preceding 1722, 5886 ships were employed in it, and captured 32,907 whales. In the year 1788, 222 English vessels were employed in the northern fishery.