56. About three tons of oil are commonly obtained from a large cachalot of this species, and from one to two tons from a small one, besides the head-matter. The manner in which these two products are treated, when brought into port, has been described in the article on candle-making.
57. The Biscayans were the first people who prosecuted the whale fishery, as a commercial pursuit. In the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, they carried on this business to a considerable extent; but the whales taken by them were not so large as those which have since been captured in the polar seas. At length, the whales ceased to visit the Bay of Biscay, and the fishery in that quarter was of course terminated.
58. The voyages of the English and Dutch to the Northern Ocean, in search of a passage to India, led to the discovery of the principal haunts of the whale, and induced individuals in those nations to fit out vessels to pursue these animals in the northern latitudes, the harpooners and part of the crews being Biscayans. The whales were found in the greatest abundance about the island of Spitzbergen, and were, at first, so easily captured, that extra vessels were sent out in ballast, to assist in bringing home the oil and whalebone; but the whales, retiring to the centre of the ocean, and to the other side to the Greenland seas, soon became scarce about that island.
59. The whale fishery was revived, as above stated, about the beginning of the seventeenth century; and, with the Dutch, it was in the most flourishing condition in 1680, when it employed about two hundred and sixty ships, and fourteen thousand men. The wars about the beginning of the nineteenth century, extending their baleful influence to almost every part of the ocean, annihilated this branch of business among the Dutch; and, in 1828, only a single whale-ship sailed from Holland.
60. The English whale fishery was, at first, carried on by companies enjoying exclusive privileges; but the pursuit was attended with little success. In 1732, Parliament decreed a bounty of twenty shillings per ton, on every whaler measuring more than two hundred tons; and, although this bounty was increased in 1749 to forty shillings, yet the English whale fishery has never been very flourishing.