The first proprietors of this island, or rather the first founders of this town, began their career of industry with a single whale-boat, with which they went to fish for cod; the small distance from their shores at which they caught it, enabled them soon to increase their business, and those early successes first led them to conceive that they might likewise catch the whales, which hitherto sported undisturbed on their banks.  After many trials and several miscarriages, they succeeded; thus they proceeded, step by step; the profits of one successful enterprise helped them to purchase and prepare better materials for a more extensive one:  as these were attended with little costs, their profits grew greater.  The south sides of the island from east to west, were divided into four equal parts, and each part was assigned to a company of six, which though thus separated, still carried on their business in common.  In the middle of this distance, they erected a mast, provided with a sufficient number of rounds, and near it they built a temporary hut, where five of the associates lived, whilst the sixth from his high station carefully looked toward the sea, in order to observe the spouting of the whales.  As soon as any were discovered, the sentinel descended, the whale-boat was launched, and the company went forth in quest of their game.  It may appear strange to you, that so slender a vessel as an American whale-boat, containing six diminutive beings, should dare to pursue and to attack, in its native element, the largest and strongest fish that nature has created.  Yet by the exertions of an admirable dexterity, improved by a long practice, in which these people are become superior to any other whale-men; by knowing the temper of the whale after her first movement, and by many other useful observations; they seldom failed to harpoon it, and to bring the huge leviathan on the shores.  Thus they went on until the profits they made, enabled them to purchase larger vessels, and to pursue them farther, when the whales quitted their coasts; those who failed in their enterprises, returned to the cod-fisheries, which had been their first school, and their first resource; they even began to visit the banks of Cape Breton, the isle of Sable, and all the other fishing places, with which this coast of America abounds.  By degrees they went a-whaling to Newfoundland, to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, to the Straits of Belleisle, the coast of Labrador, Davis’s Straits, even to Cape Desolation, in 70 degrees of latitude; where the Danes carry on some fisheries in spite of the perpetual severities of the inhospitable climate.  In process of time they visited the western islands, the latitude of 34 degrees famous for that fish, the Brazils, the coast of Guinea.  Would you believe that they have already gone to the Falkland Islands, and that I have heard several of them talk of going to the South Sea!  Their confidence is so great, and their knowledge of this branch of business so