128 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 



by them were matters of daily occurrence. Their 

 behaviour, in a word, was that of pirates, and as such 

 accordingly, the above-quoted Resolution prescribes those 

 guilty of further acts of this nature to be proceeded against. 



A writer in ' den Koopman ' states the Straits fishery 

 to have become considerable after the year 1714, and a 

 separate statistical table relative to that branch of the 

 trade, added by Mr. Brandligt to his above-quoted pamph- 

 let, begins at the year 1/19. Zorgdrager's not especially 

 mentioning the Straits fishery is not contradictory to these 

 statements, for his book was written some years before it 

 was published. The period when Dutch whalers first began 

 to visit the Straits may, upon these several authorities, be 

 stated to be not much anterior to the year 1720. 



In the next years, besides statistics, no facts of any 

 importance relative to the whale fishery are on record. In 

 1724 a whaling company was chartered in England ; f but 

 their competition does not appear to have severely 

 prejudiced the Dutch, as the years 1719-1728 were, accord- 

 ing to Brandligt's statistics, a period of very considerable 

 prosperity for the Straits trade especially. In 1731, the 

 Dutch Ambassador to England reported on a contrivance 

 to shoot harpoons out of a musquetoon, or portable cannon, 

 by which the instrument was thrown fifty feet, or thrice the 

 distance the best harpooner could cast it, and without 

 setting the line on fire ; but though the Dutch diplomatist 

 had seen the instrument alluded to in a London wharf, and 

 spoke of it in highly commendatory terms, there is no 

 evidence of its having been adopted. { In 1739 and the 

 next years, Denmark's pretensions to exclusive fishing 



* Vol. i., p. 239. 



f * Europische Mercuurj 1724, vol. ii. p. 32. 



\ Res. Holl. 1731, p. 172, 



