THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 115 



flocked round the coasts of Spitzbergen, whaling was a 

 harmless and easy, though very profitable, summer sport, 

 and such danger as it involved was amply recompensed 

 by pleasant life at Smeerenburg. As the fish retreated 

 seaward, things became less pleasant both for the ship- 

 owner and the whaling crew ; but the real hardships of 

 the trade, as writers of the period express it, did not com- 

 mence for either till the whales began to hide away in the 

 ice, and " sea fishery ' was forcibly superseded by " ice 

 fishery." Worn-out merchant-vessels were at first used, 

 or " risked," in this perilous trade ; but the number of 

 casualties increasing, shipowners gradually found it worth 

 their while to provide new and very strongly built vessels,* 

 and this circumstance caused fresh capital to be invested 

 in the trade. In a word, as a writer in the commercial 

 review ' Den Koopman 'f shows, the whaling trade revived 

 when it became a less easy one, and ceased to be in the 

 hands of a few monopolists. 



Another circumstance must have contributed to this 

 phenomenon. Whereas the herring fishery was from the 

 very beginning regulated by law down to minute details, 

 whalers were always left at liberty to fish where and how 

 they judged best. They were, indeed, no less than the 

 herring trade an object of Government solicitude, as appears, 

 besides frequent grants of convoy, from the above-mentioned 

 prohibitions to export whaling ships and implements and 

 take service in foreign whaling ships. They were, on the 

 other hand, occasionally ordered to stop their trade in 

 times of war, and were not exempt from the financial 

 burdens imposed upon the fisheries in general. The latter 

 were indeed the chief cause of the only restrictive measure 



* Zorgdrager, p. 204. 

 f He wrote in 1768. 



