THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 127 



which orders all whaling commanders were enjoined to 

 obey strictly, under a penalty of 300 florins, to be recovered 

 out of their pay and available goods and chattels. This 

 power, though at first granted to the Committee for one 

 season only, was continued in the next years.* 



A change of some importance was introduced into the 

 whalers' proceedings about this time. They had, from the 

 exhaustion of the Spitzbergen seas down to the season now 

 spoken of, fished chiefly about Greenland, and restrained 

 their operations to the seas once included in the Arctic 

 Company's monopoly, of which " Fretum Davidis " was the 

 western limit. It now became customary to look for 

 whales in Davis' Straits also. It is not certain when this 

 part of the northern seas was first visited by Dutch whalers. 

 Zorgdrager, who was quite at home in the details of the 

 business, does not particularly mention the Straits fishery in 

 his valuable work, of which the first edition was published 

 in 1720. Still, in the said year whaling in the Straits had 

 already acquired some extension ; for an immunity from 

 last-money granted to the Greenland fishery in 1687, was 

 then expressly extended to those who navigated to the 

 Straits " whither a considerable part of the ships are now 

 bound." f The same fact is evident from a States-General 

 Resolution dated November iSth, 1720,^ by which penalties 

 are enacted against offering violence to the natives of the 

 Straits shores. It appears from this edict that the first 

 exploits of Dutchmen in the Straits were anything but 

 glorious, and that robbery and ill-treatment of Esquimaux 



* Res. Holl. March 23rd, 1707 ; Feb. iSth, 1708, c. The subject 

 was generally re-considered by the States in the course of February of 

 each year. 



f Res. Holl. 1720, p. 197, 306 ; Res. St. Gen. ibid. p. 786. 



\ Gr. Plac. Poek, v. p. 1581. 



