THE EUROPEAN BACKGROUND 21 



suaded to provide that whale fins, oil, and blubber, if they 

 had been taken in English vessels with an English master and 

 a crew not more than two-thirds foreign, were to be admitted 

 free of duty for seven years after Christmas, 1724. For- 

 tified with this assistance, the Company began operations in 

 1725. But the long years of national inactivity proved to 

 be a costly handicap. Expert high-priced harpooners had to 

 be secured from Holstein, just as the English Muscovy Com- 

 pany had had to retain experienced Basque whalemen more 

 than a century before. Inexperience in all phases of the in- 

 dustry caused inefficiency and inordinately heavy expenses. 

 As a result, the enterprise was far from successful. Indeed, 

 during the first eight seasons the Company suflFered a total 

 loss of £177,782/3/0. 



After this lamentable record, it was deemed essential to 

 resort to bounties. In 1733 Parliament authorized a bounty 

 of twenty shillings per ton on all whaleships of more than 

 200 tons which had been fitted out in Great Britain. Even 

 this encouragement, however, proved insufficient. Conse- 

 quently in 1740 the bounty was raised to thirty shillings per 

 tonj and in 1749 it was further increased to forty shillings, 

 with the added proviso that under certain prescribed condi- 

 tions this same sum was to be allowed on vessels built in the 

 North American colonies. 



As a result of such heroic subsidizing, the British whaling 

 fleet commenced to grow in earnest. In 1759 the English 

 Greenland fishery included a list of thirty-four vessels, sailing 

 largely from the three ports of Whitby, Hull, and London. 

 Even this number, however, was still hopelessly inferior to the 

 large and efficiently-handled fleet which the Dutch had been 

 maintaining in northern waters for more than a century. 

 Hamburg, too, had doubled this record a full generation be- 

 fore} and Bremen and the Basque ports had almost equalled it. 



But the English whalemen were finally emerging from 

 their period of apprenticeship, and were soon to outdo their 

 erstwhile masters. Their star was clearly in the ascendant, 

 whereas that of their European rivals was declining. For 

 three-quarters of a century Britain was to be the leading 

 whaling nation of Europe j and only her own rebellious sons 



