Midmoming by the Ice 167 



occurred in 1624. A privateer from the Port of Dunkirk, then nomi- 

 nally independent, seized a fully laden Dutch whaler on her return 

 passage. Now, in 161 5 the Danes had sent two warships to Spits- 

 bergen to try to enforce their claim to the territory and its fisheries, 

 and although the effort had failed, it impressed the Hollanders, who 

 sent two of their own ships-of-the-realm in 161 7. These did some 

 surveying and protected the Dutch whalers against the bickerings 

 of the crowd of other nationalities whaling there that year, so that 

 the Dutch company enjoyed a profitable season. The idea was logical 

 and proved worth the expense even in time of peace, so it was im- 

 mediately adopted as a regular routine after the incident with the 

 Dunkirk pirate. 



The effects were threefold and profound. First, the Dutch whal- 

 ing fleet felt free and safe to pursue its arduous but peaceful tasks 

 in an orderly manner. Second, foreigners found it advisable to let 

 them do so without molestation or pilfering; and third, it resulted 

 in a somewhat unexpected development. Whalers of other nations 

 and private "interlopers" sought this protection either by combining 

 their efforts with the Dutch fleets or by offering their services to 

 these as seamen or technicians, or even as shipowners with their 

 vessels. And more prestige and profits accrued to the perspicacious 

 Hollanders through this move than, perhaps, through any other. 



The third phase of Dutch enterprise made its appearance in the 

 early stages of the development of the Spitsbergen trade, and so 

 little is made of it in contemporary Dutch accounts — though it is 

 commented upon with some amazement by all other nationalities — 

 that it would seem to have been the outcome of a fairly venerable 

 tradition devised elsewhere rather than a series of novel inventions 

 of that date. Its four principal and several subsidiary aspects may 

 be lumped together under the title of industrial improvements. 



The two most important of these were the practice of towing 

 whales when killed to a permanent or semipermanent shore station 

 for processing and the employment there on the shore of slipways 

 up which the whales could be pulled by winches for flensing and 

 trying out. The idea of towing the whales to a base would prob- 

 ably be almost second nature to most Hollanders because of their 

 age-old competence in towing first inland, then estuarine, and 

 finally sea-going barges. A sixty-foot whale with the flukes of its 



