26 WHALING 



and divers other accidents of fortune been more favourable. 

 Of course, when they were more favourable, this guerilla war- 

 fare was not limited to words. Several times the English 

 took possession of land and sea in the name of King James 

 and with what ceremony they could muster, even though the 

 royal arms could be represented only by a sixpence; when they 

 dared, they attacked the Dutch whalers and robbed them of 

 their blubber and utensils — an amenity which the Dutch 

 naturally felt bound to return in kind. 



Besides this constant bickering, English whaling suffered from 

 poor seamanship, inexperience with the details of whaling as a 

 business, and the lack of those steadying Dutch qualities of 

 caution, foresight, and perseverance that might have gone far 

 to make up for the first-mentioned deficiencies. The blubber 

 and the gear were carelessly handled, with inevitable loss, and 

 many vessels were wrecked. 



So matters went from bad to worse until, in 1617, five well- 

 armed Dutch ships, in reprisal for previous similar attacks 

 by the English, took two English ships and a pinnace, rifled 

 them, and burned their casks, to the great confusion of the 

 other English vessels, which promptly dispersed, their voyage 

 ' ' utterly overthrown. ' ' 



Only a few years more of ill luck were needed to ruin the 

 Muscovy Company, and in 1622 it was sold at auction. With 

 new owners it struggled on a little longer, but when, in 1625, the 

 company's ships arrived at Whale Head, they found their casks 

 burned, their shallops stolen, their houses and fort demolished 

 and all their fishing gear ruined, by "interlopers" from 

 York and Hull; then and there the decline of English whaling 

 definitely began. The Dutch and Basque whalers, finding that 

 the whales were becoming scarcer and shyer in the bays, went 

 out to sea and farther north for them; but the English stayed 

 on in the bays long after profit had departed with the whales. 

 All these elements combined to put an end to English whaling 

 and it was not until the 18th Century that it revived at all. 



When, in June, the whaling vessels would begin to arrive 

 upon the coast of Spitzbergen they would find gaunt reindeer 



