Ill 



ENGLAND'S STRUGGLES 



FOR nearly fifty years following that disastrous attack of 

 1625, English whaling was in a state of coma. The 

 French had virtually ceased whaling and Danish whaling 

 amounted to very little, but the Germans had entered the 

 field and the Dutch successes there continued as the years 

 passed. In a period of ten years early in the 18th Century 

 the Dutch had outfitted 1,652 ships, caught 8,537 whales, and 

 sold the bone and oil for more than 26,000,000 florins, of which 

 their profit was 4,750,000 florins. In 1721, the ships that 

 sailed from Holland to Greenland and Davis Strait numbered 

 251; those from Hamburg, 55; those from Bremen, 24; those 

 from Biscayan ports, 20; those from Bergen, 5. 



Finally the prices on whalebone and oil imported into Eng- 

 land by Dutch, Hamburgers, and others reached such heights 

 that the newly formed South Sea Company determined to revive 

 English whaling and thus to secure some of these goodly profits 

 for themselves. They had the foresight, however, to strengthen 

 their chances of financial success by petitioning Parliament for 

 *' exemption from any custom, duty, or imposition whatsoever 

 on oil, blubber, or whale fins taken, caught, and imported into 

 this country in any ships or vessels belonging to the Company." 

 This was in 1720; the mills of the gods ground for several 

 years, and late in 1724 this exemption was granted for a period 

 of seven years. Two years later, the products of "seals or 

 other creatures taken or caught in any of the said seas" were 

 also exempted, and "the said seas" included "Davis's streights 

 and the seas adjacent." 



In the spring of 1724, therefore, twelve ships set forth and 

 among them they brought home twenty-five and a half whales 



