ENGLAND'S STRUGGLES 37 



(when men from two vessels, of the same or of different national- 

 ity, have struck the same whale, each vessel takes half the 

 beast). This barely paid expenses, since it had been necessary 

 to get all the skilled men from Holstein, the English being fit 

 only for unskilled labour, after England's long years away from 

 whaling. More than three thousand pounds the Company had 

 to pay in that one year, to those high-priced experts from Hol- 

 stein! 



The next year the Company had built twelve more ships and 

 all twenty-four were sent whaling, but this time with less luck 

 than before, for they brought home in all only sixteen and a 

 half whales. The year after, luck was no better. Another 

 ship had been added to the fleet, but two were lost during the 

 whaling and the remaining twenty-three brought home less than 

 one each. Each succeeding year up to 1732 — with the excep- 

 tion of 1729, and even then the Company lost nearly seven 

 thousand pounds in whaling — their luck was worse than before. 

 They were desperately new at the game. 



It was evident now that they must look for further help than 

 mere exemption from duty on whale products. Consequently 

 they appealed to the Government for bounty, and the sum of 

 twenty shillings the ton was granted ''all ships fitted out in 

 Great Britain, of two hundred tons and upwards, for the whale 

 fishery, and navigated according to law." There was no great 

 addition to the number of whaling vessels, even with this 

 bounty; so the sum was increased in 1740 to thirty shillings 

 the ton. This was a war measure only, ''during our then war 

 with Spain"; and a companion measure protected whalemen 

 against impressment. But whaling evidently needed still 

 further stimulation, and in 1749 the bounty was increased to 

 forty shillings the ton and was given also, under certain condi- 

 tions, to vessels built in the British colonies in North America, 

 upon their arrival, from the whaling grounds, in a British port. 

 In 1755 the Government began to pay the bounty to vessels 

 under, as well as over, two hundred tons, refused to pay further 

 bounties on tonnage in excess of four hundred tons, and re- 

 quired the whalers to carry one apprentice for every fifty tons. 



