56 WHALE-FISHERY. 



The Dutch whale-fishery continued to flourish 

 for many years after the trade was laid open. Be- 

 tween the years 1660 and 1670, four or five hund- 

 red sail of Dutch and Hamburgh ships were year- 

 ly visitants to the coast of Spitzbergen, while the 

 English sometimes did not send a single ship*. 

 The trade, after this, began gradually to decline. 

 The whales, which were so constantly and vigorous- 

 ly pursued, in a great measure left the bays, reced- 

 ed to the sea, and eventually to the ice. The fish- 

 ery, in consequence, became more precarious. Hi- 

 therto it had been so regularly successful, as to 

 amount almost to a certainty, but now it proved oc- 

 casionally unsuccessful. Not only so, but the danger 

 resulting from the ice, which the fishers were now 

 obliged to encounter, was the occasion of frequent 

 losses among their shipping. Notv/ithstanding this 

 alteration in the trade for the worse, it only declin- 

 ed in a comparative point of view ; for in conse- 

 quence of the adoption of a system of frugality and 

 retrenchment, they were yet enabled, on the whole, 

 to realize very handsome profits. 



The magnitude of the Holland and Hamburgh 

 fishing concerns, could not fail to attract the attention 

 of surrounding nations. The British Governm.ent 



* In 1669, the English sent but one ship to the Greenland 

 Whale-fishing, and none in the year before. — Macpherson's 

 Annals of Commerce, vol. ii. p. 544. 



