1672.] CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY. 57 



saw with regret, such a profitable and valuable spe- 

 culation entirely laid aside. They saw its import- 

 ance as a nursery for hardy seamen, as offering em- 

 ployment for a great number of ships, while the 

 requisite equipments would require the co-operation 

 of a number of artisans, tradesmen and labourers ; 

 and, above all, they saw its importance in a nation- 

 al point of view, where valuable cargoes might be 

 procured without ^r.y/ cost, excepting the expences 

 of the voyage, while, on the contrary, great sums 

 of money were annually sent out of the country and 

 paid to foreign nations, for the purchase of those 

 very articles which might be had out of the sea. 

 To encourage, therefore, the renewal of the whale- 

 fishery trade, an act of Parliament was passed in 

 1672*, whereby the rigours of the navigation act 

 were dispensed with, and its essential properties so 

 modified for the ten following years, that a vessel 

 for the whale-fishery, being British built, and having 

 a master and one-half of the crew British subjects, 

 might carry natives of Holland or other expert fish- 

 ers, to the amount of the other half. As a further 

 encouragement, the oil and whalebone imported were 

 exempted from all duties, though the colonies were 

 to pay 6s. per ton for oil, and 50s. per ton for such 

 whalebone as should be imported in their own ship- 

 ping, and half that duty, if taken thither by Eng- 



• 25th Char. II. c. 7- 



