1697] CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY. 61 



subjects of Great Britain to make any vigorous at- 

 tempt to renew the fishery. 



The faihire of the latter Greenland Company ap- 

 pears themore surprising, when we are informed, that 

 in the early part of their term, namely, in the year 

 1697, the foreign whale-fishery was universally suc- 

 cessful. The superintendent of the Dutch fishery 

 at this time remarks, that when lying in one of the 

 bays with his ship, the Four Brothers, having a 

 cargo of seven fish on board, a richly laden fleet 

 assembled at that place, comprising 121 Holland- 

 ers, whose cargoes consisted of 1252 whales ; 54 

 Hamburghers with 515 whales, 15 Bremeners with 

 119 whales, and 2 Embdeners with 2 whales: in 

 all which fleet, there was not one clean* ship. The 

 least number offish taken by any one of the Dutch 

 ships was three, and many had procured full cargoes. 

 This entire squacbon, therefore, comprising a fleet 

 of 192 ships, carried home the produce of 1888 

 whales f . 



* The term clean is applied to those ships which have met 

 with no success in the whale-fishery. 



t Beschry ving der Walvisvangst, vol. i. p. 5. — I find various 

 accounts of the success of the fishery of this year ; the differen- 

 ces in which, are probably occasioned by including the ships of 

 certain ports and states among tliose of other nations, or exclud- 

 ing some of those which properly belonged to them. Ac- 

 cording to the " Histoire des Peches," the number of ships 



