t)4 WHALE-FISHERY. 



any way manufactured ; nor could it be landed be- 

 fore tlie duty chargeable thereon was secured or 

 paid, under penalty of the forfeiture of the goods, 

 and double their value *. And, by a subsequent 

 statute, other penalties were declared against per- 

 sons having foreign cut-whalebone in their posses- 

 sion, or masters of ships importing the same f . 



From the year 1715, to 1721, one year with an- 

 other, 150 tons of whalebone were imported yearly 

 into London only ; even when the price was 400/. 

 per ton. The whalebone which was at the same 

 time imported into other ports of Great Britain 

 and Ireland, may, at a moderate estimation, be 

 supposed to be 100 tons more ; the value of which, 

 100,000/., was annually paid to foreigners for 

 whalebone, at this period \. 



It was not, it appears, until the whale-fishery 

 was on the decline at Spitzbergen, that the Davis' 

 Straits fishery was resorted to. The Dutch sent 

 their first ships thither in the year 1719. 



The shipping employed in the Greenland and 

 Davis' Straits whale-fisheries, in the year 1721, 

 from a list published in London at the time, with 



* 9tli & lOtU Will. III. c. 23. § 12. & c. ir). 



t 4th Anne, c 12. § 6. 



X Elking's View, &c. page 65. 



