74 WHALE-FISHERY. 



Were, under certain stipulations, entitled to the 

 same Lounty as British built ships, provided they 

 sailed before the 1st of May from America, and 

 continued fishing until the 20th of August, unless 

 they had procured a certain quantity of blubber, 

 and provided also they returned from the fishery to 

 some port in Great Britain. Foreign Protestants 

 also, who had served three years on board of any 

 British whale-fishermen, and had fulfilled the regu- 

 lar forms of naturalization, were, during their re- 

 sidence in England, by this act, endowed with the 

 same privileges in the whale-fisheries, as the natives 

 of Britain themselves *. 



This season the fishery in Davis' Straits Avas un- 

 commonly prosperous. Forty-one Dutch ships took 

 205 whales, making 8704 casks of blubber ; four 

 Hamburgh vessels took 25 i whales, and some others 

 were likewise successful f. 



About this period, the Hudson's Bay Company 

 were in the habit of im.porting into Kngland a 

 trifling quantity of the produce of the whale, from 

 their establishment in Hudson's Bay ;. 



* 22cl Geo. II. c. 45. 



t Gent. Mag. vol. xix. p. 427. 



;}: Robson, in his " Account of a Six Years residence in Hud- 

 •' son's Bay," p. 65., mentions these imports, and states, that 

 the price of whale oil in the year 1742, was 18/. 13*. }jer ton : 

 in 174;^, 14/. 8*. ; and in 1744, ]0/. Is. per ton. 



