8d WHALE-FISHERY. 



guineas *. Still farther to prove its utility, the so- 

 ciety ordered six of the guns, and twenty-four 

 harpoons, to be put on hoard of the Leviathan, 

 one of the London whalers, and the same on board 

 of the Rising Sun ; and to encourage the use of the 

 instrument, the same society offered a premium of 

 20/. for the most satisfactory account of taking 

 whales by the gun-harpoon ; and, since this period, 

 it has been in the constant habit of offering rewards 

 to harpooners for taking whales by the same means. 



In the year 1774, a company of merchants being 

 associated in Stockholm, for the purpose of attempt- 

 ing the whale-fishery, were not only encouraged by 

 the Swedish Government with the exclusive right 

 to the fisheries of Greenland and Davis' Straits, for 

 twenty years, but were likewise assisted with the 

 loan of 500,000 dollars, at an interest of 3 per 

 cent, f ; thus evincing the powerful impression which 

 the King of Sweden had in common with others, of 

 the high national importance of this branch of com- 

 merce. 



In an act passed for the encouragement of the 

 Xcwfoundland fisheries in 1775, the bounties and 

 other privileges awarded to the British whale-fish- 

 ermen, were extended to the Irish ;{:. 



* Transactions of the Soc. of ArtS;, vol. ii. ; and Scots Maga- 

 zine, vol. xxxvi. p. 392. 



+ Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, vol. iii. p. 557. 

 t 15th Geo. III. c. 31. 



