COMPARATIVE VIEW. — BRITAIN. 115 



the latter quantity, and were only contented, so far 

 as to relax their exertions, when their ships could 

 contain no more. Thus arose a striking epoch in 

 the history of the fishery. The ease, coolness, and 

 inactivity of the Dutch, were superseded by the 

 system of perseverance and exertion, whicli has con- 

 tinued increasing ever since, until, at the present 

 day, it has become very general throughout the 

 fishery. 



As the Greenland and the Davis' Straits fisheries 

 have met with similar encouragement from the Bri- 

 tish Government, are regulated by the same laws, 

 and prosecuted in a similar way, they have gene- 

 rally, in the preceding pages, been considered in 

 combination. The fishery of Spitzbergen, or the 

 Greenland fishery, as it is generally called, having 

 preceded the fishery of Davis' Straits about a cen- 

 tury, must be considered as solely treated of during 

 that interval after its establishment. From the 

 various publications by the Dutch on the subject 

 of their whale-fishery, I can trace their " progress 

 and success in the most satisfactory manner, from 

 their first establishment of a fishery at Davis' 

 Straits, in 1719, down to the year 1795 ; but the 

 precise year in which the English commenced it, 

 or the degree of success they met with in their first 

 attempts, I have not been able to ascertahi. 



H ^ 



