34 FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN 



cent waters not yet occupied by British vessels. Highly 

 indignant at what they considered an invasion of their 

 rights, the commanders of the British ships attacked the 

 Dutch and carried off the contents of two vessels fully 

 loaded and valued at 130,000 guilders. Nothing daunted, 

 the Dutch returned to the charge in the following year, and 

 this time succeeded in capturing an English vessel. At 

 last the original monopolists were compelled to cede some- 

 thing of their pretensions and to confine themselves within 

 certain pretty broad limits, while the Dutch settled to the 

 North of them, the Danes coming afterwards between the 

 two, the Hamburgers to the West of the Danes and the 

 French to the North of the Hollanders. Many of the 

 names now borne by the bays and islands of that part 

 attest the international division of the respective whaling 

 grounds. 



Other causes, more particularly the depopulation caused 

 by the Civil War, now arose to depress our Greenland 

 trade, and by far the greater portion of it fell into the 

 hands of the Dutch, who in 1670 sent out 148 ships and 

 captured 792 whales. Bad management on the part of the 

 principals tended still further to deteriorate the British 

 interests. An absurd system — or at least a system which 

 seems absurd now, though it may have had its origin in 

 some necessity of the moment — had grown up of allowing 

 the captains of vessels to hunt deer, and to have the horns 

 and skins for their perquisites ; the result being that the 

 whales were left undisturbed, and the ships came home 

 laden with cargo for the benefit of the captain, and exceed- 

 ingly lightly burdened on behalf of the owners. One would 

 have thought that so great an abuse would have been 

 sufficient to correct itself Yet this was not the case ; and 



