18 A History of the American Whale Fishery. 
ships annually up to about 1730.% After that year 
the size of the fleet seems to have decreased gradually, 
for by 1770 only about forty vessels a year were engaged, 
in whaling from Dutch ports. From 1770 the Dutch 
fishery began to decline more rapidly, following the 
general decline of the Dutch commercial eminence. 
Where the Dutch had held so marked superiority over 
the English for more than a century and a half, the 
conditions were now reversed, through the stimulus 
given to English whaling by the royal bounties. By 
1815 the Dutch industry had fallen so low that the 
government deemed it necessary to give direct money 
bounties for its encouragement, and provided for the 
payment of 4,ooo florins towards outfitting every 
whaling vessel. Thus the Dutch fishery passed in 
reverse order through the same stages as did the English. 
The history of the American whale fishery will reveal 
many conditions analogous to the phases through which 
the European fisheries passed. Beginning in the same 
small way of carrying on operations from shore or near 
the land, whaling in America grew to be a regular deep 
sea fishery as whales grew scarce. It passed through 
the same stages of years of fluctuating successes and 
precarious existence, periods of prosperity and years 
of support by bounties. Though the American fishery 
began later, its growth was rather more rapid than the 
English fishery. By the time that American whaling 
ventures were entering on their period of greatest pros- 
perity, the English activities were still receiving val- 
uable support from the tonnage bounties paid to whaling 
ships, and the Dutch strength was nearly expended. 
History frequently repeated itself in the case of the 
whale fisheries of different nations, but the conditions 
under which it existed made the American industry the 
greatest of all. 
%° Scoresby, table, p. 156. 
