130 A. D. 1724. 



niillions for improving Louifiana, and for completing the fupcrb works 

 of Port rOrient. But Orry coming to be at the head of the French 

 finances in the year 1737, he lb cfFcdually llipportcd and improved the 

 Eall-lndia company, that their public fale at Port L'Orient in 1742 

 amounted to 24 millions oflivres, (or about one million flerling) which 

 greatly alarmed England and Holland, who did not at firfl know that 

 all this fine appearance was chiefly fupported by the crown, until the 

 war with England in the year i 744 obliged Orry to declare to the com- 

 pany, that they muft now ftand on their own legs. Notwithftunding all 

 which, and the ftoppage of their dividends at that time, they have fmce 

 vaflly improved their commerce and power in India, even almofl to 

 the prefcnt time. 



1724 After much debate in feveral of the general courts of the 



South-fea company concerning the utility of attempting a Greenland 

 trade or whale filhery, wherein it was plainly fliewn, that former Green- 

 land companies were io unfuccelsful as to run out their whole capital, and 

 that fome foreign nations have fundry advantages over our people in re- 

 fpedl to this flfliery, the company at length relblved to commence that 

 fifliery. It was certainly a well-intended and popular relblution, and 

 was agreeable to the powers granted by the tirft a6l of parhament, and 

 to the royal charter, for ereding the company, as well as to part of 

 the title given to it by the royal charter. In order to encourage the 

 company, an act of parliament, for encouraging the Greenland fifliery, 

 repealed the duty of threepence per pound weight on whale-fins; and 

 decreed that whale-fms, oil and blubber of whales, caught and imported 

 in Britifli fliips, (whereof the commander and at leaft one third of the 

 mariners to be Britiih fubjeds) fliould ablolutely be cuftom-tree for 

 ,feven years from chriftmas 1724. [10 Geo. I, c. 16.] 



And by another ad, the freedom from all cuftom whatever was ex- 

 tended to Davis's ftraits and the feas adjacent, and alio comprehended 

 therein feai-oil, feal-il<ins, or any other produce of feals, or other fifli or 

 creatures, caught in any of thofe feas, fuch as the large white bears, 

 fo cominonly found on the ice there, and fea-horfes, or morfes, alfo very 

 numerous in thofe feas. [i 2 Geo. I, c. 26.] 



Yet, it being too late for the fifhery of the prefent year, they direded 

 twelve fine fliips, of 306 tons each, to be built in the river Thames, and 

 proper quantities of hemp from Riga, and ca(k-ftaves from Hamburgh, 

 to be got ready for the enfuing Ipring : the company alio hired the duke 

 of Bedford's great wet dock at Deptiord for the ule of their fliips and 

 flores, and for curing their oil and whale-fins. 



This year alfo the South-fea company fent out their rich annual fhip 

 ibr Carthagcna and Portobello in the Spanifli Weft-Indies. 



1725. — In the year 1725 the South-fea company commenced their 

 unfortunate whale fifliery. Their twelve fhips brought home twenty- 



