INTRODUCTION xvii 



To the French captain's command to sur- 

 render, the enemy replied with insults and a 

 cannonade. 



Le Favor y and L'Aigle replied so effec- 

 tively that after a fight lasting five hours the 

 Dutchmen gave way, and, cutting their cables, 

 commenced to leave the bay towed by their 

 boats and assisted by the drifting land ice, 

 which threatened to enclose friend and foe alike. 



The French, who had only two boats avail- 

 able, the others having been destroyed in the 

 course of the fight, succeeded with these two 

 in taking thirteen whalers. Of these they 

 sank three and brought the remaining ten via 

 Smeerenberg to France. 



Had the whole French fleet been at Treu- 

 renberg, all the Dutch vessels would have been 

 taken. The Commander was blamed for his 

 inaction, but Louis XIV, 'when the report of 

 the expedition was presented to him, expressed 

 complete satisfaction with the services of the 

 officers and men of the Favory and L'Aigle and 

 commanded : ' de ne par les oublier quand il y 

 aurait lieu de leur faire plaisir/ * 



It is a remarkable thing that Versailles, 

 keenly interested as it was in Spitzbergen and 



1 See Dr. Hamy, Bulletin de geog. hist, et descript., Paris, 

 1901, or No Man's Land by Sir Martin Conway. 



