APPENDIX. 123 



a company, which sent thither annually a kw ships, 

 to the exclusion of the rest of their countrymen, 

 and who also endeavoured to exclude foreigners. 

 In the year 1613, the company's ships amounted to 

 seven sail,who,on their arrival at Spitzbergen, found 

 there fifteen Dutch, French, and Flemish ships, 

 besides English interlopers. Next year, the Dutch 

 sent eighteen sail, of which four were men of war. 

 In 1615, the king of Denmark sent a squadron 

 of three men-of-war to assert his exclusive ri^ht, 

 but with such indifferent success, that his majesty 

 thought fit to give up the point. In 1617, our 

 company were more lucky than in any other year, 

 and actually made one thousand nine hundred 

 tun of oil. The Dutch made, for many years af- 

 ter, very indifferent voyages ; and, as their great 

 statesman, M. De Witt, well observes, had certain- 

 ly been forced to relinquish the trade, had it not 

 been laid open by the dissolution of their Green, 

 land Company, to which he attributes their having 

 in his time, beat the English, and almost all other 

 nations, out of that trade, which they then carried 

 on to a prodigious extent. 



The following is a list of the ships sent from 

 Holland to the Greenland and Davis' Straits whale- 

 fishery, from the year 1661 to 1788, both inclu- 

 sive, with an account of the number of whales catch- 

 ed each year : 



