THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 397 



more by Placard of May 3rd, 1786.* In 1788 the bounty 

 system was regulated on a footing intended to be durable, 

 a premium of fl.5OO per herring buss being granted by a 

 States of Holland's Publication dated April I7th, to be 

 repeated annually for twelve years.t The measure once 

 more called forth a slight increase of the trade towards the 

 Republic's end, although the number of 200 busses was 

 never reached. Fishing laws were maintained to the end. 

 A renovation of the edict against sending herring to the 

 Weser and Elbe unless cured, packed, and branded accord- 

 ing to the law,t which law had been last re-enacted in 1715, 

 at the outset of the difficulties with Hamburg, is the last 

 act of legislation on herring fisheries under the Republic. 



CHAPTER II. 

 WHALE FISHING. 



THE engines of both Dutch and English whaling coincide 

 with the beginning of the second decade of the seventeenth 

 century. 



Spitzbergen having been discovered by Van Heemskerk 

 in 1596, and by British mariners the next year, reports 

 about the seas off this island being very full of whales, 

 soon began to spread, and set ship-owners' imagination and 

 spirit of enterprise working in both countries. Still, in 

 Holland, some time yet elapsed before any one ventured in 

 a trade so entirely new. One Captain Huygen van Lin- 

 schoten, in 1601, published an account of his voyage to the 

 Arctic seas, accomplished in the years 1 594-5 ; and he 



* Res. Holl. 1786, p. 2952. Gr. Plac. Boek. ix. p. 1310. 

 t Groot Plac. Boek. ix., p. 1313. 

 \ Ibid. ix. p. 1315. 



