402 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 



Fishing operations were in the meantime commenced on 

 a large scale, and a permanent establishment was set on 

 foot on Amsterdam Island, near Spitzbergen, including 

 warehouses and accommodation for boiling blubber and 

 making barrels. This factory, called Smeermburg (or Oil- 

 city), in course of time formed a village, which in 1636 

 was fortified and provided with guns and ammunition. 

 Smeerenburg of course decayed with the Arctic Company, 

 but its remains were still to be found in 1768,* long after 

 the first prosperous days of the trade had ceased. 



A very thriving business was at first done by the 

 company, notwithstanding frequent collisions with foreign, 

 and especially with British, concurrents. In the very year 

 of their chartering they sent out eighteen whalers, and the 

 number increased greatly in following years. The Spitz- 

 bergen shore waters in these times were extremely redundant 

 with whales ; the shores were accordingly in a few years 

 covered with blubber boilers and warehouses, and swarmed 

 with whalers from several countries. The company's charter 

 was prolonged in 1617 for the space of four years, the area 

 monopolised this time including the island of Mauritius or 

 Jan Mayen, discovered since 1614; and such was the 

 number of fish caught by their skippers, that the whaling 

 vessels did not suffice to carry home the blubber, oil, and 

 whalebone, and several ships were chartered year after 

 year solely for this end,f sometimes bringing to Amsterdam 

 in one summer two freights of a thousand quarters of train 

 oil each. 



In spite of this extraordinary prosperity of the trade, 

 discord arose between the Arctic Company's partners in 

 1621, towards the expiration of their charter. There were 



* Den Koopman, i. p. 239 ; cf. Zorgdrager, p. 191. 

 f Zorgdrager, p. 180. 



