404 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 



benefit of both the companies of Holland and Zealand, 

 whose rights to the whole available whaling area, Jan 

 Mayen included, were by this Act made equal* 



It may be mentioned here that in the early days of the 

 whaling trade a rival concern sought to obstruct its 

 progress. When in 1621, the Arctic Company applied for 

 their usual convoy, their request met with some opposition 

 in the States, on the plea "that it had as yet to be 

 established whether the public at large should profit by 

 the whaling business, whereas any measure taken for their 

 protection was sure to hasten the ultimate ruin of the 

 ancient and respectable industries of manufacturing and 

 dealing in rape-seed oil."f 



But such arguments as this prevented neither the 

 granting of the demanded convoy nor the trade's general 

 prosperity. A very tempting account of the latter, about 

 and after the time now spoken of, has been handed down 

 to posterity by an author before quoted, Zorgdrager, who, 

 however, wrote about 1720, and was then a retired whaling 

 commander, and may, both as an old man and an old 

 sailor, have been inclined to magnify the splendours of 

 yore and the exploits of his predecessors on the deep. 



Dutch vessels, he says,J used in the whaling season to 

 lie alongside of each other in Smeerenburg Bay, so close 

 together that boats could barely pass between them, and 

 tow aboard the oil barrels manufactured and filled ashore. 

 The vessels were moored safely, three or four miles from 

 the high sea, in an excellent roadstead, having an anchor 



* Groot Plac. Boek. i. p. 674 ; Res. Holl. 1622, pp. 627, 641 ; 

 Zorgdrager, p. 181 sqq. 



t Res. Holl. 1621, p. 403; Res. St. Gen. April 28th and 3oth, and 

 May 1 5th, 1621. 



\ Pp. 174, 191. 



