406 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 



for the interest of a privileged few to prevent the people at 

 large from seeking their gain where they best might, it was 

 enacted that "No man living in the United Provinces 

 should navigate to Greenland, &c., in the whaling trade, 

 or after any sea-monsters, either from this or other 

 countries, except it be in the Arctic or Greenland Company's 

 service ; " and heavy penalties were at the same time 

 edicted against hiring out vessels or sailors to foreign 

 whalers and participating in foreign whaling concerns. 

 Dutch whaling vessels and implements were then indeed 

 in some demand abroad. A month after the date of the 

 placard just mentioned, the King of Denmark applied to 

 the States-General for an exception in favour of one of 

 his subjects, who used to procure whaling sloops and gear 

 from Holland. The Royal letter was submitted to the 

 Arctic Company, and I have not found whether the request 

 was granted or not* 



The Arctic Company's charter being now once more 

 about to expire, some enterprising inhabitants of the 

 province of Friesland determined to try competition ; and 

 the delegates of Friesland to the States-General sought, in 

 June, 1633, to prevent another prorogation of the Company's 

 monopoly. But the delegates of Holland contrived to have 

 this instance put off, and the Prisons found themselves 

 excluded as before. Far from acquiescing, the whaling 

 season being meanwhile advanced, they sent three ships 

 north, and the states of Friesland, as sovereigns in the 

 province, in the next year granted their subjects a license 

 to exercise the whaling trade for twenty years, provided 

 they should be entered as shareholders in a Prison whaling 

 company chartered by the same Act (dated November 22nd, 

 1634). This charter was based upon the consideration that 

 * Res. Holl. 1633, P- 47 * 



