A. D. I 634* nyn 



bacco into his own hands, at a reafonable price. He therefor granted 

 a fpecial commifllon to a number of gentlemen and merchants to tranf- 

 a6l this affair for him. The king was now more fparing of his reflec- 

 tions on the maUgnity of tobacco than formerly, beginning to find the 

 benefit arifing from his cuflom thereon : he therefor now obferves, * that 



* in the colonies of Virginia, the Somer-ifles, and Caribbees, being but 

 ' in their infancy, the chiefefl commodity that mufl fupport them, and 



* enable them to raife more ample commodities, is this of tobacco.' 

 [F^dera, V. xix, p. 560.] : 



In this year, 1634, the Dutch Greenland company made an experi- 

 ment of the pofTibility of the human fpecies living ihrough a whole 

 winter at Spitzbergen, till now believed to be impofllble. They lefe 

 feven of their failors to winter there; and one of them kept a diary 

 thereof from the i ith of September to the 26th of February followingj 

 when they were fpent with the fcurvy, and their limbs quite benumbed 

 with cold, till they could no way help themfelves. They were all feven 

 found dead, in the houfe they had built for themfelves, at the return 

 of the Dutch fliips in 1635. Had any of thofe men lived till the next 

 fliips arrived, a Dutch fort would doubtlefs have been ered;ed there. 

 As for the claims of fandry different European nations to a monopoly 

 of the filhery of whales at Spitzbergen, they flood thus for fome years 

 after this time, viz. i) the Englifh alleged their having been the firft 

 difcoverers, by Sir Hugh Willoughby, in the year 1553: 2) but the 

 Dutch denied his haying been fo far north as Spitzbergen, and alleged 

 their having firft difcovered it in 1596 : 3) the Danes laid claim to it 

 as a fuppofed part of Old Greenland, early poffelTed by them : but if 

 prior difcovery gave any juft exclufive right at all to a country uninha- 

 bited and uninhabitable, it is moft probable that the Bifcayners, who 

 were the firft, whale-fifhers of later ages, had the beft right to it. Since 

 thofe times all nations have wifely dropped their exclufive pretenfions, 

 and that part of the icy world remains now alike free to all nations for 

 this filhery. 



A patent, granted by King Charles in the preceding year, was this 

 year confirmed, for the fole pradice of an invention for laving much 

 fuel, and for preventing much of the offence of fmoke, to the great be- 

 nefit of all people, and more efpecially of brewers, dyers, foapboilers, 

 faltmakers, &c. Alio a patent for the fole invention of cleanfing and 

 grinding indigo : for which monopoly forty marks were to be paid an- 

 nually into the exchequer. [Fo'dera, V. xix, pp. 561, 564.] 



The next record is a proclamation for regulating the manufacflure of 

 foft foap, and for preventing the importation of fi[h-oil foap, and all 

 other foreign foaps : and that the faid foft foap made by the Wefi- 

 minfler foap company fhould not be fold for more than ^d per pound, 

 [Fcedera, V. xix, p. 566.] 



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