THE DUTCH WHALERS PREDOMINANT 133 



the old soap boilers, who, in disobedience to the 

 proclamation, used fish oil, and refused to have 

 their soap tried or marked by the assay-master, and 

 who also, though not a body corporate, presumed to 

 assemble in taverns in London and to confer about 

 the sale of their soap and the buying of fish oil from 

 the Greenland Company. 



In 1633 a charter incorporated the Governor and 

 Company of the English Colony of Rhode and 

 Proxidence Plantations in New England in 

 America. This grant encouraged whale killing. 



The French, apart from the Basques, participated 

 but slightly in th- Spitsbergen whaling. Even 

 the Basques went mainly as harpooners in Dutch 

 and English vessels, until the seamen of those 

 nations had learnt the art of killing the whale. 

 Still there were a few attempts, both by the French 

 and by the Basques, to take part in this lucrative 

 fishery. 



A " Compagnie du Pole Arctique " was founded 

 secretly in Paris in 1609, not for discovery, but for 

 occupation, and for securing a short passage to the 

 East Indies. It seems to have been fantastically 

 conceived and nothing came of it. 



Apparently it was due, to some extent at any rate, 

 to the initiative of this company, that the three 

 Basque ships, La Grace-de-Dieu of St Jean de Luz, 

 Les Quatre-fils-Aymon of Rochelle, and the 

 Jacques of Bordeaux, went to the Spitsbergen 

 fishery of 1613 (see p. 96), where whales were 

 reported to be comme carpes en un vivier! 



