THE DUTCH WHALERS PREDOMINANT 143 



compensate for two or three losing years, and these 

 storehouses involve great expense which could not 

 be faced by private individuals. 



The free adventurers (Edward Whitwell and 

 Richard Eccleston of Hull being the leaders) 

 chiefly Hull men, commenced an agitation. They 

 appeared before the Committee of the Council of 

 State appointed to inquire into the question, and 

 in addition printed a broadside addressed to 

 Parliament and every member thereof. They 

 were not above introducing politics into the 

 dispute. 



" We conceive the right which such as seek to 

 ingrosse the trade and harbours to themselves, 

 pretend to have, is onely grounded upon a monopo- 

 lising pattent; which came from prerogative power, 

 and not consistent with the freedome of a Common- 

 wealth and the members thereof. In the late 

 King's time the Company used all unjust, illegal 

 and arbitrary means possible to suppress all but 

 themselves." 



The free traders' claim was based on the plea that 

 the trade was discovered by Hull men forty years 

 ago ; that there is ample room for all who desire to 

 fish, and that it is inconsistent with the public wel- 

 fare to restrain the fishing to fifty people, who 

 enhance the price of oil by their inability to bring in 

 a sufficient quantity, that Bell Sound, one of the 

 harbours claimed by the Muscovy Company, is 

 thirty miles long by fifteen broad, and Green 

 Harbour still larger, and that by the admission of all 



