162 A HISTORY OF THE WHALE FISHERIES 



England 1652-54, 1665-67, and 1672-74, interfered 

 considerably with the Dutch whalers, but the trade 

 was resumed in 1675. The next ten years were 

 very prosperous for the Dutch. There was a slight 

 falling off until 1691, when the fishery was again 

 prohibited on account of the war. 



Feeble and unsuccessful attempts were made by 

 the English in 1672 and subsequent years to wrest 

 this valuable monopoly from the Dutch. In 1672 

 an Act of Parliament allowed British whalers to 

 land their products free;) colonials were admitted at 

 a reduced rate, .while foreigners had to pay a 

 customs duty of nine pounds per ton for oil and 

 eighteen pounds per ton for whalebone. 1 



In 1693 Sir William Scaven formed the " Com- 

 pany of Merchants of London trading to Green- 

 land " with a capital of forty thousand pounds, 

 afterwards increased in 1703 to eighty-two thousand 

 pounds. 



According to Anderson, 2 in 1696 the new Green- 

 land Company, which had been established in 1693 

 with forty thousand pounds as its original capital 

 stock, had afterwards increased its capital to eighty- 

 two thousand pounds, the completion to be made at 

 any time before the year 1703. 



By reason of the war with France, and the scarcity 

 of seamen, the company could not employ all its 

 capital in this trade, so it was enacted that the 

 company, during its term of fourteen years, ending 



1 " History of Commerce," Vol. ii., p. 521. 

 * Ibid., p. 626. 



