180 A HISTORY OF THE WHALE FISHERIES 



So the Company petitions Parliament for 

 exemption from any custom, duty, or imposition 

 whatsoever on oil, blubber, or whale fins taken, 

 caught, and imported into this country in any ships 

 or vessels belonging to the Company. 



These agitations and petitions of interested 

 parties ultimately led to Parliament granting certain 

 privileges to British whalers. These privileges 

 were taken advantage of by the South Sea Com- 

 pany with what result the following pages 

 show. 



The South Sea Company, which had been 

 established in 1711, with a yjew of restoring public 

 credit and providing for the extinction of the floating 

 national debt, which at that time amounted to ten 

 million, had obtained a monopoly of trade to the 

 southern seas. The Company after much debate, 

 having before their eyes the former unsuccessful 

 attempts on the part of several companies to engage 

 in the Greenland whale fisheries, decided in 1724 

 to engage in this fishery. 1 The better to ensure 

 success the Company obtained an Act of Parliament 

 (10 Geo. I. cap. xvi.) whereby the duty of three 

 pence per pound on whale fins was repealed and 

 whale fins, oil and blubber, caught and imported in 

 British ships, whereof the commander and at least 

 one-third of the mariners were British subjects, 

 should be custom free for seven years, from 

 Christmas, 1724. By an Act of Parliament two 



1 The " Court Minutes " Book of the South Sea Company is 

 in the British Museum. MSS. Dept. No. 25,501. 



