THE BOUNTY SYSTEM 191 



pounds a ton. The voyage therefore yielded 

 four thousand pounds, to which bounty money 

 amounting to eight hundred pounds would be 

 added. 



Another account of a Whitby ship's voyage about- 

 this period is given by John Laing 1 who went to 

 Spitsbergen in 1806 and 1807 on the Resolution, in 

 response to an advertisement which was put on the 

 College Gate at Edinburgh, asking for a surgeon 

 for a ship engaged in the North Sea whale fishery. 

 The Resolution was captained by Scoresby senior, 

 Scoresby junior being chief mate. Already the 

 whaling trade at Whitby was declining, and it was 

 only the skill and perseverance of the Scoresbys that 

 prolonged what was really an artifically created 

 trade. 



Laing's account is very readable, but is remark- 

 able for two things only. In 1806 the Resolution 

 reached, on 28th May, the latitude of 81 50' north, 

 and it was apparently an extremely mild season 

 since " had our object been the making of 

 discoveries, there was not, apparently, anything to 

 have prevented us from going a goo3 way farther 

 to the north." They also met with a party of 

 Russian trappers who used to make periodical 

 visits to Spitsbergen about this time and were the 

 pioneers of the Spitsbergen hunters of the twentieth 

 century. 



1 " A Voyage to Spitsbergen, " containing- an account of that 

 country, .the zoology of the North, of the Shetland Isles, and of 

 the whale fishery. Edinburgh, date ? Also an edition published 

 in London in 1815, with slightly different title. 



