THE BOUNTY SYSTEM 199 



pounds, but as they have generally run small for 

 several years the fish of these catchings have 

 yielded on the average only from seven hundred and 

 fifty to eight hundred and fifty pounds. The 

 Dutch ships at this period were not provided wiih 

 instruments for the capture of seals, nor are the 

 men at all trained to that business. Spencer states 

 that the quantity of oil and fins exported fiom 

 England to Holland this year was " very incon- 

 siderable," though of importance the four preceding 

 years. 



" Your Lordship will premise from the above 

 statement that this is, upon the whole, a losing 

 trade, and that the last year has been less 

 productive than any of the former. It is, however, 

 compensated to some sharers by supplying their 

 ships with tackle, provisions, etc., and the hope of 

 great gains induces others to risk their money in 

 this speculation." Then follow detailed statistics of 

 the fishery, as well as some collected from German 

 sources. 



An interesting side-light on the condition of the 

 German whale fishing at the commencement of the 

 nineteenth century is given by Kohler, 1 a sail- 

 maker of Rirna, who took part in an Arctic voyage 

 in i8oi.l?<K6hler, one of the world's unconscious 

 humorists, writes in a naive fashion eighteen years 

 after the event. He warns his readers not to take 



1 Reise ins Eismeer und nach den Kiisten von Greenland und 

 Spizberg-en im Jahre 1801, nebst einer g-enauen Beschreibung- 

 des Walfischfang-es von F. G. Kohler, Seilertneister in Pirna, 

 mit zwei Kupfertafeln, Leipzig 1 , 1820. 



