memorial added that there were few, if any, English harpooners or English seamen skilled and exercised in whale-catching, so that "the said trade could not be regained nor carried on without foreign harpinierers, or upon individual risks without a joint-stock fund." As, however, the Greenland fishery did not rally under the protective charter conferred upon the parties subscribing, an additional capital of 42,000l. was raised in 1696, and a new Act obtained, exempting the Company from all duties upon oil, blubber, and whale fins imported during the term of their charter, but before it expired the entire capital was lost, and the Company relinquished the business. Under these circumstances the trade in 1702 was thrown open by Parliament, the Act pronouncing that it had been neglected by the Company, and thus lost to the nation. Twenty years afterwards, in 1721, the number of foreign ships engaged in the Greenland and Davis's Straits fishery were three hundred and fifty-five, of which Holland sent two hundred and fifty-one ships, Hamburg fifty-five, Bremen twenty-four, Biscay twenty, and Bergen, in Norway, five.
Russian trade.
Peter the Great.
In 1699 the trade with Russia, now daily becoming
of greater importance, in consequence of the impulse
given to the Russian mercantile navy by Peter the
Great, was also practically thrown open by an Act
entitling any person to admission to the Russia
Company upon payment of an entrance fee of five
pounds. It was about this time that the Czar abdicated
temporarily his high functions as a powerful barbarian
prince, and, assuming a pilot's dress, repaired to
the Dutch city of Saardam, then celebrated for its extensive
ship-building, where he purchased a small vessel,
