During the spring of 2004 I started research for a book on the history of naval architectural developments in the Netherlands and their impact on Dutch whaleships. In my quest for information I was confirmed in my opinion that a fair amount was written about Dutch whaling during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Likewise, an impressive number of articles and books dwelling on modern, twentieth-century whaling had been published in more recent years. Amid these two fields of study the gap in maritime historiography regarding the nineteenth century could hardly be overlooked. As I will demonstrate in the following pages, this gap could not be caused by sheer lack of sources. Granted, no archival records seem to have survived directly related to the organisation and finances of the companies and individuals discussed in this thesis. However, thanks to an abundance of other types of sources I have been able to present – figuratively speaking – a dissection, an anatomy rather, of the body of people involved in conducting whaling and sealing activities to the Arctic region and the South Seas during the period 1815 to 1885. These people were of royal descent, had governmental responsibilities, or had entrepreneurial and navigational skills. All in all, the following pages will show a wide array of characters and nationalities.

Despite the existence of three handfuls of logbooks and journals, sealers and whalers apparently seldom wrote about their greasy business. Thus, I had to rely on memoirs of whalemen and sealers, conveyed to third parties many years after the actual voyages had occurred. Also, I did not come across a large number of contemporary man-made artefacts related to the two industries. When appropriate I used the few objects I did find as historical sources, or as tangible manifestations of man's awareness of the relative importance of the whale and seal hunt.

It was by no means difficult to conceive the idea for this thesis. In contrast, to find and, consequently, analyse the data retrieved from the many archives was much harder and could not have been done without the assistance of many old and new friends and colleagues in this country and abroad. Many employees of museums, archives, and libraries frequently went out of their way to smooth the path to discoveries of data. The flexibility and interest of staff at the Nederlands Scheepvaartmuseum Amsterdam, my current employer, was unsurpassed.