JAMES I; MARE LIBERUM 3 
The man who discovered how to cure herring, and who 
thus has the credit of having been the founder of the great- 
ness of the Dutch salted herring trade, and, as a corollary, 
of the maritime supremacy of Holland in after years, was 
William Beukelsz, who about the middle of the fourteenth 
century lived in Biervliet, now a village in the southern part 
of Zealand. All agree upon this, and that he was a “‘ Stuyr- 
man,” or skipper engaged in the herring fishery. Some, 
indeed, claim that he was no Dutchman, but an Englishman 
named Belkinson, who, finding his fellow-countrymen unsym- 
pathetic and sceptical of his powers, carried his invention 
of the mode of pickling and curing herring to Holland, 
where he died in 1347 or 1397, for the date is a matter of 
dispute. The Hollanders were not slow to recognise that 
to the invention of Beukelsz they owed the greater part of 
their quickly accumulating national wealth. A public monu- 
ment was erected to him at Biervliet, and it is on record that 
the Emperor Charles V. honoured the memory of this founder 
of a nation’s prosperity by visiting his tomb. 
In its essentials, the Dutch method of curing herring 
called “kaken,”? is still identical with that invented by 
Beukelsz, and described in the same fashion throughout 
Dutch history. The fish are opened and gutted the moment 
the net is hauled aboard ; they are salted carefully and then 
packed in a peculiar fashion in barrels. In order to main- 
tain the standard set up for Dutch “ brand-herring,”’ all 
Dutch fishermen were compelled to practise this method 
of curing the herring, while a set of stringent regulations 
had to be observed with regard to the size of the mesh in 
the net used, the quantity and quality of the salt employed, 
and the times and place of fishing. The excellence of the 
1“ Fisheries and Fishermen of all Countries’”’ (The Fisheries Hahibi- 
tion Literature, vol. i. p. 37), also Beaujon’s Essay, p. 11. 
2The barrels used were called ‘‘ kaecken”’ or “ kaecjes,” hence the 
name. See Beaujon’s Essay, p. 11. 
