THE HERRING-FISHERY. 20£> 



instances they mention. A fisherman of Dieppe caught in one 

 night 280,000 herrings, and threw as many back again into the 

 sea. Sometimes great sloops have been obliged to cut their nets, 

 being about to sink under the superabundant weight of the fish. 

 The oldest mention of the herring-fishery is found in the 

 chronicles of the monastery of Evesham, of the year 709 ; while 

 the first French documents on the subject only reach as far as 

 the year 1030. As far back as the days of William the Conqueror,. 

 Yarmouth was renowned for its herring-fishery; and Dunkirk and 

 the Brill conducted it on a grand scale centuries before William 

 Beukelaer of Biervliet, near Sluys, introduced a better method 

 of pickling herrings in small kegs, instead of salting them as- 

 before in loose irregular heaps. It is very doubtful whether 

 Solon or Lycurgus ever were such benefactors of their respective 

 countries as this simple uneducated fisherman has been to his 

 native land ; for the pickled herring mainly contributed to 

 transform a small and insignificant people into a mighty nation.. 

 In the year 1603, the value of the herrings exported from Hol- 

 land amounted to twenty millions of florins; and in 1615, the 

 fishery gave employment to 2000 buysen, or smacks, and to- 

 37,000 men. Three years later we see the United Provinces 

 cover the sea with 3000 buysen; 9000 additional boats served for 

 the transport of the fishes, and the whole trade gave employment 

 to at least 200,000 individuals. At that time Holland provided all 

 Europe with herrings, and it may without exaggeration be affirmed 

 that this small fish was their best ally and assistant in casting 

 off the Spanish yoke, by providing them with money, the chief 

 sinew of war. Had the emperor Charles V. been able to foresee 

 that Beukelaer's discovery would one day prove so detrimental 

 to his son and successor Philip II., he would hardly have done 

 the poor fisherman the honour to eat a herring'and drink a glass 

 of wine over his tomb. 



But all human prosperity is subject to change; and thus 

 towards the middle of the sixteenth century a series of cala- 

 mities ruined the Dutch fisheries. Cromwell gave them the 

 first blow by the Navigation Act; Blake the secpnd, by his vic- 

 tories; in 1703 a French squadron destroyed the greatest part 

 of their herring-smacks ; and finally, the competition of the 

 Swedes, and the closing of their ports by the English, under the 

 disastrous domination of Napoleon I., completed the ruin of 



