Laurens Rijnhart Koolemans Beynen was born at the Hague on the 11th March 1852, and became a midshipman in the Royal Dutch Navy in 1871. He saw service in the North Sea, on the coast of Guinea, and in Sumatra, returning home and obtaining his Lieutenant’s commission in 1874. Beynen had read much of the former glories of the Dutch navy, and had thought over the possibility of restoring them. He felt that, owing to exclusive steamer service in well-known seas, and to enervating work in the Indian Archipelago, Dutch seamen had lost much of their skill and spirit. He therefore desired to see new fields of enterprise occupied by his seafaring countrymen, to serve as a counterpoise to the less instructive service in the Dutch Indies. Above all, he considered voyages of discovery in the Arctic seas to be the most fitted to call forth a new spirit among Dutch seamen. Full of these ideas young Beynen called upon Commodore Jansen, with whom he was not previously acquainted, as the officer who was most likely to sympathise with them[165]. It so happened that Jansen had just received a letter from Captain Allen Young, and another from myself, asking whether a young Dutch naval officer could not be appointed to serve in the _Pandora_. Jansen warmly sympathised with the aspirations of the young officer, and he received permission to join the vessel. Beynen could not fail to learn much under such a splendid seaman as Allen Young, and he became acquainted with ice navigation in its many phases during the season of 1875, returning with much knowledge and increased enthusiasm. In the winter of 1876, at my request, he undertook to edit a second edition of the voyages of Barentsz for the Hakluyt Society. The work entailed much research, and he accomplished it with diligence and considerable literary ability. It is a standard work which is frequently referred to. Beynen then served under Allen Young in the second voyage of the _Pandora_ and proved himself to be very useful in peculiarly trying circumstances[166].