Beynen was for a short time in the training ship for boys, cruising in the North Sea, and he then devoted himself heart and soul to the Arctic propaganda, delivering lectures all over the country. His bright enthusiasm was infectious, and an influential Arctic Committee was formed[167]. Sufficient funds were collected to enable the committee to build a small schooner at Amsterdam, specially strengthened for ice navigation. She was launched on April 6th, 1878, and named the _Willem Barentsz_. Lieut. A. de Bruyne received the command and Koolemans Beynen went as his second, with Lieut. Speilman for the magnetic observations, and an adventurous young Englishman W. J. A. Grant--an Oxford undergraduate, who had also served with Leigh Smith--as photographer. Commodore Jansen drew up the instructions. He considered that the Barentsz Sea would make an excellent training ground for Dutch seamen, but that the first voyage should be confined within the limits of what is easily attainable. He thought that, by yearly increasing knowledge and experience, his countrymen might in time be in a position to undertake more hazardous and difficult voyages. The _Willem Barentsz_ went direct to Amsterdam Island, near the north-west point of Spitsbergen, and the Dutch explorers visited the site of Smeerenburg, repairing some of the tombstones. They then dredged and sounded over the Barentsz Sea. In Beynen’s words they made “a scientific examination of the sea that bears the name of the greatest of our mariners.” Beynen in his letters, describes with a graphic pen the incidents of the voyage, and the various encounters with the ice. On the little schooner’s return the young officer who had been the mainstay of the expedition was ordered to the East Indies and died of fever at Macassar. His loss was deeply felt by many friends, for there was a charm about the young enthusiast which endeared him to all. But none mourned for the youth so full of promise, cut off before he reached his prime, more deeply than Admiral Jansen, who looked upon him almost as a son. In 1879 Sir Henry Gore-Booth and Captain A. H. Markham, R.N., chartered the little Norwegian cutter _Isbjörn_, and made an extensive exploration of the shores of Novaya Zemlya, and the Kara Sea, with the object of reporting on the state of the ice and other important matters of a similar nature in those waters. They were in company with the _Willem Barentsz_ for some days in the Matyushin Strait.