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 Holland 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 calamities ruined the Dutch fisheries. Cromwell gave them the first blow by the Navigation Act; Blake the second, by his victories; 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 that branch of trade which had chiefly raised the fortunes of their fathers. In the year 1814, when the Dutch first began to breathe after having shaken off the yoke of the modern Attila, they made a faint attempt to renew the herring-fishery with 106 boats, which, up to the year 1823, had only increased to 128; since 1836, however, there has been a steady progress, and herring-catching in the Zuyder Zee during the winter months is yearly increasing in importance.