Footnotes

^*1Surnames were still relatively uncommon in the United Provinces in the early seventeenth century. Most people identified themselves using patronymics—Ariaen Jacobsz would have been the son of a man named Jacob. Because it was unwieldy to spell out the full patronymic, which in this case is Jacobszoon, it was also common practice to abbreviate written names by omitting the “oon” of “zoon” (son) and shortening “dochter” (daughter) to “dr” When spoken, the name would have been pronounced in full.

^*2The officer in day-to-day charge of the crew and—other than his commissioned rank—the equivalent of a modern-day bos’n.

^*3The equivalent of just over $4.5 million at today’s prices.

^*4“Abrolhos” is generally held to be a loan word from Portuguese, a corruption of the sailor’s warning “abri vossos olhos,” or “Open your eyes.” A similar archipelago off the coast of Brazil is known by the same name.1

^*5The word derives from the Greek theriake and is the root of the English treacle.

^*6Van den Broecke, who evidently took real pride in her work, later testified before a solicitor that the resultant product tasted good.

^*7The final flourishing of antinomianism actually occurred in Britain in the aftermath of the English Civil War, when a sect known as the Ranters espoused very similar ideas.

^*8Commonly called the “Dutch East India Company” by historians to distinguish it from its rival, the English East India Company.

^*9The name “Jan” is the Dutch equivalent of the English “John” and was the most common Dutch male name of the time. The VOC’s nickname thus reflected its status as the “everyman” company of the United Provinces—one that affected every citizen’s life for better or for worse.

^*10Weapon of Zeeland.

^*11The name means “World-grasper.”

^*12De Jongh was an old enemy of Pelsaert’s, thanks to an incident in which the resident at Agra had paid a visit to his trading post carrying a Dutch flag before him, thus implying to the local Indians that he was the latter’s superior, which he was not. De Jongh retaliated by charging that Pelsaert “was considered by everyone to lie with every third word he said, and his mouth is rarely quiet.”

^*13“The Hague of the Counts,” which is the Dutch name for The Hague.

^*14Golden Lion.

^*15When the stern of the Batavia was salvaged in the 1970s, archaeologists discovered large quantities of a black, phosphate-rich substance inside the hull. Analysis revealed the presence of gristle and cereal husks, suggesting the black mass was a layer of human feces deposited in what had probably been the bilges.

^*16So called because the region was prone to prolonged calms, resulting in water shortages that sometimes forced transport ships to force overboard the horses that they carried.

^*17Indeed the word strike itself has nautical origins; it refers to the striking of a vessel’s sails, which was usually the first thing rebellious sailors did to assert their control over the ship.

^*18White Bear.

^*19The Little Seagull and the Great Moon.

^*20So freely did the townsmen engage in vicious tavern brawls that in seventeenth-century Holland the act of smashing a glass of beer over an opponent’s head was known as a “Monnickendam Kiss.”

^*21A member of the Dutch nobility.

^*22At this time the Dutch surgeon’s guild possessed the right to dissect one executed criminal annually for the instruction of its members, so that—as its charter put it—“they would not cut veins instead of nerves, or nerves instead of veins, and would not work as the blind work in wood.”

^*23Strong taste was frequently thought to be a guarantee of potency at this time.

^*24A contemporary Dutch phrase meaning “to have a right royal time.”

^*25Concord.

^*26Seawolf.

^*27She was named after a lordship in the southern part of the United Provinces.

^*28Turtledove.

^*29This brutal internecine conflict had raged throughout the Holy Roman Empire since 1618. It was notable not merely for its battles, but for the unusually appalling treatment meted out to the civilians on either side. The slaughter of women, children, and other noncombatants was commonplace throughout the war. It is not impossible that men such as Hendricxsz, Beer, and the other German mercenaries who joined Cornelisz may have been hardened by participation in such massacres.

^*30The indications are that Ariaen Ariaensz somehow escaped and contrived to make his way to Wiebbe Hayes’s Island.

^*31The word draijer means “turner” and thus denotes Hendricxen’s profession.

^*32A species of petrel, common throughout Western Australia.

^*33Modern Liège.

^*34Present-day Yardie Creek, at the southern end of Exmouth Gulf.

^*35A little later in the century one in seven of the entire European population of Batavia, excluding merchants and soldiers, were tavern-keepers. “I think it no exaggeration,” writes the historian C. R. Boxer, “to say that most of the Dutch and English males who died in the tropics died of drink, even making due allowance for the heavy toll taken by malaria and dysentery.”

^*36Coen was also capable of serious mistakes. The most spectacular came in 1621–22, when he decided to attempt the conquest of China. His tiny fleet of eight ships and just over 1,000 men got no further than the gates of Portuguese Macao, where they were comprehensively defeated.

^*37Coen had been so enraged when he heard of this that “his face turned white, and his chair and the table trembled.”

^*38“Weapon of Hoorn.”

^*39French trimming, usually of gold or silver lace.

^*40Wool of exceptional quality.

^*41Another Soldier, and one of the minor mutineers.

^*42In this instance, the phrase appears to denote Australia.

^*43Some of these men have been met before. “Lucas the steward’s mate” was Lucas Gerritsz, whom Allert Janssen had attacked on his way to the liquor stores when the Batavia was wrecked. “Cornelis the assistant” was Cornelis Jansz, and “Ariaen the gunner” may have been Ariaen Ariaensz, who had tapped a barrel of wine with Abraham Hendricx at the beginning of July and set the whole mutiny in motion.

^*44By now they numbered 47: 31 mutineers, 6 women, and 10 other men and boys.

^*45Pelsaert here confuses the ranks of these two mutineers. Van Os was the cadet, and Beer the soldier.

^*46“Wooden man,” a prototype surname adopted to distinguish him from his many namesakes; his was one of the most common names in the Dutch Republic at this time.

^*47Allert Janssen. Assendelft was the gunner’s hometown.

^*48The lance corporal and member of Cornelisz’s council also known as “Stone-Cutter.” “Cosyn” (cosijn), his other nickname, means “window-frame.”

^*49The spot has been identified as Wittecarra Gully, which lies just south of the mouth of the Murchison River near modern Kalbarri.

^*50Weapon of Enkhuizen.

^*51A valuable scarlet dye, made from the crushed bodies of insects.

^*52Weapon of Rotterdam.

^*53He gave his name to Tasmania.

^*54Gilt Dragon.

^*55South Village. This ship was named after a place in Zeeland.

^*56Bottles with a narrow neck and substantial circumference.

^*57“Knighthood of Holland.”

^*58“Fortune.”

^*59She was named after a village in Zeeland.

^*60Edwards’s team had thought him less than 20 and speculated that the body might have been that of Andries de Vries.

^*61Pelsaert’s journals cannot solve the mystery; a total of 108 deaths are mentioned in its pages, but the commandeur does not include Abraham Hendricx or the dead Defender, Dircxsz, among the casualties and is never precise about the number of sick people killed by Andries de Vries on 13 July.

Notes

Abbreviations Used in the Notes

ALE		Authorisatieboecken (Authorisation Books), in GAL
ARA		Algemeen RijksArchief (General State Archive), The Hague
CLE		Certificaatboeken (Certificate Books), in GAL
DB		Henrietta Drake-Brockman, Voyage to Disaster
G		Philippe Godard, The First and Last Voyage of the Batavia
GAA		Gemeente Archief (Municipal Archive), Amsterdam
GAD		Gemeente Archief, Dordrecht
GAH		Gemeente Archief, Haarlem
GAL		Gemeente Archief, Leeuwarden
HTI		Hypotheekboecken Tietjerksteradeel (Tietjerksteradeel mortage books), inRAF
JFP		Journal of Francisco Pelsaert, 4 June–5 December 1629, in ARA; printededitions in DB and R
LGB		“Copy of an original letter, by Gijsbert Bastiaensz . . . .” in OV,printed editions in DB and R
NKD		Notulen van de Kerkeraad van Dordrecht (Records of the Church Council ofDordrecht)
ONAD		Oud-Notarieel Archief (Old Solicitors’ Archive), Dordrecht
ONAH		Oud-Notarieel Archief, Haarlem
OV		Ongeluckige Voyagie, Van ’t Schip Batavia  . . . (1647); printededition in G
R		V. D. Roeper (ed.), De Schipbreuk van de Batavia, 1629
r		Recto
RAF		RijksArchief in Friesland (Provincial Archive of Frisia)
TR		Transportregisters (Registers of transfers of interest), in GAD
v		Verso

General

THE WRECK OF THE Batavia was one of the more sensational events of the seventeenth century, and it attracted considerable contemporary interest. A number of pamphlets on the subject were published, some when news of the disaster first reached the United Provinces, and others two decades later when there was a surge of interest in travel literature in the Netherlands. The most popular of these pamphlets were published in several editions and must have achieved a relatively wide circulation. Consequently, the events of the mutiny remained fairly well known, in the United Provinces at least, for 30 or 40 years afterward.

During the second half of the seventeenth century, the Batavia’s story was gradually forgotten, and references to the mutiny become progressively scarcer. Interest did not revive until the late nineteenth century, when the Abrolhos became a center of the guano trade and excavations on the islands began to turn up artifacts that were thought to have come from the ship (but which, it eventually emerged, in fact came from later, less well known wrecks); and after that, publications on the subject began to appear in Australia as well as the Netherlands. The rediscovery of the wreck of the Batavia in 1963, which coincided with the publication of one of the key historical works on the subject, significantly increased interest in the subject, though even in the last 40 years the Batavia story has remained little known outside the two countries most closely connected with it. In the last quarter of a century the wreck site has been thoroughly excavated, adding substantially to our knowledge of the ship. Several accounts of the Batavia’s story have been published in Dutch and German over the last 10 years, but none in English, and this is the first book to make use of freshly discovered information from provincial archives across the Netherlands.

Eyewitness Accounts

The accounts of the Batavia disaster that have come down to us are unusually detailed for such a relatively early period. Moreover, the evidence that does survive covers the ship’s story from several different perspectives. We have accounts, however fragmentary, written by people who sailed to the Indies in the ship’s longboat, by a VOC merchant who was hunted down by the mutineers but escaped, and by another man who survived Batavia’s Graveyard. Most important, we have the confessions of the mutineers themselves, written down during or just after their interrogations.

We are fortunate this is the case. The Dutch archives covering the country’s Golden Age are still voluminous, but the material they contain largely concerns the doings of the moneyed classes, and records of those who owned no property and had little money—those, in other words, who made up the great majority of the Batavia’s passengers and crew—are largely nonexistent. Nor were there newspapers to record sensational events or reporters to take an interest in the experiences of the Batavia’s survivors. Taken together, Francisco Pelsaert’s detailed summaries of the evidence he heard on Batavia’s Graveyard make up one of the most complete accounts of a single mutiny that survives in any language, for it was comparatively rare for a large group of mutineers to be captured and tried together.

Pelsaert’s version of events is contained within the commandeur’s MS journal of the Batavia’s maiden voyage, which has been preserved among the VOC papers now in the Algemeen RijksArchief in The Hague. The journal has been bound up among the volumes of correspondence received annually from the Indies and now occupies folios 232r–317r of the volume known as ARA VOC 1098. An earlier volume of Pelsaert’s, which concerned the outward voyage of the Batavia from Amsterdam to the Abrolhos, was thrown overboard by the mutineers and lost when the commandeur’s cabin was ransacked after the wreck. The surviving account covers the period from the wreck on 4 June 1629 to Pelsaert’s final return to the East Indies in December of the same year.

The journals vary considerably from page to page in content and tone. In places they are little more than a traditional ship’s log; elsewhere they become a personal account of the author’s experiences in the aftermath of the mutiny. The bulk of the manuscript, however, consists of lengthy summaries of Pelsaert’s interrogation of the Batavia mutineers, followed by what appear to be more or less verbatim transcripts of the verdicts handed down to the guilty men.

The journals have been assembled in roughly chronological order. However, it is evident from the arrangement of the documents that they were not written contemporaneously. Each of the major mutineers is dealt with separately, the account of his interrogation in the third week of September being immediately followed by the verdict passed on him on the 28th of the month, after which the account moves back to the interrogation of the next man, and so on. At one point in this compilation [ARA VOC 1098, fol. 278v], the writer has crammed in some additional testimony concerning the mutineer Mattys Beer, made on the day of his execution, in a blank he had previously left at the bottom of one of the pages. This may indicate that the journals were written up in their current form between the passing of the sentences on 28 September and the hanging of the principal mutineers on 2 October. On the other hand, the sheer bulk of the testimony is such that it is perhaps more likely that all the accounts were taken down in rough during the interrogations, and then copied into journals later, while salvage operations were proceeding or even during the survivors’ voyage to the Indies, which occupied the period from mid-November to 5 December. In that case it may be that the compiler simply mislaid Beer’s final confession when he was writing up his account of the mutineer’s examination and was forced to interpolate this evidence when it eventually emerged from the pile of papers on his desk.

It would, anyway, be unwise to treat Pelsaert’s journals as a spontaneous, contemporary account of the Batavia mutiny. A good deal of care must have gone into their compilation, and they were unquestionably edited in the course of the work. Thus the summaries of the various interrogations are just that—summaries, put into the third person—and not word-for-word transcripts of what each prisoner actually said.

Owing to the quirks of the Dutch legal system, which placed overwhelming significance on confessions, there is virtually no room in the journals for evidence from ordinary passengers who witnessed the extraordinary events that took place on the Abrolhos; in particular, it is noteworthy—though unsurprising—that none of the Batavia’s women were heard. It is, furthermore, entirely possible that other material—perhaps a good deal of material—has been omitted altogether, either because it seemed irrelevant or because it cast some of the protagonists in an unfavorable light. Finally, it is important to remember that the journals were compiled to be read by the directors of the Amsterdam chamber of the VOC. It was these gentlemen who would determine the future career—if any—of Pelsaert and the other officers of the Batavia. It would be naive to suppose that they were not written with this thought very much in mind.

Some idea of the degree of editing that may have occurred during the writing-up emerges from a study of the journal’s authorship. The commandeur’s report is not in Pelsaert’s own cramped and unconfident hand, which is known from a single surviving letter in the VOC archives [ARA VOC 1098, fol. 583r–4r], and throughout much of it Pelsaert himself is referred to in the third person. It would appear, therefore, that the Batavia journals were actually written by one of the commandeur’s clerks, almost certainly Salomon Deschamps, who was himself one of the unwilling mutineers. This contention is supported by the fact that the handwriting in the journal matches that in the VOC’s copy of Pelsaert’s remonstrantie on Mogul India, which Deschamps is known to have compiled. It is therefore noteworthy that although the lists of Cornelisz’s followers, copied into the journal, are given—as was the custom—in descending order of rank, the name of the relatively high-ranking Deschamps always appears at the bottom of the lists. From this it would appear that the hapless clerk was doing what he could to distance himself from the mutineers [R 42–7]. It is, thus, not strictly accurate to refer to Pelsaert’s journal as “his,” though for the sake of simplicity I have often done so.

The only other account of the mutiny that still exists in manuscript form comes to us at third hand in the form of a collection of anecdotes concerning Dutch journeys to the Indies, preserved among the municipal archives of Harderwijk, a small port in Gelderland. This MS [Gemeente Archief Harderwijk, Oud Archief 2052, fol. 30–7] contains some details of events on the Abrolhos—such as the story of Wybrecht Claasen’s swim to the wreck for water, and the anecdote of Cornelisz being imprisoned in a limestone pit and forced to pluck birds—that do not appear in any other sources. It seems likely that the anonymous compiler had them from a member of the Batavia’s crew. From internal evidence, it would appear that these anecdotes were written down in about 1645 [R 22–8, 57].

Four further eyewitness accounts were printed and preserved in various contemporary and near-contemporary pamphlets. The most important of these was produced, anonymously, by Isaac Commelin, an Amsterdam bookseller whose Origin and Progress of the United Netherlands Chartered East-India Company, published in 1645, helped to start the Dutch vogue for accounts of voyages to foreign lands.

Commelin (1598–1676) followed up this success with Ongeluckige Voyagie, Van ’t Schip Batavia (The Unlucky Voyage of the Batavia), a densely packed pamphlet, illuminated with copper-plate engravings, that included not only the details of Cornelisz’s mutiny but also accounts of two other voyages. The book was first published by the Amsterdam printer Jan Jansz in 1647 and was closely based on Pelsaert’s unpublished journals, rearranged and transposed where necessary to the third person from the first. It includes one short interpolation [OV (1647) pp. 59–60], in the form of a purported statement by Wiebbe Hayes that does not appear among the VOC archives. This rather puzzling piece of evidence is discussed in the notes to chapter 8; suffice it to say here that it seems more likely than not that it is authentic.

How Jansz obtained sight of Pelsaert’s manuscript, which should have been filed among the papers of the Amsterdam chamber, remains something of a mystery; but the pamphleteer is known to have had close contacts with several of the VOC’s directors, and Commelin’s earlier publications had already featured accounts based on official sources, which he must have purchased, clandestinely or otherwise, from employees of the Company. In any event, The Unlucky Voyage was a considerable success and was republished several times over the next two decades, keeping the Batavia’s name before the Dutch public. Commelin’s work was also swiftly pirated by other publishers, as was common at the time; in 1648 Joost Hartgers of Amsterdam brought out his own edition of the text, supplementing Pelsaert’s text with a lengthy letter by Gijsbert Bastiaensz that described events on Batavia’s Graveyard from the predikant’s perspective. The original MS of the letter is now lost, but it appears, from internal evidence, to be authentic. Two years later Lucas de Vries of Utrecht published a third variant, including in his edition a list of the rewards given to the Batavia’s loyalists. (C. R. Boxer’s “Isaac Commelin’s ‘Begin ende voortgangh’ ” in Dutch Merchants and Mariners in Asia 1602–1795, pp. 2–3, 5, and DB 4–5, 78–9, contain further information about Commelin, Jansz, and the various editions of The Unlucky Voyage.)

The other three surviving accounts have the advantage that they appeared shortly after news of the Batavia mutiny first reached the Netherlands, but they are considerably shorter. The first, a typical “news song” of the period, was published as Droevighe Tijdinghe van de Aldergrouwelykste Moordery, Geschiet door Eenighe Matrosen op ’t Schip Batavia [“Sad tidings of the most horrible murder done by some sailors of the ship Batavia”], an anonymous pamphlet containing a short explanatory preface and a song of 16 verses. The news song contains no information not available from other sources, but the information in it is so detailed that it is reasonable to suppose that the publisher had his information direct from a Batavia survivor [R 227–30]. The other two accounts appear in the anonymous pamphlet Leyds Veer-Schuyts Praetjen, Tuschen een Koopman ende Borger van Leyden, Varende van Haarlem nae Leyden [“Conversation on a canal-boat between a merchant and a citizen of Leyden, travelling from Haarlem to Leyden”]. One is an anonymous letter dated December 1629, written by someone who accompanied Pelsaert to Java in the Batavia’s longboat and returned with him to the Abrolhos. This letter includes the statement that Cornelisz was a Frisian, a fact that is nowhere mentioned in Pelsaert’s journals but that appears, from the research undertaken for this book, to be correct. It has been suggested that Claes Gerritsz, the Batavia’s upper-steersman, was the author; this is quite probable, but there is no evidence [R 49, 61]. The second letter, dated 11 December 1629, is the work of someone who was originally on Seals’ Island and later escaped to join Wiebbe Hayes. It, too, is anonymous, but it is fairly certainly the work of the assistant Cornelis Jansz [R 48].

Other Contemporary Sources

Background information on the main characters in the Batavia’s story has been drawn from the contemporary records of the Dutch Republic. All cities kept registers of baptisms, marriages, and deaths, and on the whole these still exist in either town or provincial archives. Where they do, it is usually possible to discover basic biographical information about local citizens, though in some cases—the baptismal records, which are Reformed Church documents and thus take no account of the birth of Catholics, Mennonites, and members of other religious minorities, are a case in point—the records can appear misleading.

Archives full of solicitors’ papers also survive for many cities, and these often offer rich pickings for historians. Contemporary Dutchmen were so obsessed with upholding their personal honor (for reasons that are discussed later) that almost anyone with any property or money occasionally resorted to solicitors to make a record of some controversial incident for possible use in a future legal action. The legal records therefore provide odd snapshots of the lives of people whose personal histories would otherwise have been completely lost. The incidents they record are, by definition, hardly representative of their subjects’ ordinary existence, but they were important nonetheless, and if the records’ contents can be somewhat sensational, it is also often possible to deduce a good deal from casual asides.

Books

The first noteworthy book on the Batavia was Henrietta Drake-Brockman’s Voyage to Disaster, published in Australia in 1963. Though it is chaotically organized, lacks any significant narrative, and is also poorly indexed, it does print a tremendous amount of original material, including—critically—the first full translation of Pelsaert’s journals into English. Drake-Brockman also conducted a good deal of research into contemporary Dutch archives—a laborious business for someone living in Western Australia years before the introduction of the Internet and e-mail. It is impossible not to admire Drake-Brockman’s results, and if the author discovered little about Cornelisz himself, she had great success in fleshing out the histories of Ariaen Jacobsz, Creesje Jans, and other major characters in the story. Forty years after its first publication, Voyage to Disaster remains an essential source book for all those interested in the Batavia.

More recently, a Haarlem scholar, Vibeke Roeper, reedited Pelsaert’s journals for publication in the Netherlands by the Linschoten Society. Her scholarly edition, De Schipbreuk van de Batavia, usefully prints a number of documents from the VOC archives that escaped Drake-Brockman and her collaborators.

Hugh Edwards, who helped to discover the Batavia’s wreck site, wrote the first narrative history of the whole incident. His Islands of Angry Ghosts is particularly valuable for its firsthand accounts of the early excavation of the wreck and the grave pits on Beacon Island. More recently Philippe Godard has gone over much of the same ground in a privately published volume, The First and Last Voyage of the Batavia. It adds little that is new, but very usefully prints hundreds of color photographs of the islands, the artifacts, and the documents in the case.

A Note on Citation

A large proportion of the existing primary source material on the Batavia has been published over the years—the first official documents by H. T. Colenbrander and W. Ph. Coolhaas, JP Coen: Bescheiden Omtrent Zijn Bedrijf in Indiï (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 7 vols., 1920–52), and the journals themselves, with extensive supporting material including Coolhaas’s sources, by Roeper and Drake-Brockman. Most readers will find it easier to obtain one of these books than to visit archives in the Netherlands and so, in referring to the primary sources, I have also added references to the printed editions as appropriate. These appear in the notes as [R], for Roeper, and [DB], for Drake-Brockman, followed by the relevant page numbers. Drake-Brockman has been my main source simply because my mother tongue is English; as it is by 30 years the older of the two works, it seems worth noting that Marit van Huystee, a Dutch linguist working for the Western Australian Maritime Museum, gives it as her opinion that its translations, by E. D. Drok, are excellent in almost every respect.

Prologue: Morning Reef

The details of the Batavia’s last hours at sea and of the aftermath of the wreck have been principally drawn from Pelsaert’s own account, JFP 4–8 June 1629 [DB 122–8]. I have made a few minor conjectures, based on standard Dutch nautical practice in this period—for which see Jaap Bruijn, F. S. Gaastra, and I. Schöffer, Dutch-Asiatic Shipping in the 17th and 18th Centuries (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 3 vols., 1979–1987) and C. R. Boxer, “The Dutch East Indiamen: Their Sailors, Navigators and Life on Board, 1602–1795,” The Mariner’s Mirror 49 (1963).

The Dutch watch system Boxer, “The Dutch East Indiamen,” p. 93.

Ariaen Jacobsz It has not been possible to discover much information about the skipper of the Batavia. Drake-Brockman, in Voyage to Disaster, pp. 61–3, records the essential details of his career from 1616 onward. The surviving records of his hometown, Durgerdam, are meager. We know he was (or had been) married, and that his wife was a Dutch woman—one of the Batavia’s under-steersmen was his brother-in-law, according to JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 162]—but although the Durgerdam marital registers survive for this period, no reference to the marriage of an Ariaen Jacobsz could be found.

Already been a servant Records of Jacobsz’s service have not been traced back before 1616, when he was promoted to the post of high boatswain; Drake-Brockman, op. cit., p. 61. But this was a senior rank, and to reach it would almost certainly have required up to 10 years’ sea service, and quite possibly much longer. Jacobsz’s age is likewise unknown, but the records of his service, together with comments that he made to Jeronimus Cornelisz at the Cape (see chapter 4), imply he was significantly older than the upper-merchant, Pelsaert—who was 34. He was probably in his mid-40s in 1629, and it is not impossible that he was 50.

Jacobsz’s culpability for the wreck Pelsaert’s declaration to the Council of Justice, Batavia, 20 July 1629, ARA VOC 1098, fol. 223r–224r [R 214]. There is no reason to doubt Pelsaert’s statement that Jacobsz ignored the lookout’s warnings, since the skipper himself signed his declaration to confirm its truth.

Difficulty of identifying reefs in the dark It should not be assumed that Ariaen Jacobsz and Hans Bosschieter were uniquely negligent in allowing the Batavia to run aground. It was notoriously difficult to spot low-lying reefs by night, and the records of the period contain many similar instances of ships coming to grief after dark. The VOC ship Zeewijk, which was wrecked in the Southern Abrolhos in 1727, was also lost because members of her crew made the same mistake as Jacobsz: “ . . . We asked the look-out, who had sat on the fore-yard, if he had not seen the surf, and he answered that he had seen the same for even half an hour before, but had imagined it was the reflection of the moon.” Louis Zuiderbaan, “Translation of a journal by an unknown person from the Dutch East Indiaman Zeewijk, foundered on Half Moon Reef in the Southern Abrolhos, on 9 June, 1727” (typescript, copy in Western Australian Maritime Museum), entry for 9 June 1727. Similarly, the Spanish maritime historian Pablo Pérez-Mallaína cites a virtually identical incident that occurred when the New Spain fleet of 1582 neared Veracruz one night: “[One] ship was commanded by an impulsive and imprudent master who wanted to be the first to enter Veracruz, but in the darkness he was surprised by a strange brightness, first attributed to the light of the dawn but which finally proved to be the deadly whiteness of a reef, against which the ship crashed and broke into pieces. ‘And because for half an hour [the master] saw the sea whitening, like to foam of waves breaking, he asked the sailors to be on guard  . . . and they all said it was the light of day.’ ” Pérez-Mallaína, Spain’s Men of the Sea: Daily Life on the Indies Fleets in the Sixteenth Century (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), p. 179.

Timing of the wreck Pelsaert, in JFP 4 June 1629 [DB 122], gives the time as “about two hours before daybreak,” which, after making allowance for the time of year and prevailing local conditions, Drake-Brockman (op. cit., p. 122) put at about 4 a.m. I think it must have been slightly earlier, given that the watch would have changed at 4 and that it seems most unlikely Jacobsz would have stood the early morning watch.

“First a coral outcrop  . . .” Pelsaert’s declaration, 20 July 1629 [R 212–4].

“Flung to the left  . . .” Excavation of the ship in the 1970s revealed that the Batavia had settled on her port (i.e., left-hand) side. The wreck was found in a shallow depression some 800 yards east of the southwest corner of Morning Reef at a spot where there is a noticeable drop of about six feet to the seabed at the stern. Hugh Edwards, Islands of Angry Ghosts (New York: William Morrow, 1966), pp. 134–5; Jeremy Green, The Loss of the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie Retourschip Batavia, Western Australia 1629: an Excavation Report and Catalogue of Artefacts (Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 1989), p. 5.

Another 270 people  . . . This figure assumes 50 of the Batavia’s 150 sailors were on watch. The ship had originally set sail with 332 people (List of those on board the Batavia, ARA VOC 1098, fol. 582r [R 220–1]), but 10 had died en voyage—rather a low total for the period, as will be seen.

Actions after the wreck JFP 4 June 1629 [DB 122–3]. For the various dimensions of the Batavia, see Willem Vos, Batavia Cahier 1: De Herbouw van een Oostindiïvaarder: Bestek en Beschrijving van een Retourschip (Lelystad: np, 1990).

“What have you done  . . . ?” JFP 4 June 1629 [DB 123].

“The smallest of the Batavia’s eight anchors” This anchor was eventually recovered by marine archaeologists from a position some distance from the wreck. A woodcut in OV shows a cable run out through one of the Batavia’s stern gunports. This ancient method of hauling a ship off rocks is still sometimes used today. It is known as “kedging off.”

The sounding lead Dutch leads were about 18 inches long and cast with a hollow, bowl-shaped end. This would have been filled with sticky tallow, which would bring up traces of mud or sand where the bottom was soft. In unknown waters the lead was swung regularly from the bows and the results reported to the officer of the watch by loudly singing out the depth. For the details of the soundings, see Governor-General in Council, Batavia, 9 July 1629, in H. T. Colenbrander, JP Coen: Bescheiden Omtrent zijn Bedrijf in Indiï, V, pp. 756–7 [DB 44].

“Dutch East Indiamen were built strong  . . .” Boxer, “The Dutch East-Indiamen,” p. 82.

View of the Abrolhos from the wreck site Hugh Edwards, “Where Is Batavia’s Graveyard?,” in Jeremy Green, Myra Stanbury, and Femme Gaastra (eds.), The ANCODS Colloquium: Papers Presented at the Australia-Netherlands Colloquium on Maritime Archaeology and Maritime History (Fremantle: Australian National Centre of Excellence for Maritime Archaeology, 1999), pp. 88–9.

“The largest island” This was East Wallabi (Pelsaert’s “High Island” in the journals), which, with a 50-foot hill as its highest point, is visible from considerably farther off than any other island in the Wallabi Group.

“The great Yammer  . . .” JFP 4 June 1629 [DB 124].

“There was no order to the evacuation  . . .” In truth, the men of the Batavia were no better and no worse than the other sailors of their day. In the 1620s—and indeed for the next 200 years—perhaps only 1 in every 7 people could swim, and it was rare indeed for the crew of any vessel to remain disciplined in the aftermath of a shipwreck. Skippers were much more likely to save themselves than they were to remain at their posts until the last of their men had been rescued. Sailors frequently commandeered the ship’s boats for themselves and left their passengers to drown. There was no recognized emergency drill for the men to follow. The concept of “women and children first” did not exist, and the very idea of carrying lifeboats sufficient to save all passengers and crew on a vessel the size of an East Indiaman was regarded as preposterous. See the numerous examples cited by Edward Leslie, Desperate Journeys, Abandoned Souls: True Stories of Castaways and Other Survivors (London: Papermac, 1991). For the contemporary Spanish view, see Pérez-Mallaína, op. cit., pp. 214–5.

Death of a dozen people by drowning Pelsaert’s declaration, 20 July 1629, ARA VOC 1098, fol. 223r–224r [R 212–4].

Food and water from the wreck JFP 4 June 1629 [DB 124–5]. There was much more food than water—66 gallons of bread (the Dutch measured their food supplies by volume) to 17 1/2 gallons of water, according to Pelsaert’s journal (ibid.) and his declaration on arrival at Batavia.

Value of the jewels taken from the wreck The total was first calculated, with an exactness entirely typical of the VOC, at 20,419 guilders and 15 stuivers. (There were 20 stuivers in one guilder.) This figure was later revised upward to 58,000 guilders, for reasons that are not clear (see chapter 5). Antonio van Diemen to Pieter de Carpentier, 30 November–10 December 1629, ARA 1009 [DB 42, 49].

“It won’t help at all  . . .” JFP 4 June 1629 [DB 124].

Indiscipline below Interrogation of Allert Janssen, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 194–6]; interrogation of Lenert Michielsz Van Os, JFP 23 Sep 1629 [DB 185–6]; interrogation of Mattys Beer, ibid. [DB 189]; verdict on Cornelis Janssen, JFP 30 Nov 1629 [DB 242]; verdict on Jean Thirion, ibid. [DB 243].

Further actions after the wreck JFP 5–8 June 1629 [DB 125–8].

Houtman’s Abrolhos J. A. Heeres, The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606–1765 (London: Luzac, 1899), pp. 14–8; Günter Schilder, Australia Unveiled: The Share of Dutch Navigators in the Discovery of Australia (Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1976), pp. 75–6.

Naming Batavia’s Graveyard Green, Stanbury, and Gaastra, op. cit., p. 99.

“It was better and more honest  . . .” JFP 5 June 1629 [DB 125–6].

Chapter 1: The Heretic

The full history of Jeronimus Cornelisz has never been written before and has had to be pieced together from fragmentary references in surviving Dutch archives—in particular the Old Solicitors’ Archive, Haarlem, and the Municipal Archive, Leeuwarden. The most useful general study of Dutch Anabaptism is still Cornelis Krahn, Dutch Anabaptism: Origin, Spread, Life and Thought, 1450–1600(The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1968), but James Stayer’s Anabaptists and the Sword (Lawrence, KA: Coronado Press, 1976) deals specifically with the Anabaptists’ attitudes to violence and relations with the state. For details of the Torrentian scandal, I have relied on Govert Snoek’s unpublished Ph.D. thesis, De Rosenkruizers in Nederland: Voornamelijk in de Eerste Helft van de 17de Eeuw. Een Inventarisatie, and the biographies of A. Bredius, Johannes Torrentius (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1909) and A. J. Rehorst, Torrentius (Rotterdam: WL & J Brusse NV, 1939). On the peculiar story of the Rosicrucian order and their supposed beliefs, I turned to Snoek and to Christopher McIntosh, The Rosy Cross Unveiled: The History, Mythology and Rituals of an Occult Order(Wellingborough: The Aquarian Press, 1980), and on the social structure of Haarlem in the 1620s to the work of Gabrielle Dorren, particularly “Communities Within the Community: Aspects of Neighbourhood in Seventeenth Century  Haarlem,” Urban History 25 (1998). No history of medicine in the Netherlands is as detailed as Brockliss and Jones’s recent The Medical World of Early Modern France (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), and I have used this work, with some caution, as a guide to the equivalent “world” of the Dutch Republic.

Life expectancy in the Indies Jaap Bruijn, F. S. Gaastra, and I. Schöffer Dutch-Asiatic Shipping in the 17th and 18th Centuries (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 3 vols., 1979–1987), I, 170; Giles Milton, Nathaniel’s Nutmeg: How One Man’s Courage Changed the Course of History (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1999), p. 242.

“A great refuge . . .” Quoted in Bruijn et al., Dutch-Asiatic Shipping, I, 151. The VOC’s soldiers were “louts from the depths of Germany,” it was commented, and according to a saying current in the Holy Roman Empire at the time, “Even a man who has beaten his father and mother to death is too good to go to the East Indies.” C. R. Boxer, The Dutch Seaborne Empire 1600–1800 (London: Hutchinson, 1965), p. 135; R. van Gelder, Het Oost-Indisch Avontuur: Duitsers in Dienst van de VOC, 1600–1800 (Nijmegen: SUN, 1997), p. 149.

“Cornelisz came originally from Friesland . . .” Earlier authorities have generally been content to label Jeronimus a Haarlemmer, assuming he was born in the town where he lived immediately prior to joining the Batavia. However, one passing contemporary reference does describe him as a Frisian (anonymous Batavia survivor’s letter, printed in Anon., Leyds Veer-Schuyts Praetjen, Tuschen een Koopman ende Borger van Leyden, Varende van Haarlem nae Leyden (np [Amsterdam: Willem Jansz], 1630) [R 236]. This suggestion appears to be confirmed by the extensive Frisian links uncovered in the course of research for this chapter.

Distinctness of Friesland P. H. Breuker and A. Janse (eds.), Negen Eeuwen Friesland-Holland: Geschiedenis van een Haat-Liefdeverhouding (Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 1997), pp. 15–17, 20, 30–1, 42–3, 120–1.

Cornelisz’s possible origins in Leeuwarden or Bergum Jeronimus was one of the heirs of Griete Douwes, a widow who died in Bergum, and was possibly apprenticed to a Leeuwarden apothecary named Gerrit Evertsz, as will be seen. See ONAH 129, fol. 63 and below. Griete Douwes’s son, Sijbrant, who was with Jeronimus coheir to her fortune, also seems to have had some involvement with the local apothecaries; see RAF HTI 89, fol. 83v. It seems likely that Cornelisz and his family were somehow related to the Douwes family, either as business partners or through marriage. The marital records of Bergum are unfortunately absent for the period 1618–1674, and Cornelisz, possibly for reasons that will be discussed, does not make an appearance in the baptismal registers of the town. Nor does he appear in Leeuwarden’s Burgerboek (citizen book) or the marital registers of that city. It is, in short, impossible to say with any certainty that he came from this area of Frisia—merely that his relationship with Griete Douwes and Gerrit Evertsz suggests it. On the population of Leeuwarden at this time, see Jonathan Israel, The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness and Fall, 1477–1806 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 332.

Elementary schools Ibid., pp. 686–90.

Latin schools Ibid., pp. 43–5. Jeronimus must surely have attended one of these establishments, since a good knowledge of Latin was one of the main prerequisites of a career as an apothecary.

Wealth of London apothecaries Harold Cook, The Decline of the Old Medical Regime in Stuart London (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986), pp. 48–9.

Diseases and the intercessory saints Brockliss and Jones, The Medical World of Early Modern France, pp. 44, 74–5. For St. Fiacre, see The Catholic Encyclopaedia, vol. 6 (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909).

The Dutch guild system Paul Zumthor, Daily Life in Rembrandt’s Holland (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1962), pp. 141–3.

Gerrit Evertsz For his dates and occupation, see CLE I, fol. 2; CLE II fol. 297, 441; HLE 23, fol. 233. For his status, see ALE 1611–1624, fol. 206, 270, 280, 437, 540, 719. All in GAL. For his appointment as Cornelisz’s agent in Friesland, see ONAH 129, fol. 63. Cornelisz was disputing the actions of Sijbrant Douwes, who had apparently sold his mother’s lands in Bergum to a certain Goossen Oebes of Lutgegeest without the approval of his coheir.

Cornelisz’s apprenticeship Apothecaries in Haarlem served apprenticeships of three years and were not permitted to become masters before the age of 25—at least according to the regulations of 1692, which are the earliest to have survived. See D. A. Wittop Koning, Compendium voor de Geschiedenis van de Pharmacie van Nederland (Lochem: De Tijdstroom, 1986), p. 131. Cornelisz would have been 25 in 1623–24.

The medical trinity in early modern Europe Brockliss and Jones, The Medical World of Early Modern France, esp. pp. 9–10, 164–5, 175, 188–9, 191. The great majority of what Brockliss and Jones say applies equally to the situation in the Netherlands.

The scarcity of physicians Haarlem, in 1628, had nine doctors for a population of 40,000 people. A. T. van Deursen, Plain Lives in a Golden Age: Popular Culture, Religion and Society in Seventeenth Century Holland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 237.

Ingredients of potions See Brockliss and Jones, The Medical World of Early Modern France, pp. 160–2; Cook, The Decline of the Old Medical Regime in Stuart London, p. 134; Sarah Bakewell, “Cooking with Mummy,” Fortean Times 124 (July 1999): 34–8. The whole notion that real “mummy” was made of human flesh was, incidentally, a mistake. The original “mummy” was a black, bituminous substance called mumia, which was thought to have healing properties and was popular in ancient Persia. The Greeks thought it was used by the Egyptians for embalming and slowly, over the centuries, the original meaning of the word was forgotten. Embalmed Egyptian bodies became known as “mummies” and were associated with the alleged healing properties of mumia.

Theriac Gilbert Watson, Theriac and Mithridatium: A Study in Therapeutics (London: The Wellcome Historical Medical Library, 1966), pp. 4–5, 98, 102–4; Charles LeWall, Four Thousand Years of Pharmacy: An Outline History of Pharmacy and the Allied Sciences (Philadelphia: JB Lippincott, 1927), pp. 215–8; Brockliss and Jones, The Medical World of Early Modern France, p. 160. Analysis of surviving recipes suggest that theriac would have possessed mild antiseptic qualities, thanks to its balsemic ingredients, which may account for its great popularity.

John Evelyn, the noted diarist, records witnessing the preparation of Venice treacle in 1646. The medicine, he wrote, was mixed annually in an event that had “all the character of a great proprietary ceremony and public festival. All the public squares and the courtyards of hospitals and monasteries in Venice were transformed for the occasion into great open-air theatres, adorned with rich damasks, with busts of Hippocrates and Galen, and with the great majolica jars destined to receive the precious medicament. Grave and important personages, sumptuously robed, moved to the applause of the crowds in an atmosphere of rejoicing and expectation.

“In some cities the preparation was preceded by exhibiting the ingredients to the public for three consecutive days so that anybody could examine them. On the fourth day the actual making of the theriac was preceded by a benediction given by the highest ecclesiastical authority and by a panegyric delivered by the leading physician of the city. Only the leading pharmacists, who were vested with the office of Triacanti (theriac-makers), were allowed to make the theriac, and always under the eye of the chief physicians.”

Sale of groceries and poisons Wittop Koning, Compendium voor de Geschiedenis van de Pharmacie van Nederland, pp. 90, 172, 206.

Haarlem S. Groenveld, E. K. Grootes, J. J. Temminick et al., Deugd Boven Geweld. Een Geschiedenis van Haarlem 1245–1995 (Hilversum: Verloren 1995), pp. 144, 172–4, 177.

Cornelisz’s house on the Grote Houtstraat ONAH 130, fol. 219v. For gapers, see Witlop Koning, Compendium voor de Geschiedenis van de Pharmacie van Nederland, pp. 97–8. Cornelisz does not appear among contemporary lists of Haarlem property owners, hence the supposition that the building was rented.

Cornelisz’s popularity His neighbors were prepared to testify to his character and honesty before solicitors, which, as we will see, was certainly not true for every citizen of Haarlem.

Cornelisz’s citizenship of Haarlem ONAH 129, fol. 78v. The Haarlem poorterboecken, which would have contained additional details concerning Jeronimus’s life in the city, have not survived.

Belijtgen Jacobsdr, her pregnancy, her illness, and her maidservant Ibid.; ONAH 99, fol. 131 ONAH 130, fol. 159, 198. For her age, see ONAH 130, fol. 219v, where she is obliquely referred to as a “young mother”; this would hardly have applied in this period had she been Cornelisz’s age, 29 or 30. For the appearance of Dutch women, see Van Deursen, op. cit., pp. 81–2. For the contemporary incidence of death in childbirth, see Brockliss and Jones, op. cit., p. 62.

Cathalijntgen van Wijmen ONAH 131, fol. 12. The remains of the afterbirth were finally removed by a “wise woman” who was the mother of Belijtgen’s maidservant five days after the birth. ONAH 99, fol. 134v.

Belijtgen as an assistant in the apothecary shop See ONAH 130, fol. 159, where Jacobsdr is described as sitting in the shop on 28 April 1628.

Breast-feeding in the Dutch Republic Simon Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age (London: Fontana, 1991), pp. 538–40.

Burial of Cornelisz’s son GAH, burial registers 70, fol. 83v.

Syphilis in infants Congenital syphilis is a well-recognized condition that affects about 70 percent of children whose mothers are infected with the disease and have not been treated. T. pallidum, the bacterium that causes the condition, infects the fetus through the placenta and the child is born with syphilis. The symptoms may not be visible at first and may take up to five weeks to manifest themselves. Early indications of the disease include bloody snuffles in the first weeks of the baby’s life, the appearance of a syphilitic rash after one to two weeks, and fissures on the lips and anus.

It was once thought that diseased wet nurses could infect their charges with syphilis through their milk; indeed Ludwig II, the notorious “Mad King of Bavaria,” was popularly supposed to have been given syphilis by his nurse. This method of transmission is now thought to be a myth. Nevertheless, medical literature acknowledges the possibility that a very young infant may be infected with the disease by a third party shortly after birth. Transmission is by contact with open sores on the infected person’s body. Luger studied the case of three syphilitic infants reported from Vienna in 1968. His findings were that the disease could not have been transmitted venereally but was probably the product of crowded conditions and unsanitary housing. Eisenberg et al. had already reported 20 similar cases of asexually acquired syphilis from Chicago. H. Eisenberg, F. Plotke, and A. Baker, “Asexual Syphilis in Children,” Journal of Venereal Diseases Information 30 (1949): 7–11; A. Luger, “Non-Venereally Transmitted ‘Endemic’ Syphilis in Vienna,” British Journal of Venereal Diseases 48 (1972): 356–60; K. Rathblum, “Congenital Syphilis,” Sexually Transmitted Diseases 10 (1983): 93–9.

“. . . this was a very serious concern.” Not only was it the case that in the Dutch Republic at this time, women infected with venereal diseases by their husbands were considered to have grounds for separation (Schama, op. cit., p. 406); in Haarlem, in the 1620s, it was difficult to survive at all without the goodwill and respect of one’s neighbors.

Like many other cities in the United Provinces, Haarlem was a town full of strangers. The population had grown by a third since 1600, swollen by refugees who had fled from the Southern Netherlands during the war with Spain. Others, including Jeronimus and perhaps his wife, had arrived from other parts of the Republic, bringing with them a variety of religious views, social mores, and degrees of wealth. For the 10,000 immigrants who had moved to the city, most of whom had no family or friends to whom they could turn in times of trouble, it was particularly important to be able to rely on assistance from the gebuurte, or neighborhood.

Haarlem recognized almost 100 such neighborhoods, and the Grote Houtstraat, where Cornelisz lived, contained no fewer than five. Honor mattered greatly in these miniature societies. Without it, it was impossible to obtain credit, and—since the presence of disreputable people brought discredit on their neighbors—any loss of honor was a matter of concern for the whole gebuurte. It is only in this context that the frantic efforts that Jeronimus and Belijtgen made to clear themselves of the suspicion that they were infected with syphilis can be properly understood. See Gabrielle Dorren, “Burgers en Hun Besognes. Burgemeestersmemorialen en Hun Bruikbaarheid als Bron voor Zeventiende-Eeuws Haarlem,” Jaarboeck Haarlem (1995): 58; idem, Het Soet Vergaren: Haarlems Buurtleven in de Zeventiende Eeuw (Haarlem: Arcadia, 1998), pp. 12–3, 16, 22–3, 27–9; idem, “Communities Within the Community,” pp. 178, 180–3.

Economic conditions in the Dutch Republic in the 1620s Israel, op. cit., pp. 478–9.

The disgrace of bankruptcy Schama, op. cit., pp. 343–4; Geoffrey Cotterell, Amsterdam: The Life of a City (Farnborough: DC Heath, 1973), p. 118.

Loth Vogel ONAH 99, fol. 159v. There is no surviving record of any person of this name in the Haarlem birth, marriage, or burial registers. However, the historian Gabrielle Dorren notes the existence of an Otto Vogel, an extremely wealthy corn merchant from Amsterdam who settled in Haarlem in the hope of improving the health of his sickly wife. This Vogel was in Haarlem by 1604 and resisted several efforts by local dignitaries to force him to become a full citizen of his adopted town. Eventually, Vogel became so irritated by this pressure that he threatened to leave the town, taking with him his—unnamed—brother. It seems possible that this brother may have been Cornelisz’s Loth. “De Eerzamen. Zeventiende-Eeuws Burgerschap in Haarlem,” in R. Aerts and H. te Velde (eds.), De Stijl van de Burger: Over Nederlandse Burgerlijke Cultuur vanaf de Middeleeuwen (Kampen: Kok Agora, 1998), p. 70.

The case against Heyltgen For the condition of Belijtgen, see the testimony of Gooltgen Joostdr, 3 May 1628 (ONAH 130, fol. 159); Aeffge Jansdr, Ytgen Hendricxdr, Grietgen Dircksdr, and Wijntge Abrahamsdr, 18 June 1628 (ONAH 130, fol. 198); Maijcke Pietersdr van den Broecke, 6 July 1628 (ONAH 130, fol. 219); Willem Willemsz Brouwerius (Cornelisz’s physician), 8 August 1628 (ONAH 99, fol. 131); Aeltgen Govertsdr, 9 August (ONAH 99, fol. 134); and Aecht Jansdr and Ytgen Henricxdr, 11 August 1628 (ONAH 99, fol. 134v). For Heyltgen, see the testimony of Jannitge Pietersdr, Willem Willemsz, Grietgen Woutersdr, Hester Ghijsbertsdr, Jannitgen Joostsdr, and Elsken Adamsdr, 27 July 1628 (ONAH 60, fol. 99); Elsken Adamsdr, 11 August 1628 (ONAH 99, fol. 135v).

Aert Dircxsz ONAH 60, fol. 99. Asked by one Cornelia Jansdr who Dircxsz was, Heyltgen is alleged to have replied: “A dirty whore hunter.” In the context of the dispute, this might well be taken to suggest that her former lover carried a venereal disease.

Heyltgen’s response ONAH 99, fol. 131; ONAH 130, fol. 159.

“She twisted the scanty evidence” Aeltgen Govertsdr, who had given a statement to the solicitor Sonnebijl at the wet nurse’s request, later disputed the accuracy of the deposition he produced in her name. She had, she said, protested at the time, to which Sonnebijl’s wife, who was also present, had rejoined: “Well, woman, one cannot write perfectly—do you think my husband hasn’t got a soul to lose?” ONAH 99, fol. 134. Unfortunately the Sonnebijl archive has not survived, denying us Heyltgen’s side of this long-running dispute.

Heyltgen’s reappearance in the Grote Houtstraat ONAH 130, fol. 159.

Cornelisz comes to terms with Vogel ONAH 99, fol. 159. The solicitor on this occasion was Willem van Triere.

Cornelisz as an Anabaptist There is no definite proof of Jeronimus’s Anabaptist antecedents, though V. D. Roeper (ed.), De Schipbreuk van de Batavia, 1629 (Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 1994), p. 14, and Philip Tyler, “The Batavia Mutineers: Evidence of an Anabaptist ‘Fifth Column’ Within 17th Century Dutch Colonialism?” Westerly (December 1970): 33–45 have previously speculated that he had a background in the Mennonite community. The fact that he appears to have been unbaptized (for which see JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 211]; there is also no trace of any baptism in the surviving records of Leeuwarden, Bergum, or Haarlem) is obviously suggestive. Perhaps more significantly, the Haarlem archives indicate that his wife, Belijtgen, was herself an Anabaptist (in ONAH 130, fol. 159 Heyltgen Jansdr describes her, among other insults, as “a Mennonite whore”). Definite proof is unlikely ever to emerge; the records of the Haarlem Mennonites go back no further than the second half of the seventeenth century. But I am inclined to feel that there is an excellent chance Cornelisz came from Anabaptist stock.

Anabaptist numbers in Leeuwarden Israel, op. cit., p. 656.

Religious toleration and persecution Ibid. pp. 372–83.

Anabaptist origins and views William Estep, The Anabaptist Story: An Introduction to Sixteenth-Century Anabaptism (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1996), pp. xi, 14–28, 171; Stayer, Anabaptists and the Sword, p. 290; Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970), p. 253; Israel, op. cit. pp. 84–95, 656; Van Deursen, Plain Lives in a Golden Age, pp. 307, 311.

Anabaptist millenarianism and the siege of Münster Krahn, Dutch Anabaptism, pp. 114–5, 120–4, 130, 135–50; Stayer, op. cit., pp. 191–3, 227–80; Cohn, op. cit., pp. 259–61.

Anabaptist revolutionaries in Amsterdam and Friesland Krahn, op. cit., pp. 148, 154; Israel, op. cit. pp. 92–6, 655–6.

The emergence of the Mennonites Israel, op. cit., pp. 85–90.

The Batenburgers and their successors Jan van Batenburg was born around 1495, and became mayor of a town in Overijssel. During the early 1530s, he converted to Anabaptism and found himself the leader of a large number of his coreligionists in Friesland and Groningen. He had Münsterite sympathies, but in 1535 one group of his followers urged him to announce himself as “a new David” and before long he had established a new and wholly independent sect, which quickly became the most extreme of all the early Anabaptist movements.

The Batenburgers believed that every man and everything on earth was owned, in a literal sense, by God. They also believed that they were God’s chosen children. It followed, in their theology, that everything on earth was theirs to do with what they pleased; indeed, killing “infidel,” by which they meant any man who was not a member of their sect, was pleasing to their God. Those who joined the sect after 1535—when the Münsterite leadership had declared the door to salvation to be closed—could never be baptized, they thought, but these men and women would nevertheless survive the coming apocalypse and be reborn in the coming Kingdom of God as servants of the Anabaptist elite. The Batenburgers also shared the views of the radical Münsterites on polygamy and property; all women, and all goods, were held in common. A few Batenburger marriages did occur, and Van Batenburg himself retained the right to present a deserving member of his sect with a “wife” from the group’s general stock of women. However, such unions could be ended just as readily, and on occasion the prophet did order an unwilling wife to return to servicing the remainder of the Batenburger men.

Van Batenburg seems to have commanded the loyalty of at least several hundred men. Members of his sect were required to swear oaths of absolute secrecy, however, and had to endure a painful initiation designed to ensure they would be able to resist torture if they were ever captured, so the true extent of his following never emerged. The Batenburgers did not gather openly in public and had their leader’s dispensation to pose as ordinary Lutherans or Catholics, going to church and living apparently normal lives in the lands along the borders of the Holy Roman Empire and The Netherlands for several years after the fall of Münster. They recognized one another by secret symbols displayed on their houses or their clothing, and by certain ways of styling their hair. It was only after Van Batenburg himself was captured and burned at the stake that they came together at last, infesting the Imperial marches for at least another decade under the leadership of a Leyden weaver called Cornelis Appelman. By now the group had been reduced to a core of no more than 200 men, most of whom were joined by bonds of family or marriage.

Appelman remained active until his own capture in 1545. He was if anything more extreme than Van Batenburg, giving himself the title of “The Judge” and killing any of his followers who refused to join his criminal activities, or proved themselves lax in killing, robbing or committing arson. Like Van Batenburg, he preached and practiced polygamy, with the additional refinement that the women of his sect could leave their husbands at any time should they decide to marry a man further up the Batenburger hierarchy. Appelman himself murdered his own wife when she refused him leave to marry her daughter, and subsequently killed the girl as well.

After the Judge’s death, the Batenburger sect fragmented into several tiny groups, one of which, the Children of Emlichheim, was active in the middle 1550s. Its sole creed appears to have been revenge against the infidel; on one notorious occasion its members stabbed to death 125 cows that belonged to a local monastery. The last of the Batenburger splinter groups, and also the largest, was the “Folk of Johan Willemsz.” This sect persisted until about 1580, living by robbery and murder in the countryside around Wesel, on the Dutch-German border. It was when Willemsz himself was burned at the stake that the remnants of the group found their way to Friesland. L. G. Jansma, Melchiorieten, Münstersen en Batenburgers: een Sociologische Analyse van een Millenistische Beweging uit de 16e Eeuw (Buitenpost: np, 1977), pp. 217–35, 237, 244–75; Jansma, “Revolutionairee Wederdopers na 1535” in MG Buist et al. (eds.), Historisch Bewogen. Opstellen over de radicale reformatie in de 16e en 17e eeuw (Groningen: Wolters-Noordhoff, 1984), pp. 51–3; S. Zijlstra, “David Joris en de Doperse Stromingen (1536–1539), in ibid., pp. 130–1, 138; M. E. H. N. Mout, “Spiritualisten in de Nederlandse reformatie van de Zestiende Eeuw,” Bijdragen en Mededelingen Betreffende de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden 111 (1996): 297–313.

Giraldo Thibault’s fencing club Govert Snoek, De Rosenkruizers in Nederland: Voornamelijk in de Eerste Helft van de 17de Eeuw. Een Inventarisatie (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Utrecht, 1997), pp. 164–73. The Amsterdam club shut down in 1615, when Thibault moved temporarily to Cleves, so Cornelisz could not have attended it himself. However, Thibault returned to the Dutch Republic in 1617 and apparently settled in Leyden, where he died in 1626. It is possible, though there is certainly no proof, that Jeronimus could have met the fencing master there; in any case, the point is that he may well have attended some intellectual salon run along similar lines.

Guillelmo Bartolotti Israel, op. cit., pp. 345, 347–8.

Cornelisz and Torrentius Cornelisz’s association with Torrentius was taken for granted in the Batavia journals, which occasionally refer to him as a “Torrentian.” For a discussion of this point, see epilogue.

The extent of the Torrentian circle Snoek, op. cit., pp. 78–9.

Schoudt and Lenaertsz Ibid., pp. 89–90, 91, 94; ONAH 99, fol. 159; Bredius, Torrentius, p. 42. Lenaertsz witnessed the legal document that Cornelisz. had drawn up to transfer all his worldly goods to Loth Vogel, a matter so humiliating that he would surely have called on only a close friend to countersign it.

“. . . apothecaries sold the paints . . .” Roeper, op. cit. p. 14.

“Disciple” Antonio van Diemen to Pieter de Carpentier, 30 November–10 December 1629, ARA VOC 1009, cited in Henrietta Drake-Brockman, Voyage to Disaster (Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press, 1995), p. 50. It should be admitted here that there remains no direct evidence that the two men were acquainted, and Jeronimus’s name does not appear in the process file concerning Torrentius’s eventual arrest and trial. Nevertheless, in a town with an elite the size of Haarlem’s—perhaps 1,000 men—it would actually be remarkable if two men of such distinct views were not known to one another.

Torrentius Bredius, Johannes Torrentius, pp. 1–3, 12, 22–6, 29–31, 34–5, 45–6, 49, 58; Rehorst, Torrentius, pp. 11–4, 15–6, 78–80; Zbigniew Herbert, Still Life with a Bridle (London: Jonathan Cape, 1993), pp. 82–100; Snoek, pp. 60, 67–8, 71, 80–3, 87, 90, 101, 171. He was born in Amsterdam in 1589. Torrentius’s father is famous for having been the first inmate of Amsterdam’s new prison; his mother, Symontgen Lucasdr, remained loyal to him throughout his imprisonment and exile and survived him.

According to testimony collected by the painter’s irate father-in-law, Torrentius was well able to pay for his wife’s upkeep but chose not to. He always dressed in silk, velvet, and satin and owned a horse or two. On one occasion he offered to take Cornelia back, but only, he said, so that he could “feed her one day and hit her three days.”

Van Swieten Bredius, op. cit., p. 25.

Epicurus One of the principal philosophers of the Hellenistic period, Epicurus (ca. 341 b.c.–ca. 270 b.c.) was a materialist who taught that the basic constituents of the universe are indivisible atoms, explained natural phenomena without resorting to mysticism, and rejected the existence of the soul. As a corollary, he believed the main point of life was pleasure. Epicurus himself was no hedonist, believing instead that true happiness stemmed from control of one’s desires and in overcoming fear of death. His followers, however, soon acquired a reputation for debauchery, and his views were naturally anathema to the Calvinist ministers of Holland.

Torrentius’s Gnostic views Snoek, op. cit., pp. 80–2.

Jeronimus’s philosophy JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 153]; verdict on Andries Jonas, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 203]; verdict on Jan Pelgrom, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 209]; JFP 30 Sep 1629 [DB 212].

Antinomianism, the Free Spirit and the Libertines Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium, pp. 149–51, 156, 166–7, 170, 172–3, 178, 182–4, 287, 301.

“. . . a state where conscience ceased to operate . . .” Ibid., pp. 148, 151, 178.

Descartes McIntosh, The Rosy Cross Unveiled, p. 71. The philosopher was then a resident of Amsterdam.

Rubens Snoek, op cit., p. 142.

Rosicrucian cells The suggestion that the Rosicrucians were active in Paris appeared in books and posters distributed throughout the French capital in 1623. Ibid., pp. 61–2, 108. Reports in several books that there were Rosicrucian cells in The Hague and Amsterdam appear to be the product of a nineteenth-century hoax. Ibid., pp. 182–4; McIntosh, op. cit., p. 69.

The Rosicrucian debate in the United Provinces Snoek, op. cit., pp. 62–3, 103–8; Herbert, op. cit., p. 86.

Investigation of the Rosicrucians Snoek, op. cit., pp. 62–4; Bredius, op. cit. pp. 17–18.

“. . . the Calvinist authorities were anxious to convict . . .” Bredius suggests the trial of Torrentius was staged to stress the orthodoxy of Haarlem’s ruling elite and bolster the city’s case to be considered the leader of the strictly Calvinist cities of the province of Holland at a time when several of its neighbors were still indulging liberal, Arminian views. Op. cit., p. 28.

The banishment of the Torrentian circle Snoek, op. cit., pp. 79–80. The coincidence of dates is not exact; Torrentius’s followers were supposed to leave the city no later than 19 September, but Jeronimus Cornelisz may have lingered longer than that, and certainly either remained in, or returned to, Haarlem as late as 9 October, when the city records show he visited one of his solicitors.

Chapter 2: Gentlemen XVII

The story of the Dutch East India Company is of considerable importance to both the Netherlands and many of the nations of the Far East, and it has been extensively documented and well studied. Statistical information concerning the VOC’s shipping and its voyages to the East is summarized and elaborated upon, in English, in the three volumes of Jaap Bruijn et al., Dutch-Asiatic Shipping in the 17th and 18th Centuries (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1979–1987). Dutch speakers will turn also to Femme Gaastra’s general study De Geschiedenis van de VOC (Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 1991), which is more complete and up-to-date than any English language equivalent. Kristoff Glamann’s earlier Dutch-Asiatic Trade 1620–1740 (Copenhagen: Danish Science Press, 1958), though now in many respects outdated, also remains of interest. For details of the construction of Dutch East Indiamen, see Willem Vos’s and Robert Parthesius’s five-volume series, the Batavia Cahiers (Lelystad: np, 1990–93), which fully documents Vos’s recent reconstruction of a full-sized retourschip of the Batavia’s time. This valuable and extremely practical project has resulted in the rediscovery of many early shipbuilding techniques, and the Cahiers deal with many questions that would otherwise have to remain unanswered, given the absence of relevant documentation from the period. On the life of Francisco Pelsaert, I have relied largely on the introductory section to D. H. A. Kolff’s and H. W. van Santen’s recent edition of the commandeur’s Mogul chronicle and remonstrantie,published as De Geschriften van Francisco Pelsaert over Mughal Indiï, 1627: Kroniek en Remonstrantie (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1979).

The growth of Amsterdam Jonathan Israel, The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness and Fall, 1477–1806 (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1998), pp. 114–6, 328–32; Geoffrey Cotterell, Amsterdam: The Life of a City (Farnborough: DC Heath, 1973), pp. 18–24. Another problem was the boggy ground, which meant that each new house within the city walls could only be constructed on foundations made of 42-foot wooden piles, each of which had to be driven to the bottom of the marsh by hand. A huge number of piles were required; the royal palace on the Dam itself rests on 13,659 of them. See William Brereton, Travels in Holland, the United Provinces etc. . . . 1634–1635 (London: Chetham Society, 1844), p. 66. The inaccessibility of Amsterdam explains why, for all its enormous commercial success in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Rotterdam is now the principal Dutch port.

Development of Dutch trade Jonathan Israel, Dutch Primacy in World Trade, 1585–1740 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), pp. 6–17, 45–8. There were other factors, the most important of which may have been the protracted blockade of Antwerp instituted by the United Provinces in the 1570s. Dutch warships intercepted shipping all along the coast and halted river traffic to the city. After 1584 the main land approaches also fell into rebel hands, reducing the city’s trade enormously and contributing to the further growth of Amsterdam.

The spice road Bruijn et al., Dutch-Asiatic Shipping, I, pp. 2, 189–92; Bernard Vlekke, The Story of the Dutch East Indies (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1946), pp. 57–62; Glamann, op. cit., pp. 13, 16–17, 74–5; Giles Milton, Nathaniel’s Nutmeg: How One Man’s Courage Changed the Course of History (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1999), pp. 3–4.

Population of cities London, with a population of about 230,000, Paris, with approximately 300,000, and Madrid, whose population was somewhere in between, were considerably bigger; Paris was comfortably the largest city in Europe throughout the seventeenth century. The only other European cities with a population comparable to Amsterdam were Lyons, Naples, and Rome. Antwerp’s population halved as a result of the Revolt, and a large proportion of the 40,000 or so people who left the city made for the towns of the United Provinces. The Dutch Republic was in fact by far the most heavily urbanized country in Europe in Cornelisz’s time; by 1600, one Dutchman in four lived in a town with more than 10,000 inhabitants, while the comparable figure in England was only 1 in 10. Israel, The Dutch Republic, pp. 115, 219.

Spain and Portugal in the East Determining exactly where the boundary between Spanish and Portuguese interests fell on the far side of the world was no easy matter in an age where there was no reliable way of measuring longitude while at sea. There were several disputes between the powers before the Spanish king sold his claim to the Spiceries to Portugal for the sum of 350,000 ducats in 1529. For Francis Xavier’s views, see Vlekke, op cit., p. 62.

Jan Huyghen van Linschoten Throughout his stay in the Indies, van Linschoten, who had a lively and curious mind, had made it his business to gather information about Portugal’s colonies in the East. He appears to have come across the rutters during his sojourn in the Azores. Charles Parr, Jan van Linschoten: The Dutch Marco Polo (New York: Thomas Y. Cromwell, 1964), pp. xvi–xvii, 6, 19, 33, 45–8, 80, 176, 180, 189. It was, incidentally, on Van Linschoten’s recommendation that the Dutch concentrated their efforts on the island of Java, where there were no Portuguese trading posts.

Reinier Pauw Israel, The Dutch Republic, pp. 344–8. Later, Pauw (1564–1636) was to become a prominent politician and the leader of the strict Calvinist faction that brought down the regime of Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, the advocate of Holland, and had him beheaded in 1619.

The early history of Dutch trade with the East Israel, Dutch Primacy in World Trade, pp. 61, 67–9; Vlekke, op. cit., pp. 62–3; Milton, op. cit., pp. 28–9, 52–65.

The Compagnie van Verre and the Dutch first fleet “Far-Lands Company” is a more literal translation. Israel, Dutch Primacy, pp. 67–8; Bruijn et al., Dutch-Asiatic Shipping, I, pp. 1–5, 59; Milton, op. cit., pp. 52–65; Vlekke, op. cit., p. 67.

Cornelis de Houtman Miriam Estensen, Discovery: The Quest for the Great South Land (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1998), p. 62; Milton, op. cit., p. 59.

“. . . the surviving members . . .” The crews of the Eerste Schipvaart experienced appalling mortality rates; only one in three returned alive.

Expeditions of 1598–1601 Israel, Dutch Primacy, pp. 67–9; Bruijn et al., Dutch-Asiatic Shipping, I, pp. 3–4; Vlekke, op. cit., p. 70.

The creation of the VOC The proposition of a joint stock company was a unique solution made possible only by the fact that the United Provinces was a federal republic. A precedent had, however, been set a few years earlier with an attempt to create an eight-strong cartel of companies involved in the Guinea trade. This attempt was unsuccessful, as in the end the companies of Zeeland had elected to retain their independence. Israel, op. cit., pp. 61, 69–71; Bruijn et al., Dutch-Asiatic Shipping, I, pp. 4–5. The price of the monopoly and of state support was not cheap; the first charter, which ran for 21 years, cost the VOC 25,000 guilders. It was renewed for a similar period at no charge in 1623, the Company’s reward for its assistance in the wars with Spain, but by the end of the century a 40-year renewal cost the VOC a further three million guilders. Glamann, op. cit., p. 6. The goods that Jeronimus and his colleagues were required to buy and sell became more varied as the Company evolved. Spices remained the staple of the Indies trade, but over the years the VOC expanded its operations to deal in cottons and silks from India and China, dyestuffs, and even copper and silver from Japan. Profits were good here, too; cotton, for example, typically sold at 80–100 percent more than it had cost in the Indies, and margins of up to 500 percent were not unheard-of.

The Gentlemen XVII See Bruijn et al., Dutch-Asiatic Shipping, I, pp. 15–9.

Spices Glamann, op. cit., pp. 13, 16–24, 74–6, 91–3, 134; Vlekke, op. cit., pp. 57–61; Milton, op. cit., pp. 3, 18, 58, 80.

The Dutch in the Indies, 1602–1628 Israel, Dutch Primacy, p. 73; Vlekke, op. cit., pp. 75–7.

“. . . this frothy nation . . .” Cited by John Keay, The Honourable Company: A History of the English East India Company (London: HarperCollins, 1993), p. 34.

“The places and the strongholds . . .” C. R. Boxer, The Dutch Seaborne Empire 1600–1800 (London: Hutchinson, 1965), pp. 45–6. The governments of Europe reciprocated with scorn, and when, years later, the Dutch envoy to the court of Charles X of Sweden ventured a remark about the freedom of religion, the king is said to have pulled a golden rixdollar from his pocket and brandished it in the diplomat’s face, remarking: “Voil_otre religion.”

“These butterboxes . . .” Quoted by Israel, Dutch Primacy, p. 105.

Jacob Poppen Israel, The Dutch Republic, pp. 347–8.

Pay of merchants In the second half of the century an upper-merchant’s salary was typically 80–100 guilders a month, or perhaps 1,100 a year, less than the earnings of a typical merchant at home in the Netherlands. Under-merchants earned half that, and assistants only a quarter as much, so that only the provision of free board and lodging while in the service of the Company made theirs a living wage. Boxer, The Dutch Seaborne Empire, pp. 201, 300.

The life and times of Francisco Pelsaert The identity of Francisco Pelsaert’s father is not known, but his mother was Barbara van Ganderheyden. She married twice and had three children—Anna Pelsaert, who was born around 1588, Francisco, and Oeyken, who was five years younger than her brother and thus born around 1600. The children took their surname from Barbara’s second husband, Dirick Pelsaert, who was a man of German stock. Dirick came originally from Aachen, but his marriage to Barbara was of short duration, and contemporary records attest that her three offspring were voorkinderen—“forechildren”—that is, the children of an earlier marriage, the details of which have not yet been traced. Barbara’s father, Dirick van Ganderheyden, who brought Pelsaert up, earned a good living as administrator of the estates of various noble widows, heiresses, and monasteries in the Southern Netherlands. He died in the autumn of 1613 and was buried in Antwerp, though it seems he had not lived there. His cousin was Hans van Ghinckel of Middelburg, who secured Pelsaert his introduction to the VOC. Kolff and van Santen, De Geschriften, pp. 4–7.

Joining the VOC Unusually, Pelsaert was required to lodge a surety of 1,000 guilders with the Company before he was accepted. Probably this was because—being less than 25 years of age—he was still a minor by the standards of the time. Kolff and Van Santen, De Geschriften, p. 7.

Inaccuracies concerning Pelsaert’s antecedents, relations, and personal history have crept into the record as a result of erroneous statements by the genealogist H. F. Macco, whose Geschichte und Genealogie der Familen Peltzer (Aachen, np, 1901), p. 323 incorrectly states that the commandeur was brother-in-law to the important VOC director Hendrik Brouwer. The “Francoys Pelsaert” mentioned as Brouwer’s relative, who came from Eupen, appears to have been an entirely different person; Kolff and van Santen, De Geschriften, p. 7. Unfortunately Macco’s error had already been perpetuated by Henrietta Drake-Brockman in her Voyage to Disaster (Nedlands, WA: University of Western Australia Press, 1995), pp. 13–14, and from there it entered the Batavia literature generally.

Pelsaert in India As they evolved, the VOC’s trading bases overseas were divided into three quarters. The governor-general of the Indies took direct responsibility for the Spice Islands themselves, which were by far the most important of the Company’s possessions and made up the “Eastern Quarter.” The factories in Japan, China, and Formosa made up the “Northern Quarter,” and Surat, which was established in 1606, became the administrative center for the “Western Quarter,” which included the trading centers of Persia and the Coromandel Coast. Pelsaert took control of the factory at Agra in 1623–4 on the death of his predecessor, Wouter Heuten. His first caravan to Surat (1623) included 146 packs of cloth, 15 packs of indigo, and three female slaves. Kolff and van Santen, De Geschriften, pp. 7–12, 13, 17–9, 25–8; Drake-Brockman, op. cit., pp. 11, 15–20, 21n.

Agra Pelsaert stayed in the city some half a dozen years before the Mogul emperor Shah Jehan began the construction of its most famous monument, the Taj Mahal.

“. . . one of the Company’s more vigorous and efficient servants . . .” Drake-Brockman, op. cit., pp. 21–7.

Pieter van den Broecke He lived from 1585 to 1640 and wrote a journal, still extant, which is an important source for the history of Dutch trade in West Africa and northern India. He owed some of his success, in turn, to the sponsorship of Gerard Reynst, who eventually became governor-general of the Indies. By 1626–7, Van den Broecke and Pelsaert had, however, fallen out spectacularly over the latter’s suspicion that his friend planned to claim much of the credit for Pelsaert’s achievements in India. Van den Broecke’s fame rests on his journal, but recent research into his years with the VOC have shown that while well regarded as a diplomat, he was notorious for the poor state of his accounts, which were slipshod and impenetrable. Whether this failing was the consequence of genuine ineptitude or a deliberate attempt to conceal private trading is difficult to say. K. Ratelband (ed.), Reizen naar West-Africa van Pieter van den Broecke, 1605–1614 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1950), pp. xxii–xxxiv, xliii–xlv; Kolff and van Santen, De Geschriften, p. 48; W. P. Coolhaas (ed.), Pieter van den Broecke in Aziï (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1962), p. 4.

“. . . reports sent to the Netherlands” Kolff and van Santen, De Geschriften, pp. 53–7. Pelsaert’s genuine interest in the local people was exceptionally unusual. As one historian notes, “The average man going to the Indies had no training and no knowledge of foreign languages. What he knew of Asia before leaving Amsterdam was very little, usually based on hearsay—or he knew nothing at all. His contract with the VOC obliged him to serve in the East for some years only . . . his expectations were limited to the issue of money-making during a temporary sojourn abroad. Both this and his socio-educational background would make it extremely unlikely for him ever to get in touch with his Asian environment and to develop an interest in the cultural specifics of Asia.” Peter Kirsch, “VOC—Trade Without Ethics?” in Karl Sprengard and Roderich Ptak (eds.), Maritime Asia: Profit Maximisation, Ethics and Trade Structure c. 1300–1800 (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1994), p. 198.

Eurasian couples in the east and infant mortality L. Blussé, “The Caryatids of Batavia: Reproduction, Religion and Acculturation Under the VOC,” Itinerario 7 (1983): 57, 65; Jean Gelman Taylor, The Social World of Batavia: European and Eurasian in Dutch Asia (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983), pp. 8, 12, 14–6.

“. . . dalliances with slaves . . .” Kolff and van Santen, De Geschriften, pp. 19–21, 24, 31; Ratelband op. cit., pp. 91–2; Coolhaas, op. cit., p. 5.

The oil of cloves incident Kolff and van Santen, De Geschriften, pp. 32–3; for the properties and uses of oil of cloves, see M. Boucher, “The Cape Passage: Some Observations on Health Hazards Aboard Dutch East Indiamen Outward-bound,” Historia 26 (1981): 35.

“There are no Ten Commandments south of the equator” Cited in Boxer, The Dutch Seaborne Empire, p. 205.

Private trade “The result was that everyone from Governor-General to cabin boy traded on the side, and everyone else knew it,” Boxer says. “[The men’s] superiors in the East normally had no inclination to give their subordinates away, as they themselves were almost invariably deeply implicated.” Ibid., pp. 201–2. The English East India Company, despite an ostensibly more liberal system (from 1674, employees were allowed to ship as much as 5 percent of the chartered tonnage on their own account), in fact fared little better; see Keay, op. cit., pp. 34–5, Ralph Davies, The Rise of the English Shipping Industry in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1971), p. 147.

“There was no esprit de corps . . .” Kirsch, op. cit., p. 199.

Huybert Visnich Ibid., p. 200.

Pelsaert as a money lender He avoided detection simply by adding the interest he was owed to the price of the indigo he purchased, thus leaving no trace of his activities in the factory’s accounts. Without detailed knowledge of local market conditions, neither the Gentlemen XVII nor Pelsaert’s superiors at the VOC factory in Surat were in any position to question the prices he paid. Kolff and van Santen, De Geschriften, pp. 33–4.

The Amsterdam one-way system Geoffrey Cotterell, Amsterdam: The Life of a City (Farnborough: DC Heath, 1973), p. 86.

Cornelisz’s selection procedure Boxer, The Dutch Seaborne Empire, p. 51; Kirsch, op. cit., pp. 198–9; Bruijn et al., Dutch-Asiatic Shipping, I, p. 147. “To be ranked as an assistant, merchant or upper-merchant did not mean very much,” Kirsch observes. “Whatever the rank, it had little or nothing to do with abilities or morals. It was a label only, won by practical experience of acting as a profit-maximiser.”

Adriaan Block He lived from 1581/2 until 1661 and was the brother-in-law of Isaac Massa (1586–1643), another wealthy merchant who built a fortune trading with Russia and who belonged to Thibault’s Fencing club. Govert Snoek, De Rosenkruizers in Nederland, Voornamelijk in de Eerste Helft van de 17de Eeuw. Een Inventarisatie (Ph.D. thesis, University of Utrecht, 1997), pp. 72–4, 164.

Merchants and assistants Difficult as it generally was to recruit both officers and men, it was unusual for the Company to go so far as to hire a novice as an under-merchant. The position was a relatively senior one and was generally awarded to men who boasted at least half a dozen years of faithful service to the company in the lesser position of assistant, or clerk. On many smaller ships, an under-merchant would be the most senior VOC officer on board, and it would fall to him to direct the skipper and barter for trade goods with the experienced native merchants of the east. For this reason, even men who came from good families tended to join the VOC as assistants if they were without influence, and they learned the trade of merchant by watching their superiors for a period of years. Francisco Pelsaert started as an assistant and served at that rank for four or five years before receiving promotion to under-merchant (Kolff and van Santen, op. cit., pp. 6–7). He was, however, much younger at this time than was Cornelisz, who was not in any case unique. Some men were even more greatly favored than he; Pieter van den Broecke, who had years of experience in Africa, actually joined the company as an upper-merchant on the recommendation of Gerard Reynst, the son of a prominent soap-boiler and a future Governor-General of the Indies. Ratelband, op. cit., pp. XXXI, XXXIV.

The Peperwerf and the building of the Batavia The island of Rapenburg has long since become part of the city of Amsterdam and now exists only as a street name and a square. The yards there dated to 1608, before which the Amsterdam chamber of the VOC contracted with private shipbuilders for its vessels. Even after that date the six chambers built their own ships to their own specifications, and there were subtle—indeed sometimes considerable—differences between the vessels built in the different yards.

No records survive concerning the construction or the cost of the Batavia herself, though she was built in compliance of a directive of 17 March 1626. Given that average building times were then 8 or 12 months, it would appear to have taken the VOC another 12–18 months to lay her down. Like all Dutch East Indiamen, she was built not to a detailed set of plans, but by rule of thumb. The ship was made of green timber—Dutch shipwrights found seasoned wood too hard to work with. Measurements are given in English feet, which were slightly bigger than the Amsterdam feet the original shipwrights worked in (one Amsterdam foot = 11 inches, or 28 cm). In terms of labor, construction required about 183,000 man hours. P. Gretler, “De Peperwerf,” in R. Parthesius (ed.), Batavia Cahier 2: De Herbouw van een Oostindiïvaarder (Lelystad: np, 1990), pp. 58–64; Willem Vos, “Een Rondleiding Door een Oostindiïvaarder,” in Batavia Cahier 4: Een Rondleiding door een Oostindiïvaarder (Lelystad: np, 1993), pp. 3–45; A. van der Zee, “Bronmen voor Oostindiïvaarders: Het VOC-Boekhoundjournaal,” in R. Parthesius (ed.), Batavia Cahier 3: De Herbouw van een Oostindiïvaarder (Leylystad: np, 1990), p. 61; Jeremy Green, Myra Stanbury, and Femme Gaastra (eds.), The ANCODS Colloquium: Papers Presented at the Australia-Netherlands Colloquium on Maritime Archaeology and Maritime History (Fremantle: Australian National Centre of Excellence for Maritime Archaeology, 1999), p. 71; Bruijn et al., Dutch-Asiatic Shipping, I, pp. 37–9, 93; Philippe Godard, The First and Last Voyage of the Batavia (Perth: Abrolhos Publishing, nd, c. 1993), pp. 56–66; C. R. Boxer, “The Dutch East-Indiamen: Their Sailors, Their Navigators and Life on Board, 1602–1795,” The Mariner’s Mirror 49 (1963): 82; H. N. Kamer, Het VOC-Retourschip: Een Panorama van de 17de- en 18de-Eeuwse Scheepsbouw (Amsterdam: De Bataafsche Leeuw, 1995), pp. 30–8, 218–9.

Batavia The name is taken from that of the ancient, and semimythical, tribe of Batavians, who had occupied the Netherlands 1500 years earlier and—in legend at least—were supposed to have fought exceptionally bravely against the Romans.

“. . . 30 guns . . .” Bert Westera, “Geschut voor de Batavia,” in Robert Parthesius (ed.), Batavia Cahier 2: De Herbouw van een Oostindiïvaarder (Lelystad: np, 1990), pp. 22–5.

“. . . the most complex machines yet built . . .” Pablo Pérez-Mallaína’s observation, made of sixteenth-century Spanish merchantmen, applies equally to the Dutch East Indiamen of the next century. “A multi-decked ship . . . formed a floating collection of the incredible successes achieved by human ingenuity to that time. [Such ships were] veritable showcases of the technological developments of western Europe. They were the most complex machines of the epoch.” Spain’s Men of the Sea: Daily Life on the Indies Fleets in the Sixteenth Century (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), p. 63.

Fluyt and jacht Jaap Bruijn and Femme S. Gaastra, “The Dutch East India Company’s Shipping, 1602–1795, in a Comparative Perspective,” in Bruijn and Gaastra (eds.), Ships, Sailors and Spices: East India Companies and Their Shipping in the 16th, 17th and 18th Centuries (Amsterdam: NEHA, 1993), p. 185; Davies, op. cit., p. 49.

“. . . in as little as six months . . .” Eight to 12 months was perhaps closer to the average, but still a remarkable achievement.

“. . . the VOC flogged its ships . . .” Bruijn et al., Dutch-Asiatic Shipping, I, 27–8, 95.

“virtually no demand for European goods . . .” The only significant exports at this time were lead and mercury.

The prefabricated gateway This gateway, salvaged and restored, can be viewed in the Western Australian Maritime Museum in Fremantle. See Marit van Huystee, The Lost Gateway of Jakarta (Fremantle: Western Australian Maritime Museum, 1994) and the epilogue for additional details.

Coinage on board Especially the fabled stukken van achten. These “pieces of eight,” which came from Spanish mines in South America, could be counted on to contain silver of a fixed purity and value, but with the renewal of the war against Spain in the early 1620s, supplies of this superior coinage dried up, and the VOC was forced to export less well regarded Dutch and German coinage instead. The enduring clamor for silver posed particular problems for the Gentlemen XVII in the 1620s. The occasional spectacular naval victory might secure substantial quantities of freshly minted reals for Jan Company; indeed, in 1628 Admiral Piet Hein captured the entire annual Spanish treasure fleet off the coast of Cuba. But the Batavia sailed before this fortune made its way into circulation, and carried a heterogeneous collection of coins from the principalities of northern Germany (a region that, thanks to the notorious economic madness known as the kipper- und wipperzeit [ca. 1600–1623], had acquired an unenviable reputation for producing clipped coins and debased coinage). Glamann, op. cit., pp. 41–51; Phillip Playford, Carpet of Silver: The Wreck of the Zuytdorp (Nedlands, WA: University of Western Australia Press, 1996), pp. 10, 43–5. For the kipper- und wipperzeit, see Charles Kindleberger, “The Economic Crisis of 1619 to 1623,” Journal of Economic History 51 (1991). Jan Company’s success in opening up the Indies trade eventually caused significant problems for the Dutch economy. So much silver was shipped out to the East that the States-General was forced to pass a law forbidding more than two-thirds of the bullion coming into the country to be reexported. Stan Wilson, Doits to Ducatoons: The Coins of the Dutch East India Company Ship Batavia, Lost on the Western Australian Coast 1629 (Perth: Western Australian Museum, 1989), pp. 3–11.

The need for diplomacy Kolff and van Santen, op. cit., p. 11.

Pelsaert’s return from India Ibid., pp. 29, 37–41; confession of Jeronimus Cornelisz, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 163–4]; Henrietta Drake-Brockman, Voyage to Disaster (Nedlands, WA: University of Western Australia Press, 1995), pp. 32–3.

Wollebrand Gheleijnsen de Jongh De Jongh (1594–1674) was head of the VOC settlement at Burhanpur and much less experienced in India than Pelsaert. He came originally from Alkmaar and served the VOC from 1613 to 1648. In the nineteenth century he became famous in the Netherlands as a character in a popular historical novel, but he has since been forgotten. Kolff and van Santen, op. cit., pp. 28–9.

Jacobsz and the Dordrecht Drake-Brockman, op. cit., p. 61.

Chronicle and remonstrantie Ibid., pp. 21–32; Kolff and van Santen, op. cit., pp. 1–2, 44.

Pelsaert in the United Provinces The plate showed scenes that would be familiar to the Muslim emperors—one example, recovered from the wreck site and now on display in the Western Australian Maritime Museum, is a one-foot silver jar portraying an Islamic purification ceremony. Cf. V. D. Roeper (ed.), De Schipbreuk van de Batavia, 1629 (Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 1994), pp. 10, 13.

“. . . designed to the upper-merchant’s own specifications . . .” Drake-Brockman, op. cit., p. 36.

“. . . traveling via the East Indies . . .” The prevailing winds in the Indian Ocean meant that, in normal circumstances, it was actually faster to sail to India via Java than it was to go directly there, battling adverse winds and currents on the voyage from the Cape of Good Hope to Surat.

Jacques Specx He was born in Dordrecht in 1589, the son of an immigrant from the Southern Netherlands, and sailed for the Indies as an under-merchant in December 1607. Specx traveled to Japan and opened up a new trade there, becoming the first head of the Dutch factory on the island of Hirado (1610–13 and 1614–21). Recalled to the Netherlands in 1627 to brief the Gentlemen XVII in person on Japan, he was appointed to command the main autumn fleet sailing to the Indies in the autumn of 1628. W. P. Coolhaas, “Aanvullingen en Verbeteringen op Van Rhede van der Kloot’s De Gouveneurs-Generalen Commissarissen-Generaal van Nederlandsch-Indiï (1610–1888),” De Nederlandsche Leeuw 73 (1956): 341; F. W. Stapel, De Gouveneurs-Generaal van Nederlandsch-Indiï in Beeld en Woord (The Hague: Van Stockum, 1941), p. 19.

Chapter 3: The Tavern of the Ocean

No detailed accounts survive of the first leg of the Batavia’s journey east. The ship’s journal and letters home, left under a “post office stone” at the Cape of Good Hope, seem to have been lost and certainly never reached the Netherlands; and Pelsaert’s own papers were thrown overboard by rioting sailors in the Abrolhos. Because of this, some of the details in my account have been drawn from general Dutch experience, and a description of a typical passage in the late 1620s constructed from sources such as Jaap Bruijn et al., Dutch-Asiatic Shipping in the 17th and 18th Centuries (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 3 vols., 1979–1987) and Bruijn’s “Between Batavia and the Cape: Shipping Patterns of the Dutch East India Company,” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 11 (1980).

Dordrecht The proper name of the ship was the Maeght van Dort (which means Virgin of Dordrecht), but she seems usually to have been known simply by the diminutive.

“Autumn was the busiest time of year . . .” Three main fleets sailed to Java every year—one in April, another in September, and the last at Christmas. The Christmas fleet had always been the largest. Its crews were expected to endure the miseries of the Dutch winter, but by the time they neared the equator there were generally fresh winds to carry them across the doldrums, and the fleet arrived in the East in good time to be unloaded and repaired before the return voyage began in November. Ships that left at Easter enjoyed better weather in European waters, but less favorable conditions once they reached the Atlantic. The third, September, sailing occurred while the Dutch were enjoying their great autumn festivals, and the ships that departed at this time of year were known as the kermis, or fair, fleet. The kermis fleet was a recent innovation, and in 1628 only two ships a year were sent east this early in the autumn. From this it will be seen that the fleet commanded by Jacques Specx and Francisco Pelsaert fell outside the normal run of VOC operations. Bruijn et al., Dutch-Asiatic Shipping, I, 62–3; Bruijn, “Between Batavia and the Cape” p. 252.

Initial impressions of the ship R. van Gelder, Het Oost-Indisch Avontuur: Duitsers in Dienst van de VOC, 1600–1800 (Nijmegen: SUN, 1997), p. 149. In his account of the Georgian Royal Navy, N. A. M. Rodger recounts a British boy’s first impressions of being “registered in a wooden world” a little more than a century later, which were quite similar. Life on board was quite different to life ashore in almost every aspect; sailors had their own society, manners and dress, the boy observed. “Nor could I think what world I was in, whether among spirits of devils. All seemed strange, different language and strange expressions of tongue, that I thought myself always asleep or in a dream, and never properly awake.” The Wooden World (London: Fontana, 1988), p. 37.

The Great Cabin It measured approximately 20 feet by 15 and enjoyed good head room, though—like every cabin in the stern—its steeply sloping floor made it treacherous in any sea.

Creesje Jansdochter For her use of the diminutive, see GAA, baptismal registers 40, fol. 157 (30 January 1622), which records the birth of her first son.

The life and times of Gijsbert Bastiaensz For his marriage, see GAD, marital registers 17 (1604–1618) for 10 February 1604. On the burial of his child, see GAD, burial registers 1692 for September 1613. Neither the name nor the sex of the child are specified in the register, but the only candidates for the burial are Pieter Gijsbertsz (baptized March 1610) and Hester (baptized July 1612), for whom see GAD baptismal registers 3 (1605–1619). Since a passing reference in JFP (sentence on Jeronimus Cornelisz, 28 Sep 1629) mentions another child, Willemijntgie, as the “middle daughter” of the family, it would appear that only three girls were alive at that time, and that Hester must therefore have been the child buried in 1613. For the horse-mill, see GAD, TR 747 fol. 95. The mill was acquired from Neeltgen Willemsdr, widow of the miller Cornelis Gillisz, on 7 May 1604. For the land Gijsbert acquired for grazing horses, see ONAD 23, fols. 252–252v, which records that the predikant had rented five morgen (a morgen is two and a quarter acres) from Walvaren van Arckel in the nearby village of Dubbeldam. Bastiaensz also owned some additional property through his wife in the Steechoversloot, the Dordrecht street where he and his family lived; see GAD TR 766, fol. 99v. For the predikant’s service as one of the 10 elders on the church council in Dordrecht, see GAD NKD 3, fol. 38v; NKD 3, fol. 115; ibid., fol. 158v; ibid., fol. 248; NKD 4, fol. 48. Records suggestive of Gijsbert Bastiaensz’s status in the community are relatively abundant. His name appears 15 times in the indexes to the solicitors’ records of Dordrecht; for his services in witnessing notarial acts, see, e.g., ONAD 3, fol. 21v; for his work as a member of a 1616 arbitration committee, see ONAD 53, fol. 63; and for his duties as an executor of the will of Willem Jansz Slenaer, in September 1618, see ONAD 54, fol. 23v.

“His scant surviving writings . . .” The predikant’s only known written legacy is the letter he penned in December 1629 describing his experiences on the Batavia, published in the second (1649) edition of the pamphlet Ongeluckige Voyagie, Van ’t Schip Batavia. This document is hereafter referred to as LGB.

“Gijsbert Bastiaensz was later to confess . . .” LGB.

Dordrecht noted for its orthodoxy Israel, The Dutch Republic, p. 382.

Maria Schepens For the history of the Schepens family, see GAD, Familie-archief 85, a notebook relating to the ancestors of Matthijs Balen. This book, which lacks pagination, contains a section on the genealogy of the Schepenses. From this it appears that Maria was the last of 12 children born as a result of her father’s two marriages, the first betrothal being to Elisabeth van Relegem of Brussels, in 1555, and the second to one Judith Willemsdr in about 1570–2. Pieter Schepens came from Beringe in the province of Liège and was thus probably a member of the diaspora that resulted from the persecution of the non-Catholic population of the Southern Netherlands by the Spaniards. His daughter Maria’s birth date is not known, but it was probably around 1580–1. Her eldest half-brother, Gerard Schepens (1556–1609), was also a Calvinist minister, though he did not join the Reformed Church until he was 16 years old. Gijsbert Bastiaensz stood as godfather to Gerard’s daughter Catharina in November 1609. Gerard’s son Samuel followed his father into the Reformed Church. It is also interesting to note that one of Maria’s many cousins was Emanuel Sweerts, a leading exporter of tulip bulbs who lived in Amsterdam.

The difficulties of recruitment In fact, no more than 900 predikanten served in the East in the whole 200-year history of the VOC. C. R. Boxer, The Dutch Seaborne Empire 1600–1800 (London: Hutchinson, 1965), pp. 114–7.

Bastiaen Gijsbrechtsz and his family Gijsbrechtsz was probably born some time in the 1550s, since he married in April 1575. His wife was named Haesken Jansdr. The couple had at least five children. Gijsbert, the eldest, would appear to have been born in 1576. His sister Elisabeth followed in 1580/1, but she must have died young since a second daughter of the same name was baptized in February 1588. A second son, Cornelis, was born early in 1583, and a third, called Huich or Hugo, in February 1595. Bastiaen Gijsbrechtsz died in Dordrecht at some point before 5 April 1606; his wife survived him and was not buried until April 1624. It would appear probable that she and Gijsbrechtsz moved away from Dordrecht for a while between 1588 and 1595, since there is a long gap between the births of the second Elisabeth and Hugo, and a will of Haesken’s dated 1606 mentions two further children—a son named Willem and another daughter, Agnete—who cannot be traced in the town records. Yet another son, Jan, is mentioned in a will of Hugo Bastiaensz, which was drawn up in July 1614, and he is referred to again, along with an otherwise unknown sister, Sara, in the preamble to Gijsbrecht Bastiaensz’s letter from Batavia, LGB. This takes the possible total of Bastiaen Gijsbrechtsz’s children to nine. Alternatively, he may have been Haesken’s second husband, and several of her children may have been fathered by the first. GAD, baptismal registers 1 (1574–1587), 2 (1587–1604); burial registers 1697. For Haesken’s will, see ONAD 3, fol. 423 and for Hugo’s see ONAD 20, fols. 240r–240v. Gijsbert Bastiaensz himself also goes unrecorded in the Dordrecht baptismal registers. For his age, see ONAD 27, fol. 23.

The near-bankruptcy of Bastiaensz The mill and grounds were purchased from Bastiensz’s creditors on 7 January 1629 by Jan Cornelisz and Maerten Pietersz, millers. GAD TR 766, fol. 99v.

“He applied to be a preacher in the Indies” Bastiaensz appeared before the Classis of Amsterdam, which handled the affairs of the colonial church, on 11 September 1628. He passed his examination and was immediately dispatched to the Indies. GAA, ANHK (Records of the Classis of Amsterdam) 3, fol. 91–92v.

Boudewijn van den Mijlen His last child was conceived in May 1624 (GAA baptismal registers 40, fol. 294) and he was in Batavia by September 1627 (Drake-Brockman, Voyage to Disaster, p. 65n, citing W. P. Coolhaas, JP Coen: Bescheiden Omtrent zijn Bedrijf in Indiï, VII, p. 1174), which implies a departure from the Netherlands no later than the autumn of 1626. The history of the Van den Mijlen family is recorded by J. H. van Balen in his Geschiedenis van Dordrecht, though no mention can be found there of a child named Boudewijn. The Van den Mijlens were influential members of the regent (ruling) class of the United Provinces. One branch of the family had roots in Dordrecht, but no trace has been found of any cadet line in Woerden.

“She was an orphan . . . died in infancy” Creesje’s early life has already been pieced together by Drake-Brockman, op. cit., pp. 63–9, using Dutch archival sources. Drake-Brockman was, however, unaware of the existence of Jans’s children. Their brief lives are recorded in the town archives: GAA baptismal registers 6 (Old Church), fol. 60; 40 (New Church), fols. 157, 294. There is no record of the children’s deaths in the burial registers of the town, though this is not unusual when the infants in question died very shortly after birth. While it is not impossible that one or more survived and was entrusted to the care of relatives (perhaps that of Lucretia’s elder sister, Sara, who was the godmother to two and was her only surviving relative) when the Batavia departed, the fact that Creesje remained in the East after her husband’s death (see chapter 10) strongly suggests they were dead before she ever sailed.

The life and times of Lucretia Jans Her father was Jan Meynertsz, who was buried on 16 August 1602. City tax records show that at the time of his death he and his wife had only one child, who must have been Lucretia’s elder sister, Sara. Meynertsz’s widow, Steffanie Joostendr, remarried in 1604 after observing an appropriate period of mourning. Her second husband, Dirck Krijnen, was a widower and a captain in the Dutch navy. He brought a daughter, Weijntgen, from his first marriage to join the household. Steffanie died in May 1613 and was buried, like her first husband, in Nieuwe Zijds chapel. She was laid to rest in her own tomb, a sign that she must have possessed considerable wealth. Dirck Krijnen appears to have been dead by 1620, as by that date Creesje’s affairs were in the hands of Amsterdam’s Orphan Chamber, and she had acquired a guardian in the shape of a sexton named Jacob Jacobsz, who also helped to officiate at her marriage. Her sister, Sara, married twice and had five children. Their affairs have been recorded in some detail because the two girls eventually became the heirs of their mother’s uncle, Nicholas van der Leur, and inherited a considerable sum of money. Under Dutch law the inheritance was administered by the Orphan Chamber of the City of Amsterdam. The house in which Creesje was born, then known as The White Angel, still stands and the current address is 113 Nieuwendijk, Amsterdam (Drake-Brockman, op. cit., pp. 63–9, 273). For Creesje’s marriage, see GAA marriage registers 969 (Old Church 1619–20), fol. 433, which also records her current address as the Herenstraat. At this time it was in theory possible for Dutch women to get married at the age of 12, but in practice the average age at which they wed in Amsterdam was 24 to 28 and though half of the city’s brides were aged 20 to 24, 18 was regarded as the age of sexual maturity. Creesje was thus very much a youthful bride. Gabrielle Dorren, Eenheid en Verscheidenheid: De Burgers van Haarlem in de Gouden Eeuw (Amsterdam: Prometheus/Bert Bakker, 2001), p. 41; Simon Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age (London: Fontana, 1987), p. 436.

“. . . to Arakan . . .” Drake-Brockman, op. cit., p. 65n, citing Coolhaas, op. cit. p. 1186.

Jan Pinten Confession of Allert Janssen, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 196].

Sick bays Bruijn et al., Dutch-Asiatic Shipping, I, p. 161.

Sailors’ attitude to soldiers’ deaths Charles Parr, Jan van Linschoten (New York: Thomas Y. Cromwell, 1964), p. xxxii.

Gabriel Jacobszoon and his wife Confession of Andries Jonas, JFP 24 Sep 1629 [DB 201].

Jacop Pietersz, his origins and nicknames Interrogation of Jeronimus Cornelisz, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 165]; death sentences pronounced 28 Jan 1630, ARA VOC 1099, fol. 49.

Coenraat van Huyssen For his appearance, nobility, and origins in Gelderland, see LGB; for his family background, see W. J. d’Ablaing van Giessenburg, De Ridderschap van de Veluwe (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1859), p. 78 and De Ridderschap van het Kwartier van Nijmegen (The Hague: Van Stockum, 1899), pp. 157, 164; A. P. van Schilfgaarde, Register op de Leenen van her Huis Bergh (Arnhem: Gouda Quint, 1929), pp. 253–4. There is a considerable gap in the Den Werd fief records for the period 1560–1656, which makes it impossible to state with certainty that Coenraat van Huyssen was a member of this family, but it seems likely that he was.

The Van Welderens and Nijmegen The Van Welderens were a distinguished family and had lived in Nijmegen since at least 1500. The family had produced several members of the knighthood of Gelderland, as well as a number of well-respected military officers of the rank of colonel and above. The name Gsbert was common in the family, but neither the Batavia mutineer nor his brother, Olivier, can be identified in the surviving genealogy. It is possible that the two Van Welderens were bastard sons who had been forced to seek their fortunes in the Indies. Van Welderen collection, Centraal Bureau voor Genealogie, The Hague; verdict on Olivier van Welderen, JFP 30 Nov 1629 [DB 245].

Soldiers and seamen Boxer, The Dutch Seaborne Empire, pp. 69–73; Van Gelder, op. cit., pp. 148–55.

Hammocks Although they were not yet in widespread use, at least some of the Batavia’s men had hammocks, including the High Boatswain, Jan Evertsz, and several of the soldiers. Confession of Allert Janssen, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 195].

Pelsaert’s flotilla Bruijn et al., pp. 2, 60–3.

The distance from the Texel to Batavia Bruijn, “Between Batavia and the Cape,” p. 259. This calculation takes account of the fact that Dutch ships never sailed the shortest possible route between the two points, in order to take full advantage of favorable winds.

Record passages See Bruijn et al., Dutch-Asiatic Shipping, I, 56 and F. J. Tickner and V. C. Medvei, “Scurvy and the Health of European Crews in the Indian Ocean in the Seventeenth Century,” Medical History 2 (1958): 41.

Unlucky voyages For the Westfriesland, see A. J. C. Vermeulen, “Onrust Ende Wederspannigheyt: Vijf Muiterijen in de Zeventiende Eeuw,” pp. 33–4, in Jaap Bruijn and E. S. van Eyck van Heslinga (eds.), Muiterij, Oproer en Berechting op de Schepen van de VOC (Haarlem: De Boer Maritiem, 1980). For the Zuytdorp, see Phillip Playford, Carpet of Silver: the Wreck of the Zuytdorp(Nedlands, WA:  University of Western Australia Press, 1996), pp. 45–55.

Cargo and cargo capacity Stern cabins were also used to stow the most valuable cargo on the voyage home. Kristoff Glamann, Dutch-Asiatic Trade 1620–1740 (Copenhagen: Danish Science Press, 1958), p. 24, notes that one VOC constable had to share his tiny cabin with a chest of nutmeg cakes, two small cases of birds’ nests, a pot of civet, and 15 bales of tea. See also H. N. Kamer, Het VOC-retourschip: Een Panorama van de 17de- and 18-de-Eeuwse Scheepsbouw (Amsterdam: De Bataafsche Leeuw, 1995), pp. 24–30; Bruijn et al., Dutch-Asiatic Shipping, I, pp. 43, 179–87; list of retrieved cash and goods from the wreck, ARA VOC 1098, fol. 529, published by V. D. Roeper (ed.), De Schipbreuk van de Batavia, 1629 (Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 1994), pp. 218–9; Marit van Huystee, The Lost Gateway of Jakarta (Fremantle: Western Australian Maritime Museum, 1994). Some authorities estimate the cargo capacity of a retourschip of the Batavia’s size as high as 1,000 tons.

Seasickness M. Barend-van Haeften, Op Reis met de VOC: De Openhartige Dagboeken van de Zusters Lammens en Swellengrebel (Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 1996), p. 53.

Seasickness in pigs Pablo Pérez-Mallaína, Spain’s Men of the Sea: Daily Life on the Indies Fleets in the Sixteenth Century (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins: University Press, 1998), p. 132.

Latrines Bruijn et al., Dutch-Asiatic Shipping, I, 161; Boxer, The Dutch Seaborne Empire 1600–1800, p. 76; Van Gelder, op. cit., p. 159; on the layer of filth in the bilges, see Philip Tyler, “The Batavia Mutineers: Evidence of an Anabaptist ‘Fifth Column’ within 17th century Dutch Colonialism?” Westerly (December 1970): p. 44.

Smells Van Gelder, op. cit., p. 159; N. A. M. Rodger, The Safeguard of the Sea (London: HarperCollins, 1997), p. 408; J. J. Keevil, C. S. Lloyd, and J. L. S. Coulter, Medicine and the Navy, 1200–1900 (4 vols., Edinburgh, 1957–1963), I, p. 183; M. Barend-van Haeften and A. J. Gelderblom (eds.), Buyten Gaets: Twee Burleske Reisbieven van Aernout van Overbeke (Hilversum: Verloren, 1998), p. 94.

“Fuming like hell . . .” Pérez-Mallaína, op. cit., p. 140.

Tedium Cf. Barend-van Haeften, op. cit., pp. 35, 61, 66.

Food It has been said that the proportion of salt to meat in naval stores was so high that when it was cooked in brine the salt content actually fell. The salting itself had to be done with rock salt; modern free-flowing table salts seal the meat too quickly, leaving it badly cured and with a bitter taste. Also on the menu on an East Indiaman were oatmeal, butter (which turned rancid very quickly), and Dutch cheese—the last made from the thinnest of skinned milk and so hard that sailors were known to carve spare buttons from it. C. R. Boxer, “The Dutch East-Indiamen: Their Sailors, Their Navigators and Life on Board, 1602–1795,” The Mariner’s Mirror 49 (1963): 94–5; Sue Shepherd, Pickled, Potted and Canned: The Story of Food Preserving (London: Headline, 2000), pp. 26–8, 34, 44–8, 54–6, 67, 85, 196–7, 198–9; N. A. M. Rodger, The Wooden World, pp. 82, 92. For contemporary views of potatoes, see Paul Zumthor, Daily Life in Rembrandt’s Holland (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1962), p. 71. On the occasional lethality of the hold, see The Wooden World, p. 106.

Wine, beer, and water Bruijn et al., Dutch-Asiatic Shipping, I, 160; Boxer, The Dutch Seaborne Empire, pp. 74–5; Willem Vos, “Een Rondleiding Door een Oostindiïvaarder,’ Batavia Cahier 4: Een Rondleiding door een Oostindiïvaarder (Lelystad: np, 1993), p. 4; see also Pérez-Mallaína, op. cit., pp. 141–3, 149.

“About as hot as if it were boiling” Comment by Governor-General Gerard Reynst, made on board ship off Sierra Leone in 1614 and quoted by Boxer, The Dutch Seaborne Empire, p. 74.

Pass-times Jeremy Green, The Loss of the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie Retourschip Batavia, Western Australia 1629: An Excavation Report and Catalogue of Artefacts (Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 1989), p. 177; Van Gelder, op. cit., pp. 165–6; M. Barend-van Haeften, Op Reis met de VOC, pp. 66, 72.

“Sir Francis Drake . . .” N. A. M. Rodger, The Safeguard of the Sea, p. 325.

Scarcity of possessions For example, among the dead of the Belvliet (1712), Mattys Roeloffsz left an estate comprising “a little tobacco, a few short pipes, and some odds and ends, which altogether was sold by public auction . . . for 2 guilders and 10 stuivers” and gunner Steven Dircksz “a linen undershirt and underpants, a blue-striped undershirt and pants, a watchcoat, an old mattress, an old woollen shirt, two white shirts, a blue shirt, a pair of new shoes, an old English bonnet, a handkerchief, a pair of scissors and a knife,” together worth 16 guilders, 18 stuivers. It is unlikely many of the men on the Batavia took with them more than that. Playford, Carpet of Silver, pp. 51–2; see also Barend-van Haeften, Op Reis met de VOC, pp. 60, 63.

Cornelisz discusses his ideas LGB.

Ports of call Bruijn et al., Dutch-Asiatic Shipping, I, 60–1.

Sierra Leone Adam Jones (ed.), West Africa in the Mid-Seventeenth Century: An Anonymous Dutch Manuscript (London: African Studies Association, 1994); Joe Alie, A New History of Sierra Leone (London: Macmillan, 1990), pp. 13–37; V. D. Roeper (ed.), De Schipbreuk van de Batavia, 1629 (Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 1994), p. 15.

Abraham Gerritsz Verdict on Abraham Gerritsz, JFP 12 Nov 1629 [DB 232]; list of people on board the Batavia, nd (1629–30), ARA VOC 1098, fol. 582r. [R 220].

The Wagenspoor, the equator, and the Horse Latitudes Bruijn et al., Dutch-Asiatic Shipping, I, p. 65 contains a description of the “cart-track.” Van Gelder, op. cit., pp. 60, 165–6, discusses fun and games; Green, op. cit., p. 163, describes the recovery of some of the Batavia’s pipes and tongs; the Batavia’s likely route is detailed by Jaap Bruijn and Femme S. Gaastra, “The Dutch East India Company’s Shipping, 1602–1795, in a Comparative perspective,” in Bruijn and Gaastra (eds.), Ships, Sailors and Spices: East India Companies and Their Shipping in the 16th, 17th and 18th Centuries (Amsterdam: NEHA, 1993), p. 191 and Bruijn, “Between Batavia and the Cape,” p. 255. For trapped animals, dried feces, and melted candles, see M. Barend-van Haeften and A. J. Gelderblom, op. cit., pp. 70–1. On the fear of fire at sea—it was a principal danger in the age of sail—see Pérez-Mallaína, op. cit., p. 180. On washing in urine, see Rodger, The Safeguard of the Sea, p. 107. On rats, see ibid., p. 70. On lice, see ibid., p. 132, Ships, Sailors and Spices p. 203, Barend-van Haeften and Gelderblom, op. cit., p. 53 and Van Gelder, op. cit., p. 159. On the Danish cockroach-hunt, see M. Boucher, “The Cape Passage: Some Observations on Health Hazards Aboard Dutch East Indiamen Outward-Bound,” Historia 26 (1981): 24.

Scurvy On the variety of contemporary treatments for scurvy, see, for example, the English surgeon John Woodall’s book The Surgeon’s Mate (1617). “The use of the iuice of Lemons,” Woodall wrote, “is a precious medicine and well tried, being sound and good . . . It is to be taken in the morning, two or three spoonfuls . . . and if you add one spoonefull of Aquavitae thereto to a cold stomacke, it is the better.” But the same surgeon also saw scurvy as “an obstruction of the spleen, liver and brain,” and recommended an egg flip as a certain prophylactic. Other passages in his book suggest that any astringent would be of equal facility in battling the disease—barley water with cinnamon water was another cure proposed. J. J. Keevil, C. S. Lloyd, and J. L. S. Coulter, Medicine and the Navy, 1200–1900 (4 vols., Edinburgh, 1957–1963), I, pp. 220–1. One reason for the VOC’s reluctance to investigate fruit juices as a possible cure was the contemporary belief that citrus juices dangerously thickened the blood. F. J. Tickner and V. C. Medvei, “Scurvy and the Health of European Crews in the Indian Ocean in the Seventeenth Century,” Medical History 2 (1958). See also Boucher, op. cit., pp. 26, 29–31; for the number of the Batavia’s dead, see Pelsaert’s list of people embarked on board the ship, ARA VOC 1098, fol. 582r [R 220–1].

Sharks Van Gelder, op. cit., pp. 167–8.

Homosexuality Pérez-Mallaína, op. cit., pp. 164, 170–1; CR Boxer, “The Dutch East-Indiamen,” pp. 98–9.

Women on board On the number of women, see Pelsaert’s list of people embarked on board the ship, ARA VOC 1098, fol. 582r [R 220–1]. They included Lucretia and her maid, Zwaantie Hendrix; the predikant’s wife, Maria Schepens, three of her daughters, and her maid, Wybrecht Claasen; a widow, Geertie Willemsz; a young mother called Mayken Cardoes; and a pregnant girl named Mayken Soers, who were probably the wives of noncommissioned officers or men among the soldiers or the crew; a French or Walloon girl, Claudine Patoys; Laurentia Thomas, the corporal’s wife; Janneken Gist, Anneken Bosschieters, and Anneken Hardens, all of whom were married to gunners; two sisters, Zussie and Tryntgien Fredericxs (Tryntgien was the chief trumpeter’s wife); and the wives of the cook, the provost, Pieter Jansz, and Claas Harmanszoon of Magdeburg. On the VOC’s policy toward women, and encouragement of affairs with the women of the Indies, see L. Blussé, “The Caryatids of Batavia: Reproduction, Religion and Acculturation under the VOC,” Itinerario 7 (1983): 60–1, 62–3, 65, 75; Taylor, The Social World of Batavia, pp. 8, 12–14. The quotation from Jan Coen is cited by Taylor, p. 12. The quotation from Jacques Specx is cited by Boxer, “The Dutch East-Indiamen,” p. 100.

Ariaen and Creesje Confession of Jeronimus Cornelisz, JFP 19 Sep 29 [DB 161].

The fleet at the Cape of Good Hope The identity of the ships that arrived in company at the Cape is revealed in a letter written by an anonymous survivor of the Batavia on 11 December 1629 and published in the pamphlet Leyds Veer-Schuyts Praetjen, Tuschen een Koopman ende Borger van Leyden, Varende van Haarlem nae Leyden (np [Amsterdam: Willem Jansz], 1630).

The Cape of Good Hope The English and Dutch left records of these visits in the shape of “post-office stones”—slabs of rock that they picked up on the sea shore and engraved with the names of their ships, their skippers, and the date of their arrival. Post-office stones had two functions. They marked the spots along the beach where the crew of each East Indiamen deposited ships’ papers and letters for their families at home, wrapped in waxed cloth to keep out the rain until a vessel homeward-bound could find them and take them back to Europe. And they proved the men had at least reached the Tavern of the Ocean safely—a matter of importance at a time when it was all too common for ships to vanish without trace on the passage out or home. Often the evidence of a post-office stone was all there was to show whether a vessel had been lost in the Indian Ocean or the Atlantic. Cf. R. Raven-Hart, Before Van Riebeeck: Callers at South Africa from 1488–1652 (Cape Town: C. Struik, 1967), pp. 116, 207. On the situation at the Cape in 1629, the Hottentots and the wildlife, see ibid., pp. 14–21, 23, 38, 95, 120, 122–4, 175; Bruijn and Gaastra, Ships, Sailors and Spices, p. 192; Boxer, The Dutch Seaborne Empire 1600–1800, pp. 242–6. For the fleet’s dates of arrival and departure, see Bruijn et al., Dutch-Asiatic Shipping, II, 60. For Pelsaert’s landing and the skipper’s drunkenness, see Confession of Jeronimus Cornelisz, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 161] and Pelsaert’s “Declaration in short [of] the origin, reason, and towards what intention, Jeronimus Cornelissen, undermerchant, has resolved to murder all the people, with his several plans, and in what manner the matter has happened from the beginning to the end,” JFP nd [DB 162–3]. (In the former, the Assendelft is mentioned as one of the ships that Jacobsz visited, but in the latter the vessel in question becomes the Sardam. I prefer the original account.) For the average duration of visits to the Cape in the 1620s, see Bruijn et al., Dutch-Asiatic Shipping, I, 69. The other vessel in the Batavia convoy, the Hoorn chapter’s jacht, Kleine David, was bound for Pulicat in India and does not appear to have called at Table Bay. Bruijn et al., Dutch-Asiatic Shipping, II, 60–1.

Jacobsz’s dressing-down According to Pelsaert’s journals, the skipper “excused himself that on the one hand he had been drunk, and on the other hand that he did not know that one would take a thing like that so seriously.” “Declaration in Short,” JFP nd [DB 248].

“ ‘By God . . .’ . . . It was a while before apothecary spoke . . . ‘And how would you manage that?’ ” Ibid. and confession of Jeronimus Cornelisz, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 162].

Chapter 4: Terra Australis Incognita

The only surviving material concerning the beginnings of the Batavia mutiny can be found in Pelsaert’s journals. Much of the information was extracted under torture and—given the potential impact that the mutiny was likely to have on the commandeur’s career—it is unfortunate that there is a total lack of corroboration. The accuracy of the testimonies recorded thus remains open to question; nevertheless, the account that emerges from the journals is internally consistent and—in places—so outrageous that it seems unlikely to be outright invention.

The beginnings of the Batavia mutiny “Declaration in short [of] the origin, reason, and towards what intention, Jeronimus Cornelissen, undermerchant, has resolved to murder all the people . . . ,” JFP nd [DB 248–51]; interrogation of Jan Hendricxsz, JFP 17 Sep 1629 [DB 178].

“In his journal . . .” “Declaration in Short” JFP nd [DB 249–51].

Ariaen Jacobsz’s guilt It has been suggested, by Philippe Godard, in The First and Last Voyage of the Batavia (Perth: Abrolhos Publishing, nd, c. 1993), pp. 81–5, that Jacobsz was innocent of the crime of mutiny and that events on the Batavia were solely the work of Jeronimus Cornelisz and his associates. It is true that the Dutch authorities were later unable, even with the application of torture, to conclusively establish the skipper’s involvement in the plot, and it is undoubtedly hard to explain why a full-fledged mutiny did not break out on board soon after the Batavia left the Cape, when the ship was still within easy reach of havens such as Madagascar and Mauritius. Some have also found it incredible that the skipper should allow Pelsaert to survive the open boat voyage he and Jacobsz undertook after the wrecking of the ship. See chapters 6 and 9 for a further discussion of these points. The case in favor of Jacobsz’s guilt, which I tend to accept, lies in the allegations made by known mutineers during their later interrogations. Jacobsz was accused of plotting mutiny by Jan Hendricxsz and Allert Janssen as well as Jeronimus Cornelisz, and whispers of his complicity reached both the predikant and the commandeur. None of these men, with the exception of Pelsaert and Cornelisz, had much to gain by implicating the skipper, and their accounts are strikingly consistent. In the absence of records of Jacobsz’s interrogation at Batavia, which seem to have been lost, the matter will remain for ever unresolved. Interrogation of Jan Hendricxsz, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 178]; verdict on Allert Janssen, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 198]; Specx to Gentlemen XVII, 15 Dec 1629, ARA VOC 1009, cited by Drake-Brockman, Voyage to Disaster, pp. 62–3.

“Though it was common for the masters of East Indiamen to chafe . . .” As Jan Coen, the greatest of all governors of the Indies, observed of the VOC’s skippers, “ ‘The months go by,’ they say,” ‘[and] at sea we are lords and masters, whereas we are only servants in India . . . let us see if we cannot pick up a rich prize.’ ” Cited by C. R. Boxer, “The Dutch East-Indiamen: Their Sailors, Their Navigators and Life on Board, 1602–1795,” The Mariner’s Mirror 49 (1963): 90.

Jeronimus Cornelisz’s reasons for not returning to the United Provinces We do not know what sort of relationship Cornelisz enjoyed with Belijtgen Jacobsdr, or whether he loved her. The period following the death of a young child is naturally a traumatic one for any parents, and in addition to the normal feelings of guilt and despair, there may well have been recriminations between the parents concerning the choice of a wet nurse for their son and the reasons for the poor state of their business. In Cornelisz’s absence, Belijtgen was evidently impoverished and she was forced to move to an alleyway in a much less desirable part of Haarlem (see chapter 9). It is not unreasonable to suppose that husband and wife may have parted on bad terms.

Conditions for mutiny Jaap Bruijn and E. S. van Eyck van Heslinga (eds.), Muiterij, Oproer en Berechting op de Schepen van de VOC (Haarlem: De Boer Maritiem, 1980), pp. 7–8, 21–2, 26. For an equivalent study of Spain’s Indiamen, see Pablo Pérez-Mallaína, Spain’s Men of the Sea: Daily Life on the Indies Fleets in the Sixteenth Century (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), pp. 211–2. The VOC experienced at least 44 mutinies during its two centuries in business, beginning with one on board the Middelburg in 1611. The Batavia mutiny was by far the bloodiest of them all. The rebellion that bore the closest resemblance to it occurred on board the ship Westfriesland in 1652. This mutiny was led by the upper steersman, Jacob Arentsen, who, thanks to his deficient navigation, had been passed over for promotion when the skipper died. Arentsen gathered 60 men around him and plotted to kill the other officers and sail the ship to Italy. Details of the plot leaked to the loyal officers on board; the upper-steersman was shot and four of his confederates thrown overboard. In this case, as in that of the Batavia, the presence of women on the ship was held to be a partial cause of the trouble. On the Windhond, in the eighteenth century, another group planned to seize the ship and turn pirate, and in this case they actually succeeded. Muiterij, pp. 22, 31–4.

The Meeuwtje mutiny Ibid., pp. 28–31.

Discipline on board Boxer, “The Dutch East-Indiamen,” pp. 98–9; C. R. Boxer, The Dutch Seaborne Empire 1600–1800 (London: Hutchinson, 1965), p. 71. Nevertheless, knife fights certainly did occur, and not just in the service of the VOC. One authority on the Spanish treasure fleet has estimated that half of all Iberian sailors bore the scars of such an encounter. Pérez-Mallaína, op. cit., pp. 220–1.

Keelhauling and dropping from the yard Bruijn and van Eyck van Heslinga, op. cit., pp. 23–4; Pérez-Mallaína, op. cit., p. 206.

“A man in whom Jacobsz had full confidence . . .” Another of the skipper’s relatives, a brother-in-law, also served on the Batavia. He was one of the two under-steersman. Pelsaert’s journal is not precise on this point, but the skipper must have meant either Gillis Fransz or Jacob Jansz. In any event, the man was not told of the plan to mutiny, Jacobsz confiding to Jeronimus that he could “put little trust” in him. Confession of Jeronimus Cornelisz, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 164].

Jan Evertsz Research in Monnickendam has revealed no new information about the high boatswain of the Batavia. He does not feature in the town’s scant surviving notarial archives, and Monnickendam’s registers of birth, marriage, and death do not begin until 1641, 1643, and 1650, respectively. It is possible, however, that a thorough search of the VOC archives at The Hague might reveal some details of his early service with the Company.

The office of boatswain Pérez-Mallaína, op. cit., p. 82. The high boatswain’s badge of office was usually a whistle, which he used to coordinate the activities of the crew. Although officers, many of the men who held the post were functionally illiterate, at least in English service. It has been calculated that in 1588 only one English boatswain in three could sign his name. N. A. M. Rodger, The Safeguard of the Sea (London: HarperCollins, 1997), p. 309.

“As the master is to be abaft the mast . . .” Cited by K. R. Andrews, The Last Voyage of Drake and Hawkins (London: Hakluyt Society, 2nd series vol. 142, 1972) and quoted by Rodger, op. cit., p. 309.

Recruitment of the mutineers There is very limited evidence as to the mechanics of the recruitment. Under torture, Allert Janssen later confessed that “Jeronimus has come to him on the ship and has made a proposal to him, whether he would take a hand in the seizing of the ship.” Cornelisz, himself bound and made ready for torture, confirmed it. Janssen himself also mentioned his relationship with Jacobsz. Confession of Allert Janssen, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 194–5]. For further, fragmentary, details, see confession of Jeronimus Cornelisz, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 161–2]; confession of Jan Hendricxsz [DB 162–3]; further confessions of Hendricxsz and Janssen, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 196–7]; verdict on Allert Janssen, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 198] (which mentions in passing his killing of a man in the United Provinces). Ryckert Woutersz was the man who betrayed the plot after the wreck (see chapter 5). It is worth pointing out that under later interrogation Cornelisz changed his story on many occasions, at first denying that he knew anything of the planned mutiny until after the ship was wrecked, but the considerable weight of evidence against him is compelling.

“Seducer of men” JFP 2 Oct 1629 [DB 213].

Van Huyssen, Pietersz, and the mutiny Confession of Jeronimus Cornelisz, 19 Sep 1629 [DB 162]; confession of Jan Hendricxsz, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 162–3].

Separation of the ships Drake-Brockman has written (Voyage to Disaster, p. 40) that the Batavia separated from the other ships in the convoy in a storm, but she gives no reference and I have not been able to find any confirmation in the primary sources. Indeed, according to the predikant, the Batavia simply “wandered away” from the other ships; LGB. An anonymous sailor from the ship wrote that the other four ships in the fleet “drifted away”; letter of 11 Dec 1629 in Anon., Leyds Veer-Schuyts Praetjen, Tuschen een Koopman ende Borger van Leyden, Varende van Haarlem nae Leyden (np [Amsterdam: Willem Jansz], 1630) [R 232–3]. Possibly Drake-Brockman was thinking of the storm that separated the vessels on the first day out from the Texel.

“. . . the little warship Buren . . .” She was only half the size of the Batavia and was possibly one of the new breed of fast frigates, which the Dutch had just introduced to help combat the Spanish-backed pirates of Dunkirk. Bruijn et al., Dutch-Asiatic Shipping, II, pp. 60–1; Rodger, op. cit., p. 390.

“. . . somewhere between eight and 18 . . .” Confession of Jan Hendricxsz, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 162–3].

“Without taking any thought . . .” This quotation, and some of the background material in this section of the book, is drawn from Pelsaert’s “Declaration in short, of the origin, reason, and towards what intention Jeronimus Cornilissen, under merchant, has resolved to murder all the people, with his several plans, and in what manner the matter has happened from the beginning to the end,” JFP nd (Dec 1629?) [DB 248–54].

“. . . readily accepted the caresses of the skipper . . .” Ibid.

“. . . who has done his will with her . . .” Confession of Allert Janssen, 19 Sep 1629 [DB 196].

“He took from her the name and yoke of servant . . .” “Declaration in Short,” JFP nd (Dec 1629?) [DB 250].

“I am still for the Devil . . .” Confession of Jeronimus Cornelisz, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 164].

Pelsaert’s illness No details of the symptoms survive, and there are only the vaguest hints that it was the recurrence of a fever Pelsaert had experienced before. Drake-Brockman, Voyage to Disaster, p. 32, speculates that it was malaria. This is not unlikely, but it is no more than a guess.

Frans Jansz Research in the archives of Hoorn has failed to reveal any definite trace of this man, whose name, unfortunately, was one of the most common in the Dutch Republic at this time. The solicitors’ archives of the city, though indexed, are extremely incomplete for the period up to 1660.

Barber-surgeons The duality of their role was perhaps best expressed in their equipment. Frans Jansz took with him a set of matching brass bowls, which fitted together as a pair. One, which had a semicircle matching the diameter of a man’s neck cut from one side, was for shaving his patients. The other, which had a circle matching the diameter of an arm, was for bleeding them. The bowls were recovered from the seabed in the Abrolhos in the 1970s. Jeremy Green, The Loss of the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie Retourschip Batavia, Western Australia 1629: an Excavation Report and Catalogue of Artefacts (Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 1989), pp. 95–6.

“. . . they would not cut veins instead of nerves . . .” G. A. Lindeboom, “Medical Education in the Netherlands 1575–1750,” in C. D. O’Malley (ed.), The History of Medical Education (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1970), p. 201.

Health care on board Sick parades were held on the main deck twice daily, immediately before or after morning and evening prayers. The provost summoned the sick by striking his baton against the mainmast and chanting

Kreupelen en blinden	Cripples and blind men
Komt laat U verbinden	Come and be bandaged
Boven bij den grooten mast	Gather by the mainmast
Zult gij den Meester vinden	Where you will find the master

Surgeons were naturally vulnerable to all manner of infectious diseases, and part of their standard equipment was a brush with which to remove any lice that might leap from their patients’ sick beds onto their own clothes. M. Boucher, “The Cape Passage: Some Observations on Health Hazards Aboard Dutch East Indiamen Outward-bound,” Historia 26 (1981); Jaap Bruijn and Femme S. Gaastra, “The Dutch East India Company’s Shipping, 1602–1795, in a Comparative Perspective,” in Bruijn and Gaastra (eds.), Ships, Sailors and Spices: East India Companies and Their Shipping in the 16th, 17th and 18th Centuries (Amsterdam: NEHA, 1993), p. 202; Iris Bruijn, “The Health Care Organization of the Dutch East India Company at Home,” Social History of Medicine 7 (1994): 371–2. By the second half of the seventeenth century, the typical staff of a retourschip was three surgeons, so the Batavia was in effect understaffed.

Sea exams Iris Bruijn, op. cit., p. 371. These examinations were easier to pass than the equivalent exam for surgeons intending to work on land, and were deliberately made so in order to attract candidates to the service of the VOC. Not every chamber insisted on them in any case, though at least one—the Zeeland chamber—introduced them as early as 1610.

Jan Loxe Cited by Boxer, “The Dutch East-Indiamen,” p. 97. For a while, late in the century, VOC surgeons were required to keep journals and submit them to the Gentlemen XVII on their return. This archive provides rich detail concerning the day-to-day activities of surgeons in the service of Jan Company.

Amputations The contemporary English surgeon William Clowes set out the approved method of amputating a limb as follows:

• The surgeon should secure a good strong operating table.

• One assistant should sit astride the patient, holding both arms.

• Another should sit on the leg concerned athwart the thigh, holding it in place and applying a tourniquet to deaden sensation and staunch blood flow.

• Specially sharpened saws, double-edged amputation knives, and scalpels were to be used to cut through bone and tissue, muscle, and sinew.

• Severed blood vessels were to be stoppered with plugs or powder, the vessels stitched, and the wound packed.

As little as 4 oz. of blood, Clowes added, might be lost by this method. J. J. Keevil, C. S. Lloyd, and J. L. S. Coulter, Medicine and the Navy, 1200–1900 (4 vols., Edinburgh, 1957–1963), I, p. 133.

The sea surgeon’s apothecary’s chest Ibid., pp. 32, 200; Iris Bruijn, op. cit., p. 367.

Treatment of malaria Laurence Brockliss and Colin Jones, The Medical World of Early Modern France (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), p. 160n.

Sick bays and sick visitors Bruijn et al., Dutch-Asiatic Shipping, I, p. 161. The recovery of those in the sick bay must usually have owed more to the better food they received there than to the quality of the medical treatment. Boxer, “The Dutch East-Indiamen,” p. 97; Pérez-Mallaína, op. cit., p. 183.

“Uncircumcised idiots” Boxer, The Dutch Seaborne Empire, p. 136.

13 May “Declaration in Short,” JFP nd (Dec 1629?).

Zwaantie’s pregnancy Interrogation of Allert Janssen, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 194–7].

“The skipper and Jeronimus” Ibid.

The assault on Creesje Jans Ibid.; verdict on Cornelis Janssen, alias Bean, [DB 241–3] JFP 3 Dec 1629 [DB 241–3]; letter of an anonymous survivor, December 1629, published in Leyds Veer-Schuyts Praetjen, Tuschen een Koopman ende Borger van Leyden, Varende van Haarlem nae Leyden (np [Amsterdam: Willem Jansz], 1630).

“We have an assault upon our hands” Interrogation of Allert Janssen, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 194–7]. The men were assured by Evertsz that the attack was no more than a “trick,” which may have lessened any concerns they had about participating. See also Antonio van Diemen to Pieter Carpentier, 15 Dec 1629, ARA VOC 1009, cited by Drake-Brockman, Voyage to Disaster, pp. 62–3. This letter refers to statements and enclosures concerning the assault on Creesje, which have, very unfortunately, been lost. There is thus no direct statement in the few surviving letters that mention the case or in the Batavia journals to suggest an actual assault, though the whole attack had obvious sexual overtones. Committed as it was in an exposed position, close to the Great Cabin and almost next to the steersman’s position, the blackening of Lucretia Jans can hardly have lasted for more than a few seconds, however. There would have been no time for a serious sexual assault or rape.

“Innate and incankered corruptness” That at least was Pelsaert’s view, though the boy actually killed no one during the mutiny and eventually received a relatively light punishment. Verdict on Cornelis Janssen of Haarlem, JFP 3 Dec 1629 [DB 241–3].

Cornelis Dircxsz Interrogation of Allert Janssen, 19 Sep 1629 [DB 195]. “I will not have anything to do with it, for surely something else will follow on that,” the gunner is reported to have said. “Not at all,” Evertsz is recorded as answering. “I shall take the consequences, whatever comes from it.” Unhappily for the high boatswain, this was all too true; see chapter 6.

“. . . very violently and in the highest degree . . .” “Declaration in Short,” JFP nd ?Dec 1629 [DB 250].

“This has been the true aim . . .” Ibid.

“. . . the commandeur was merely biding his time . . .” “So that when the Commandeur should put the culprits of this act into chains,” Pelsaert’s journal continues, “they would jump into the Cabin and throw the Commandeur overboard, and in such a way they would seize the ship.” “Declaration in Short,” JFP nd ?Dec 1629 [DB 250].

The plan to turn pirate For details of the pirates’ haunts in Madagascar, see Jan Rogozinski, Honour Among Thieves: Captain Kidd, Henry Every and the Story of Pirate Island (London: Conway Maritime Press, 2000), pp. 54–68 and David Cordingly, Life Among the Pirates: The Romance and the Reality (London: Little, Brown, 1995), pp. 173–5. The center of their operations was St. Mary’s Island [Isle Sainte Marie], off the northeast coast. Jacobsz and Cornelisz planned to sail there almost three-quarters of a century before Madagascar became the principal pirate base in the Indian Ocean. They would have used St. Mary’s large natural harbor as an anchorage and sailed out from there to raid the shipping lanes that ran along the Indian coast. Two of the other possible bases they discussed, Mauritius and St. Helena, were then uninhabited, though both had been stocked with animals by passing sailors who visited infrequently and used the islands to rest and replenish their supplies of food and water.

“He would act, Ariaen predicted . . .” Interrogation of Allert Janssen, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 195].

“Terra Australis Incognita” De Jode’s atlas, Speculum Orbis Terrae, notes: “This region is even today almost unknown, because after the first and second voyages all have avoided sailing thither, so that it is doubtful until even today whether it is a continent or an island. The sailors call this region New Guinea, because its coasts, state and condition are similar in many respects to the African Guinea. . . . After this region the huge Australian land follows which—as soon as it is once known—will represent a fifth continent, so vast and immense is it deemed . . .” Günter Schilder, Australia Unveiled: The Share of Dutch Navigators in the Discovery of Australia (Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1976), pp. 268–9. The name “Terra Australis Incognita” appears on Henricus Hondius’s famous world map of 1630 (ibid. pp. 320–1). Abraham Ortelius’s Types Orbis Terrarum (ca. 1600) gives “Terra Australia Nondum Cognita” (ibid., pp. 266–7), and there were several other variants.

Early theories concerning the existence of the South-Land Ibid., pp. 7–10; Miriam Estensen, Discovery: The Quest for the Great South Land (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1998), pp. 5–9.

The discovery of Australia Aborigines arrived in Australia about 70,000 years ago, sailing rafts or crossing land bridges created by the last great Ice Age. The identity of the European discoverers of the continent remains a matter of dispute. Kenneth McIntyre, The Secret Discovery of Australia: Portuguese Ventures 200 Years Before Captain Cook (Medindie, South Australia: Souvenir Press, 1977), makes a case for the Portuguese, whose bases in Timor were only a few hundred miles to the north.

“Faulty interpretation of the works of Marco Polo” The Venetian had actually been describing Malaysia and Indochina.

Beach, Maletur and Lucach J. A. Heeres, The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606–1765 (London: Luzac, 1899), p. iv; Schilder, op. cit., pp. 23, 78n; Estensen op. cit., pp. 9, 87.

The old route to the Indies Heeres, p. xiii; Estensen, p. 126.

Hendrik Brouwer Heeres, pp. xiii–xv; Estensen, pp. 126–7; Boxer, “The Dutch East-Indiamen,” p. 91.

The new Dutch route Like the Portuguese before them, the Dutch attempted to keep their new route secret. As late as 1652, the seynbrief—sailing instructions—issued to eastbound ships were handwritten rather than printed, in an attempt to keep control of this secret information. The instructions for this portion of the voyage were relatively bald—sail 1000 mijlen (about 4,600 miles) east of the Cape, and then turn north. Vessels passing close to Amsterdam or St. Paul received some intelligence of their position from the presence of seaweed in the water, but otherwise the decision as to when to make the turn was largely a matter of guesswork. The problem was exacerbated by the difficulties experienced by ships that turned north too early; those that did so found themselves on the coast of Sumatra, where the prevailing winds were easterlies that blew them away from their destination in Java. Bruijn et al., Dutch-Asiatic Shipping, I, p. 61; Boxer, “The Dutch East-Indiamen,” p. 87; Boxer, The Dutch Seaborne Empire, p. 164; Jaap Bruijn, “Between Batavia and the Cape: Shipping Patterns of the Dutch East India Company,” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 11 (1980): 256–7; Jaap Bruijn and Femme S. Gaastra, “The Dutch East India Company’s Shipping, 1602–1795, in a Comparative Perspective,” in Bruijn and Gaastra (eds.), Ships, Sailors and Spices: East India Companies and Their Shipping in the 16th, 17th and 18th Centuries (Amsterdam: NEHA, 1993), p. 188; Jeremy Green, Australia’s Oldest Shipwreck: the Loss of the Trial, 1622 (Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 1977), p. 4.

The Eendracht She was skippered by Dirck Hartog of Amsterdam, who engraved a pewter plate commemorating his discovery and left it on a wooden post atop a cliff on the island at the north end of Shark Bay that now bears his name. The plate was rediscovered by a latter skipper, William de Vlamingh, in 1696, and taken to Batavia. It is still preserved today, in Amsterdam. Schilder, op. cit., pp. 60–1, 294–5.

The Zeewolf The skipper’s name was Haeveck van Hillegom. Heeres, op. cit., pp. 10–13; Estensen, op. cit., p. 130.

“. . . long before she could turn away . . .” Dutch retourschepen had an estimated turning circle of about five and a half miles, could not use their rudder to maneuver, and were unable to steer more than six points off the wind. Phillip Playford, Carpet of Silver: the Wreck of the Zuytdorp (Nedlands, WA: University of Western Australia Press, 1996), pp. 69–70.

The Vianen Schilder, op. cit., p. 105; Estensen, op. cit., pp. 155–6.

The loss of the Tryall Brookes escaped blame for the Tryall’s loss and the death of the majority of the crew and was soon appointed to command another English East India Company ship, the Moone. He proved his dangerous incompetence by running her aground off Dover in 1625, and on this occasion was imprisoned for purposely wrecking his vessel.

The location of the Tryall’s wreck remains a matter of some dispute. Most historians and maritime archaeologists concur that she ran aground in the Monte Bello Islands, and in 1969 divers found 10 old anchors, five cannon, and some granite ballast from an old ship on Ritchie Reef, a little way to the northeast of the Monte Bellos. These were identified as coming from the Tryall. Recovery of the majority of the artifacts was rendered impossible by appalling local conditions, and more recently it has been suggested that the materials that were salvaged may not be consistent with an English East Indiaman of the 1620s. Green, Australia’s Oldest Shipwreck, pp. 1, 16–7, 21, 48–51; Graeme Henderson, Maritime Archaeology in Australia (Nedlands, WA: University of Western Australia Press, 1986), pp. 20–1; J. A. Henderson, Phantoms of the Tryall (Perth: St. George Books, 1993), pp. 24–45, 76–92; Estensen, pp. 140–1.

Latitude The sun was shot with one of a variety of navigational instruments carried by East Indiamen—astrolabes, cross-staffs and back-staffs. A VOC equipment list of 1655 suggests that a wide variety of instruments would have been carried for the use of the skipper and the upper steersman. The manifest includes three round astrolabes, two semicircular astrolabes, a pair of astrolabe catholicum(the “universal astrolabe,” used for solving problems of spherical geometry), a dozen pairs of compasses, four Jacob’s Staffs, four Davis’s quadrants and many charts and manuals.

The astrolabe, which was perfected by the Portuguese, was the most primitive of the three principal navigational tools. The Batavia carried at least four—the number that have been recovered from the wreck site. Almost certainly Ariaen Jacobsz would have taken another with him in the longboat for his voyage to Java. Green, The Loss of the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie Retourschip Batavia, p. 83.

Navigational problems The skipper of an East Indiaman was primarily responsible for navigation, but as a document dated 1703 explained, he was supposed to cooperate with others in “calculating the latitude, shooting the sun, checking the variation of the compass, altering the course, and in everything else concerning the navigation of the ship.” Boxer, “The Dutch East Indiamen,” p. 87.

An additional problem lay in the fact that while lines of latitude run parallel, those of longitude get closer together the farther a ship sails from the equator. Navigating far to the south, along the borders of the Roaring Forties, the Batavia would traverse each degree of longitude considerably more quickly than would have been the case farther north. This made it even more easy to underestimate the distance run when sailing east across the Southern Ocean.

The Batavia would have carried four varieties of hourglass—a four-hour glass, for measuring the duration of watches, and one hour, 30 minute, and 30 second glasses. Later recalculation eventually revealed that in order to measure longitude correctly, the last-named glass should have contained 28 and not 30 seconds’ worth of sand, so Jacobsz’s calculations of longitude would have been 7 percent out even if he had been in possession of every other fact he needed. The only realistic option available at the time was to calculate longitude based on magnetic variation. The Dutch savant Petrus Plancius (1552–1622) developed a system of “eastfinding” that used this principle and published a table of variations for the guidance of mariners, but his results were insufficiently precise to guarantee accuracy.

The Dutch prime meridian Playford, op. cit., p. 31. At the time, it was popularly supposed that this was the highest mountain in the world.

Logs The English system, which involved a piece of wood attached to a long line, was considerably more accurate. Knots on the line allowed English sailors to assess the distance traveled in any given time with a greater degree of certainty. Green, The Loss of the VOC Retourschip Batavia, pp. 10–11.

“. . . it is in retrospect surprising . . .” One reason for the comparative excellence of Dutch navigation was the superiority of the VOC’s charts. The Dutch made great efforts to pool all available information, and returning skippers were required to hand over their journals and charts to the Company’s official mapmakers. The first mapmaker was appointed in the same year that the VOC was founded. Boxer, “The Dutch East Indiamen,” p. 87; Boxer, The Dutch Seaborne Empire, p. 164; W. F. J. Mörzer Bruyns, “Navigation of Dutch East India Company Ships around the 1740s,” The Mariner’s Mirror 78 (1992): 143–6.

Charts Dutch charts of this period were regularly updated to incorporate discoveries. A relatively complete map of the known South-Land coast by Hessel Gerritsz, the chief cartographer of the VOC, and dated 1618 (Schilder, op. cit., pp. 304–5), actually incorporates discoveries made off Australia up to 1628 and so could not have been available to Pelsaert when the Batavia sailed from Holland in the autumn of that year. Even this showed the Abrolhos as a long, thin string of islands and thus gave no real indication of their exact position or appearance.

Frederick de Houtman He came from Gouda, where he was born in 1571, and sailed with his brother in the first Dutch fleet to reach the Indies. Captured in battle in Sumatra, he learned Malay and on his release wrote the first Dutch-Malay dictionary. De Houtman was later governor of the Moluccas (1621–3). He died in Alkmaar in 1627.

Houtman’s Abrolhos De Houtman’s only comment was: “One should stay clear of this shoal, for it lies most treacherously for ships that want to call in at this land. It is at least 10 mijlen [45 miles] long; lies at 28 degrees, 26 minutes.” J. P. Sigmond and L. H. Zuiderbaan, Dutch Discoveries of Australia: Shipwrecks, Treasures and Early Voyages Off the West Coast (Adelaide: Rigby, 1979), p. 39. See also Schilder, op. cit., pp. 75–6, 100, 112–3. The seynbriefen of the VOC did mention the existence of the islands and warned seamen to beware of them.

Chapter 5: The Tiger

The material in this chapter is based almost entirely on the surviving primary source material: Pelsaert’s journal, the letters of various survivors, and the Harderwijck MS. The original material has, however, been supplemented with archaeological evidence. Almost all the important works on this subject have been produced under the auspices of the Western Australian Maritime Museum and the National Centre of Excellence for Marine Archaeology in Fremantle, but the unpublished BSc. Hons dissertation of Bernandine Hunneybun, Skullduggery on Beacon Island (University of Western Australia, 1995) and Sofia Boranga’s work on the camps of the Zeewijk survivors in the southern Abrolhos, The Identification of Social Organisation on Gun Island (Post Graduate Diploma in Archaeology dissertation, University of Western Australia, 1998) also made interesting reading. Copies of both papers can be found in the library of the Western Australian Maritime Museum.

Weather conditions in the Abrolhos Jeremy Green, The Loss of the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie Retourschip Batavia, Western Australia 1629: An Excavation Report and Catalogue of Artefacts (Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 1989), p. 3, summarizes the islands’ weather as follows: in the summer the predominant wind is southerly, blowing at Force 5–6 40 percent of the time. There can be cyclones between January and March, and in winter the winds are variable, with occasional gales of up to Force 8–12. In spring the weather improves and the winds drop to become mild and variable. The climate is temperate and, except when it is raining, there is relatively little danger of exposure. See also Hugh Edwards, The Wreck on the Half-Moon Reef (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1970), pp. 94–5; Boranga, The Identification of Social Organization on Gun Island, p. 5; Hunneybun, Skullduggery on Beacon Island, pp. 1–5; Jeremy Green, Myra Stanbury, and Femme Gaastra (eds.), The ANCODS Colloquium: Papers Presented at the Australia-Netherlands Colloquium on Maritime Archaeology and Maritime History (Fremantle: Australian National Centre of Excellence for Maritime Archaeology, 1999), pp. 89–91.

“. . . no real undergrowth” Archaeologists are of the opinion that there would have been considerably less brush on the island in 1629 than there is now, the construction of fishermen’s homes in the period from 1946 having created a set of windbreaks that allow more plants to grow.

The survivors as a group JFP 4 June 1629 [DB 124]. The breakdown of numbers is not actually given anywhere; mine is based on a thorough examination of all the references in Pelsaert’s journals. Jeronimus Cornelisz implicitly commented on the early banding together of survivors into groups, writing that the oaths of loyalty his men swore to him “cast away all previous promises . . . including the secret comradeships, tent-ships and others.” Mutineers’ oath of 20 Aug 1629, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 148].

Proportion of foreigners This is the earliest proportion cited by Bruijn et al., Dutch-Asiatic Shipping, I, p. 155. It dates to 1637. No specific figures exist for the Batavia or the period before 1637, though from mentions in Pelsaert’s journal it is possible to identify at least eight Frenchmen, an Englishman, a Dane, a Swiss, and seven Germans among the crew. The total number of foreigners would certainly have been higher than that, but it is disguised by the commandeur’s habit of putting all names into their Dutch form.

Frans Jansz Jansz’s role as leader of the first survivors’ council is conjecture on my part; the journals are quite silent on the subject. It seems likely he took leadership of the camp, both because his seniority would have made it natural and also because there are two minuscule hints in the journals that the surgeon’s unpleasant fate (see chapter 7) was occasioned by an unresolved conflict with Jeronimus’s principal lieutenant, Zevanck, whose nature is undisclosed, but which can only have been based on some claim, on Jansz’s part, to a degree of authority over the survivors. Since the surgeon was never a member of Cornelisz’s council, it seems most logical to assume that he had been, rather, the leader of the council that Jeronimus deposed.

VOC hierarchy See the salary scales (for 1645–1700) printed by C. R. Boxer, The Dutch Seaborne Empire 1600–1800 (London: Hutchinson, 1965), pp. 300–2. Following these scales, and taking the lower estimates printed to allow for some inflation between 1629 and 1645, it would appear that relative seniority and the monthly rates of pay for the principals on the Batavia would have been roughly as follows:

NAME	RANK	MONTHLY PAY
Francisco Pelsaert	Upper-merchant	80–100 guilders
Araien Jacobsz	Skipper	60 guilders
Jeronimus Cornelisz	Under-merchant	36 guilders
Claes Gerritsz	Upper-steersman	36 guilders
Frans Jansz	Surgeon	36 guilders
?	Ship’scarpenter	30 guilders
Jacob Jansz Hollert	Under-steersman	24 guilders
Aris Jansz	Surgeon’s mate	24 guilders
?	Carpenter’s mate	24 guilders
Jan Evertsz	High boatswain	22 guilders
Reyndert Hendricxsz	Steward	20 guilders
?	Constable	20 guilders
?	Cook	20 guilders
?	Sailmaker	18 guilders
David Zevanck	Assistant	16 guilders
Jan Willemsz Selyns	Upper-cooper	16 guilders
Pieter Jansz	Provost	14 guilders
Harman Nannings	Quartermaster	14 guilders
Gabriel Jacobszoon	Corporal	14 guilders
Jacop Pietersz Steenhouwer	Lance corporal	12 guilders
Rutger Fredricx	Locksmith	12 guilders
Coenraat van Huyssen	Cadet	10 guilders

Able seamen were paid about 10 guilders a month, ordinary seamen 7 guilders, private soldiers 9 guilders, and ship’s boys 4 guilders a month. Among the sailors and craftsmen, the relative importance of carpenters—who were vital to the integrity of a retourschip in the course of the long voyage east—is particularly striking.

Councils V. D. Roeper, De Schipbreuk van de Batavia, 1629 (Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 1994), pp. 30–1; Henrietta Drake-Brockman, Voyage to Disaster (Nedlands, WA: University of Western Australia Press, 1995), pp. 11–12.

Supply of water JFP 5 June 1629 [DB 125].

“Begun to coalesce . . .” This is supposition on my part, but based on the typical behavior of survivors after a shipwreck. See, for example, the behavior of the Medusa survivors—members of the crew of a French transport stranded off the coast of Mauritania in 1816—described by Alexander McKee, Death Raft: the Human Drama of the Medusa Shipwreck (London: Souvenir Press, 1975), pp. 117–9.

Suffering caused by lack of water Harderwijk MS [R 22–4]; JFP 16 Sep 1629 [DB 145]; Nathaniel Philibrick, In the Heart of the Sea: The Epic True Story That Inspired Moby Dick (London: HarperCollins, 2000), pp. 127–9.

Deaths from thirst Harderwijk MS [R 22]; anonymous Letter of, 11 Dec 1629, published in Leyds Veer-Schuyts Praetjen, Tuschen een Koopman ende Borger van Leyden, Varende van Haarlem nae Leyden (np [Amsterdam: Willem Jansz], 1630) [R 233]. The author says the dead consisted of nine children and one woman.

“Our own water . . .” LGB.

Wybrecht Claasen She presumably came from Dordrecht, like her employer. A very large proportion of people from the town earned a living from the sea, which may explain how the girl came to swim so well. Harderwijk MS [R 22–3].

The breakup of the wreck “Declaration in short [of] the origin, reason, and towards what intention, Jeronimus Cornilissen, under-merchant, has resolved to murder all the people . . .,” JFP nd [DB251], anonymous letter of 11 December 1629, op. cit. [R 233].

“Taken by surprise” Letter of 11 December, op. cit. refers to people “swimming naked through the surf.”

“. . . the wrecking went on . . .” JFP 17 Sep 1629 [DB 145].

Jeronimus comes ashore JFP 17 Sep 1629; “Declaration in Short,” op. cit. [DB 145, 158, 251].

Southeast wind JFP 12–14 June 1629 [DB 129].

The camp The position of the Batavia survivors’ camp was revealed by test diggings conducted in 1992. Green, Stanbury, and Gaastra, The ANCODS Colloquium, p. 111.

There is little in the ship’s journals to indicate how the survivors organized themselves, but the campsites left by the crew of the Zeewijk, another retourschip lost in the Abrolhos (see epilogue), have been excavated, and they offer many clues as to how the Batavia’s men would have set up their camp.

One key feature of the Zeewijk’s camp was the way in which the officers retained control of the supplies salvaged from the wreck of their ship and kept their distance from the men. They pitched their tent on their island’s highest point and kept all the salvaged victuals there. The soldiers occupied a separate site about 100 yards along the beach, but both the common sailors and the petty officers were kept farther away, on the far side of the soldiers’ camp, apparently because they posed a significant threat to the officers’ authority and even their lives.

The example of the Zeewijk survivors also provides some clues as to what happened next. Despite the presence of both the skipper and the upper-merchant, the shortage of supplies meant that discipline was a constant problem on the islands. The petty officers and the seamen sometimes refused to accept their officers’ authority to ration the supplies, and on at least three occasions near-mutinies forced the distribution of stores that should really have been rationed.

The Zeewijk’s officers and the VOC officials, who were outnumbered eight to one by the rest of the survivors, seemed to have solved this problem by forming a loose alliance with the soldiers. Analysis of the animal bones found at the various sites suggests that the retourschip’s troops enjoyed significantly better rations than the petty officers, whose main diet was sea lion. In exchange for these privileges, the soldiers provided an armed guard for the supply tent. Even so, the officers’ authority over the sailors remained extremely fragile. The petty officers retained control of the ship’s boat, and used it to roam freely around the islands. There is no sign that they stockpiled food at their main camp site, and it seems likely that they used their superior experience and skills to catch and eat a good deal of fresh food for themselves.

It seems unlikely that the Batavia survivors’ camp was even this well ordered. The Zeewijk carried no women and no passengers, and the officers stayed on the islands with the men. The Batavia survivors, on the other hand, were a more disparate group and had no natural leaders. If the example of the Zeewijk is any guide, discipline would quickly have broken down and the petty officers would have become almost impossible to control.

The first of the near-mutinies referred to above occurred when the petty officers and common hands forced the distribution of 1.5 aums of wine among the men; on another, “all the rabble as well as the petty officers” ordered an aum of wine to be distributed equally among them, as well as five Edam cheeses, six kegs of salted fish and some tobacco. On the third occasion, the high boatswain, the gunner and the boatswain’s mate took bread and pork barrels from the store and gave each of the petty officers 12 loaves. The officers themselves were not immune to such temptation; one day the longboat was seized by an officer and several petty officers and rowed to a distant point, where the men on board consumed a large quantity of food, drink, and tobacco rather than share it with their colleagues. Finally, when the Zeewijk’s longboat set out for Java, the composition of her crew was decided by the drawing of lots, a procedure insisted on by the men. Boranga, op. cit., pp. 6–9, 31–3, 93–104; Edwards, op. cit., pp. 107–8, 110–2, 118–9.

208 people on the island Anonymous letter of 11 Dec 1629 [R 232].

Water and wine from the wreck JFP 17 Sep 1629 [DB 145].

Store tent There is no mention of such a tent in the available sources, but as such a tent was a feature of practically every shipwreck survivors’ camp, including that of the Zeewijk, it seems safe to assume that there would have been one on Batavia’s Graveyard, too.

Water ration This estimate is calculated from the standard daily ration, which was 3 pints (1.5 liters) of water. R. van Gelder, Het Oost-Indisch Avontuur: Duitsers in Dienst van de VOC, 1600–1800 (Nijmegen: SUN, 1997), p. 158.

Exhaustion of the food supplies Again, there is no explicit mention of this in the journals, but it is my impression that earlier authors have probably understated the effects of food shortages on Batavia’s Graveyard. Even at the end of the mutiny, when the numbers of people on the island had been reduced to only 50 or so, strict rationing was still in force there (Interrogation of Jeronimus Cornelisz, JFP 17 Sep 1629 [DB 159]), and Wiebbe Hayes and his men were surprised at how gaunt their attackers were (anonymous letter of 11 Dec 1629 [R 233]). Shortages probably began within the first fortnight; the Zeewijk survivors wiped out the sea lion population on their much larger island within 10 days of coming ashore (Boranga, op. cit., p. 34). There were fewer than 100 of them (Edwards, op. cit., p. 103), and the position of the Batavia survivors was surely thus even more desperate. The “seal’s meat” noted as being present in the predikant’s tent six weeks later (Verdict on Andries Liebent, JFP 30 Nov 1629 [DB 244]) probably came from elsewhere, after the party’s mobility had been restored by the construction of the rafts.

“. . . they deferred to him.” This is speculation on my part, but Jeronimus’s outburst on 4 July, when the council defied him (see below), seems typical of a man who had come to expect that his proposals would be obeyed without question.

Cornelisz joins the Council Philippe Godard states (The First and Last Voyage of the Batavia (Perth: Abrolhos Publishing, nd, c. 1993), p. 132, that Jeronimus was never a member of the first ship’s council, but Pelsaert, in his “Declaration in Short,” op. cit. [DB 251], says specifically that the council was “his” on 4 July, i.e., before the dismissal of the first set of councillors and the appointment of Zevanck, Van Huyssen, and Pietersz to the group. Bastiaensz, in LGB, wrote that the under-merchant was “elected chief.” It would, indeed, have been remarkable—given his seniority—if the apothecary had not become the leader of the raad.

Pelsaert’s clothing JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 146].

“He seemed to be everywhere . . .” This behavior is inferred from Bastiaensz’s statements and from modern insights into the psychopathic personality (see epilogue). Exactly what the under-merchant really did during this period was not recorded and cannot now be known.

“This merchant . . .” LGB.

Ryckert Woutersz “Declaration in Short,” op. cit. [DB 251]. Jeronimus alleged that Woutersz had spoken up “on the day that the ship Batavia was wrecked”; confession of Jeronimus Cornelisz, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 162]. On the obscure fate of this mutineer, see chapter 9.

Hopes that Ariaen would dispose of Pelsaert and flee to Malacca Interrogation of Jan Hendricxsz, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 164].

Cornelisz’s estimate of the jacht’s crew Summary of the interrogation of Jeronimus Cornelisz, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 153].

The plan to seize the rescue ship JFP 17 Sep 1629 [DB 143]; JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 152–3].

Seductive LGB.

Van Welderen’s age Gsbert was younger than his brother, Olivier, who was 22. Verdict on Olivier van Welderen, JFP 30 Nov 1629 [DB 245]

Rutger Fredricx Interrogation of Rutger Fredricx, JFP 20 Sep 1629 [DB 205].

“Appear not to have been approached . . .” There is an evident discrepancy between the number of mutineers said to have been active on the Batavia (not more than 12–15) and the numbers who revealed themselves in the Abrolhos (25–35).

David Zevanck Unfortunately, nothing at all is known of Zevanck’s background. He presumably came from Zevanck (modern Zevang), which is a rural area a little to the north of Amsterdam, but without more detailed information it would be useless—or at least extremely time-consuming—to try to trace his antecedents; nor has anyone yet found his name mentioned in the earlier records of the VOC. It is, indeed, quite possible that he was making his maiden voyage on the Batavia. That he came from a good family is almost certain—on several occasions he is referred to as “Van Zevanck” in the journals, which suggests his family owned some property and had at least pretensions to being counted among the gentry of the Netherlands—but all that can be said with any certainty is that he must have been educated and was probably young.

“Acting very subtly . . .” “Declaration in Short” [DB 251].

The mutineers’ tents Ibid. [DB 252].

“Discouraged the ship’s carpenters . . .” This is interpretation, but it is difficult to imagine what else Pelsaert might have meant by his passing reference to the under-merchant “practising devilish shifts in such a manner as to prevent them going to Batavia.” “Declaration in Short” [DB 251]. In 1727, the survivors of the Zeewijk built quite a large one-masted sloop, the Slopje, from the wreckage of their retourschip and successfully sailed her to Java.

“He said that the number . . .” LGB.

“Nothing but some biscuit barrels” There was also a note written by Pelsaert, which was found tucked beneath a barrel. From this, the survivors learned what they had already guessed; that their commandeur had sailed on to the South-Land in search of water. JFP 6 June 1629 [DB 127].

The naming of Traitors’ Island The derivation of the name is not actually explained in Pelsaert’s journals. For the naming and the location of this island, see Green. et al, The ANCODS Colloquium, pp. 99–100.

The Seals’ Island party The actual figure is nowhere given in the journals but seems to have been 45; 18 men and boys died on the island on 15 July, and 16 women, boys, and children on 21 July, and we are told three boys were captured and about eight escaped. Another estimate does suggest the party was larger—perhaps 60 strong—but this has to be wrong; there must have been about 130 people left on Batavia’s Graveyard when the killings began, if the account of the killings given in JFP is correct. For the larger estimate, see anonymous letter of 11 Dec 1629 [R 232].

Jeronimus’s promise to the people of Traitors’ Island Interrogation of Jan Hendricxsz, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 179].

“Toward the end of the third week of June” Hayes and his men were on the islands about 20 days before finding water (JFP 20 Sep 1629 [DB 149]), landing first on what was later known as High Island and then, when they were unable to find wells, wading across the mudflats to what became Wiebbe Hayes’s Island (LGB). Their signals appear to have been noticed on 9 July, when Pieter Jansz and his party abruptly left Traitors’ Island for the high islands and had to be intercepted by Cornelisz’s men (Verdict on Jan Hendricxsz, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 183]). This would give an approximate date of 20 June for Hayes’s arrival on the High Land itself.

“High Land” The phrase comes from LGB.

“Some of the boldest soldiers . . .” Ibid.

Wiebbe Hayes The baptismal and marriage records of Winschoten, in the Provincial Archive of Groningen, date only to 1646, and the burial registers only begin in 1723; no traces of Hayes’s early life have yet emerged. The files of Winschoten marriage contracts date to 1608, but Hayes’s name does not appear among them. A check on signatures in the surviving solicitors’ records for the period 1624–28 also produced nothing, but Hayes may simply have been too poor and insignificant to have had any need of solicitors. Alternatively, he may not have come from Groningen. “Wiebbe”—pronounced “Webb-uh”—is a Frisian name, which was unusual even for the time and is now obsolescent, so perhaps Hayes and Cornelisz had that origin in common. If he survived to return to the Netherlands, Hayes might have been rich enough to leave more trace of his activities, but no sign of him has yet emerged. There is, for example, no record in the local burial registers of a Wiebbe Hayes ever being buried in Amsterdam.

Hayes known to Cornelisz The under-merchant later wrote to the French mercenaries in Hayes’s party that he had “a particular liking for and trust in Wiebbe Hayes.” His letter was intended to split Hayes’s Defenders, and Cornelisz would have found it important to have retained at least the veneer of truthfulness in setting out his case. It seems unlikely that he would simply have lied outright about their acquaintance, as this would have cast doubt on some of his other statements. Jeronimus to Jean Hongaar et al., 23 July 1629, in JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 149].

Jeronimus’s plans for the rescue ship “His procedures,” wrote Francisco Pelsaert, “could neither exist nor be acceptable to God or Worldly Power.” But to Jeronimus they were merely common sense. JFP 3 Dec 1629 [DB 239]. For Cornelisz’s thoughts, see JFP 17–28 Sep 1629 [DB 143, 153, 160]. On the number of men the jacht would carry, see JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 153].

Abraham Hendricx He was possibly, but not certainly, the same Hendricx who had taken part in the assault on Creesje Jans.

“On 4 July . . .” Pelsaert’s “Declaration in Short,” JFP nd [DB 251].

Appointment of the new council Ibid.

“He proved this point immediately . . .” Pelsaert gives 4 July as the date of the sentencing of these men (Verdict on Jeronimus Cornelisz, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 173]), but 5 July as the date of their executions (Verdict on Daniel Cornelissen, JFP 30 Nov 1629 [DB 240]) and also as the day on which Zevanck and the others joined the council (“Declaration in Short” [DB 251]), while clearly implying that the carpenters were sentenced by Cornelisz’s raad. One or other of these journal entries must be incorrect. See also verdict on Hans Frederick, JFP 30 Nov 1629 [DB 244].

The first covert drownings The date of this incident appears to have been 4 July, and not 3 July as Drake-Brockman suggests, which would have put the murders before Cornelisz ordered the execution of Hendricx and Ariaensz. Van Os’s interrogation makes it clear that the murders were ordered on 3 July but not committed until the following day, which probably suggests that Jeronimus knew he was going to charge Hendricx and Ariaensz with theft well in advance. Jan Cornelis was the only Dutchman; he came from Amersfoort, in the province of Utrecht, while Liebent and Janssen, an ordinary private, were Germans and Wensel was a Dane. Interrogation of Lenert van Os, JFP 23 Sep 1629 [DB 186]; verdict on Mattys Beer, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 192]; verdict on Rutger Fredricx, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 206–7]; verdict on Daniel Cornelissen, 30 Nov 1629 [DB 240]. Pelsaert’s various accounts of these killings are somewhat confused. Some state that the men were tied up on the raft, others that they were taken to Traitors’ Island, tied up there, and dragged into the sea to drown.

Murder of Hans Radder and Jacop Groenwald Verdict on Jan Hendricxsz, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 182–3]; verdict on Mattys Beer, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 192–3]; interrogation of Rutger Fredricx, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 205].

Andries de Vries is spared Verdict on Mattys Beer, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 192–3]; interrogation of Rutger Fredricx, JFP 20 Sep 1629 [DB 205].

Signal beacons “Declaration in Short,” JFP nd [DB 252]. Bastiaensz, in LGB, adds that Jeronimus “affected not to see” the fires.

Massacre of the people from Traitors’ Island I assume that Jansz’s departure was caused by sight of Hayes’s beacons, though this is not mentioned in the journals; Pelsaert is clear that the provost’s party left the island before they were attacked, and it seems clear that they would not have departed unless they had indeed seen signals. The coincidence of the known date of the massacre—9 July—and the statement that Hayes’s men, who must have been put onto the High Land sometime around 20–30 June, had searched “for 20 days” for water seems to fit this supposition. Exactly when the provost was killed is not stated, either, but I think the journals would have mentioned if he had been one of the otherwise anonymous men who jumped into the sea and drowned, and since he did not survive long enough to come ashore on Batavia’s Graveyard I have assumed he met his death in the shallows in the manner described.

In general, the account of the massacre of Jansz’s men is perhaps the most fragmented to be found anywhere in Pelsaert’s journals. There is no single coherent account of the episode; instead, important details lie scattered throughout the transcripts of many separate interrogations and verdicts. See chiefly, interrogation of Jeronimus Cornelisz, JFP 22 Sep 1629 [DB 167]; verdict on Jeronimus Cornelisz, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 173]; interrogation of Jan Hendricxsz, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 179]; verdict on Jan Hendricxsz, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 183]; interrogation of Andries Jonas, JFP 24 Sep 1629 [DB 200]; verdict on Andries Jonas, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 203]; interrogation of Rutger Fredricx, JFP 20 Sep 1629 [DB 205]; verdict on Rutger Fredricx, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 207]; verdict on Lucas Gellisz, JFP 12 Nov 1629 [DB 233].

Andries Jonas Interrogation of Andries Jonas, JFP 24 Sep 1629 [DB 200].

The declarations of the minor mutineers It can hardly be argued that these men were anxious to become killers, since practically none of them took any part in the violence in the archipelago.

Frans Jansz changes loyalties Because Jansz never signed the mutineers’ oaths (see chapter 7), his involvement with Cornelisz emerges only from vague hints in the journals and in his participation in the massacres on Seals’ Island (below).

Hans Hardens and his family The murder of Hilletgie took place on 8 July. JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 146]; verdict on Jan Hendricxsz, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 183]. Hardens played no active part in any of the events of the mutiny, and there is no record that he ever killed or wounded anyone. Yet he signed both the mutineers’ oaths, in the first instance above Rutger Fredricx, Cornelis Pietersz, and Lucas Gellisz, and in the second behind Fredricx and Gellisz, but ahead of Pietersz, Olivier van Welderen, and Jan Pelgrom. His name is conspicuously absent from the list of the “most innocent” minor mutineers that Jeronimus supplied to Pelsaert. Finally, he was one of the crew who attempted to capture the Sardam when the jacht eventually appeared in the Abrolhos (see chapter 8). From this it would appear that he was not only one of the earlier recruits to Cornelisz’s cause, but also one of the more active. Pelsaert gave no interpretation of the reasons for Hilletgie Hardens’s death; this is my own. Interrogation of Jeronimus Cornelisz, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 146, 165, 166].

“Written unbreakable agreement . . .” This quotation comes directly from the text of the oath sworn by all the mutineers on 12 July 1629 (see chapter 7). JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 147].

“The whole day long it was their catch-call . . .” LGB.

Andries de Vries and the killing of the sick Interrogation of Jeronimus Cornelisz, JFP 22 Sep 1629 [DB 167]; verdict on Jeronimus Cornelisz, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 173–4]; verdict on Allert Janssen, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 198–9]. Little is known of how Jeronimus and his men solved the problem of disposing of these bodies. In the early seventeenth century, medical wisdom held that corpses produced a poisonous miasma capable of causing plague and fever, and the mutineers evidently made arrangements to bury at least some of their victims, scraping out grave pits in the middle of the island, where the soil was deepest. These shallow graves—none was more than about two feet deep—held up to seven or eight dead bodies. When men were killed close to the water, the mutineers may well have thrown their corpses into the sea. Interview with Dr. Alanah Buck, Western Australian Centre for Pathology and Medical Research, Perth, Australia, 13 June 2000.

Jan Pinten This murder took place on 10 July. Interrogation of Jan Hendricxsz, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 179].

Sick cabin boy This murder took place at the same time as the killings of Van Den Ende and Drayer (below), with whom the sick boy shared a tent. Ibid. [DB 180].

Hendrick Claasz This murder took place on 14 July. In Janssen’s recollection, “Jeronimus himself came and called him out of his tent and has said, ‘Go get Hendrick Claasz of Apcou, carpenter, out of his tent and say he must come to me, and when he comes outside, you, with the help of De Vries, must cut his throat,’ which they have done.” Interrogation of Allert Janssen, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 196].

Hans Frederick and Oliver van Welderen Verdicts on Frederick and Van Welderen, JFP 30 Nov 1629 [DB 244–5]. Frederick and Hendricxsz both came from Bremen.

Murder of Van den Ende and Drayer Interrogation of Jan Hendricxsz, JFP 19 Sep–28 Sep 1629 [DB 179–81]; verdict on Lucas Gellisz, JFP 12 Nov 1629 [DB 233].

“He, together with David Zevanck . . .” Interrogation of Jan Hendricxsz, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 180].

“Have murdered or destroyed” Verdict on Jeronimus Cornelisz, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 172–3].

Diet of the Batavia survivors Pelsaert’s journals scarcely concern themselves with the survivors’ diet. If the people from the Batavia were typical of Dutch sailors of the era, however, it would appear that, given the choice, they would eat their familiar preserved meats first, then sea lion and finally birds or fish. Clear distinctions seem to have existed between the diets of officers (for which, in the case of the Batavia, read “mutineers”) and those of the common people in the case of shipwreck. The diet of the Zeewijk survivors—as reconstructed by Boranga (op. cit., pp. 97, 103), who believed she was able to positively identify 76 percent of the animal bones recovered from the several camp sites on Pelsaert Island—indicates that the food consumption of the various groups stranded on the island after the retourschip went aground there in 1727 was as follows:

%	CASK BEEF	CASK PORK	SEA LION	BIRDS	FISH
Officers	60	17	22	1	-
Petty officers	12	12	72	3	1
Soldiers	24	17	49	9	1

This analysis no doubt understates the importance of fish in the diet of all three groups—their bones are less likely to be detected in an excavation—and a preference for familiar fare over fresh meat is apparent, but the general pattern is clear enough. The campsites of the common hands were not identified, and Boranga theorizes that they were probably split into small groups and kept some distance from the main camp, in an area subsequently destroyed by guano mining. The archaeologists’ discoveries contradict assertions in journals kept by two of the Zeewijk’s surviving officers that food was distributed equally to all parties on the island. However, these same journals mention that ordinary sailors—the “common hands,” who were equivalent to the VOC loyalists on Batavia’s Graveyard—were the first to catch and eat birds, which certainly suggests that their rations were the most meager of all.

Freedom of movement All Pelsaert’s notes concerning the men permitted to crew the makeshift rafts and yawls refer to men who had signed oaths of allegiance to Cornelisz.

Morning stars The remains of a weapon of this description were found early in 2001, during a metal detector search of Seals’ Island conducted on behalf of a Perth-based TV production company called Prospero Productions. The nails and the rope were both long gone, but the deadly purpose of the carefully worked lump of lead could not be doubted. Interview with Ed Punchard of Prospero Productions, 7 May 2001.

Case of jewels “List of cash and goods retrieved from the wreck,” ARA VOC 1098 fol. 529r–529v [R 218–9]. In various places in a single long letter written over several weeks, Antonio van Diemen valued the contents of the case at between 20,000 and 60,000 guilders, which has led to speculation that the jewel-studded golden frame was looted at some point. However, the estimates rise, rather than fall, in the course of the letter, so this theory looks untenable. The highest of the estimates appears the most reliable. Van Diemen to Pieter Carpentier, 30 Nov–10 Dec 1629 [DB 42, 49, 51]

The Great Cameo The Gentlemen XVII had to be content with sight of a sketch of the piece. For profit, see VOC contract with Boudaen, 18 Dec 1628 [DB 88]. The specified commission was 28 percent of the sale price. See also A. N. Zadoks-Josephus Jitta, “De lotgevallen van den grooten camee in het Koninklijk Penningkabinet,” Oud-Holland 66 (1951): 191–211; Drake-Brockman, op. cit., pp. 84–93. Drake-Brockman also suggests that a valuable agate vase, the property of Peter Paul Rubens (and now in the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore) was among Pelsaert’s trade goods. Her interpretation of the rather obscure contemporary evidence for this assertion has been followed by later authors, but in my view it is not possible to state with any certainty that the Rubens vase was ever in the Abrolhos. For the known history of the vase, see Marvin Chauncey Ross, “The Rubens Vase: Its History and Date,” Journal of the Walters Art Gallery 6 (1943): 9–39.

“For they were led to thinking . . .” Interrogation of Andries Jonas, JFP 27 Sep 1629 [DB 202].

Mutton birds Edwards, op. cit., p. 169. The term “mutton bird” is actually an eighteenth-century colloquialism, which probably refers to the taste of the birds’ flesh. It was invented by early British settlers on Norfolk Island. Other emigrants knew the birds as “flying sheep.” In Western Australia the mutton bird is Puffinus tenuirostris, the short-tailed shearwater; in New Zealand, the phrase refers to P. griseus, the sooty shearwater.

The first wave of killings on Seals’ Island Interrogation of Jan Hendricxsz, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 180]; verdict on Jan Hendricxsz, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 183–4]; interrogation of Lenert van Os, JFP 23 Sep 1629 [DB 187]; verdict on Abraham Gerritsz, JFP 12 Nov 1629 [DB 232]; verdict on Claas Harmansz, JFP 12 Nov 1629 [DB 233–4].

“Kill most of the people . . .” Verdict on Jan Hendricxsz, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 183–4].

“Lenert, immediately after he arrived . . .” Interrogation of Lenert van Os, JFP 23 Sep 1629 [DB187]; verdict on Jan Hendricxsz, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 183–4].

“Eight men . . .” Pelsaert names only five (Interrogation of Jan Hendricxsz, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 180]), but Jansz, in his letter of 11 December 1629, says 10, and he is probably closer to the truth. The numbers add up as follows: there were about 45 people on the island, it appears, and 18 were definitely killed in the first assault. During the second attack all four women were killed, and 12 of the 15 cabin boys; two of the other three were dealt with later (see below), leaving eight people unaccounted for.

The second wave of killings on Seals’ Island Verdict on Mattys Beer, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 193]; interrogation of Andries Jonas, JFP 24 Sep 1629 [DB 200–1]; verdict on Andries Jonas, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 203]; verdict on Jan Pelgrom, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 210].

Jan Pelgrom Pelgrom, a cabin boy, is variously referred to in Pelsaert’s journals as “Jan van Bemmel” and, more usually, “Jan Pelgrom de Bye.” “Bemmel” is Zaltbommel, on the River Waal, which was known simply as Bommel in the seventeenth century, and Jan of the Batavia seems to have been a minor member of a patrician family called Pelgrom de Bye, whose senior branch was based just to the south, in Bois-le-Duc, Northern Brabant. The first recorded member of this family came there from Bommel in 1375. Jan was a common name in the family (in our Jan Pelgrom’s time one of the aldermen of Bois-le-Duc was named Jan Pietersz Pelgrom de Bye). The Jan of the Batavia may have been a member of a cadet branch, or perhaps a bastard son forced to seek his fortune in the East. See Geschiedenis van het Geslacht Vaasen, vol. 8 (unpublished MS, nd, twentieth century), Centraal Bureau voor Genealogie, The Hague, mainly fol. 141–52.

“On the 18 July . . .” Verdict on Andries Jonas, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 203]. I have inserted the word heavily from Jonas’s interrogation of 24 Sep 1629 [DB 201]; the two versions of the event are otherwise more or less identical.

The massacre of the cabin boys Interrogation of Mattys Beer, JFP 23 Sep 1629 [DB 190].

Gerritsz’s killing The dead boy’s name was Frans Fransz, and he came from Haarlem. Verdict on Abraham Gerritsz, JFP 12 Nov 1629 [DB 232].

Murder of the three surviving boys Verdict on Claes Harmansz, JFP 12 Nov 1629 [DB 233–4]; verdict on Isbrant Isbrantsz, JFP 30 Nov 1629 [DB 246]. Isbrantsz was unfortunate; two other unwilling mutineers—the steward, Reyndert Hendricx, and Gerrit Willemsz of Enkhuizen, a sailor—were with him in the yawl, but they were not required to participate in any killing and escaped unpunished when the mutiny was crushed.

“Like some Roman tyrant” Cornelisz’s contemporaries compared him with Nero; his abandonment of the Seals’ Island party was a deed “as Nero or some other tyrant would have thought of” for the writer of the letter of 11 Dec 1629 [R 232].

Deschamps as a clerk In fact, Pelsaert’s journals state in several places that Deschamps was not an assistant but an under-merchant (Verdict on Salomon Deschamps, JFP 12 Nov 1629 [DB 231])—an unexplained anomaly, given that this was Jeronimus’s rank, and retourschepen were supposed to carry only a single under-merchant.

Salomon Deschamps and Mayken Cardoes’s child Ibid.

Number of deaths “List of those on board the Batavia,” ARA VOC 1098, fol. 582r [R 220].

“To have murdered or destroyed . . .” Verdict on Jeronimus Cornelisz, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 172–3].

Gijsbert Bastiaensz and his family LGB. Bastiaen: GAD baptismal registers 3 (1605–1619), June 1606; interrogation of Wouter Loos, JFP 24 Sep 1629 [DB 225]. Pieter: GAD baptismal register 3, March 1610. Johannes: Ibid., December 1615. Roelant: GAD baptismal registers 4 (1619–41), May 1621. Judick: GAD baptismal registers 3, January 1608. Willemijntge: Ibid., October 1614. Agnete: Ibid., March 1618. For details of the family’s early life in Dordrecht, see chapter 3. Father and children were temporarily separated after the wreck, but reunited on Batavia’s Graveyard, LGB.

“. . . no more than three unmarried adult women . . .” The only other definite example who can be traced in Pelsaert’s journals is Wybrecht Claasen, who as a servant would have been a much less attractive catch than Judick. One other women, Marretgie Louys, is not explicitly mentioned as having either a husband or children, but it may be presumed that to have come on board she probably was married to a member of the crew.

Judick’s betrothal to Van Huyssen LGB. The precise chronology is very slightly unclear here, as the predikant does not say explicitly whether the betrothal took place before or after the murder of the remainder of the family. He does note that Judick and Van Huyssen were together “for about five weeks” before the mutineer’s death on 2 September (see chapter 7), which would place the couple’s engagement on about 29 July, or a week after the murders, which took place on 21 July. It is evident, however, that the relationship between the two predated the killings.

“. . . a pleasant outing . . .” Confession of Andries Jonas, JFP 27 Sep 1629 [DB 204].

Murder of the predikant’s family Ibid; sentence on Jeronimus Cornelisz, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 174]; confession of Jan Hendricxsz, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 180–1]; sentence on Jan Hendricxsz, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 184]; confession of Mattys Beer, JFP 23–24 Sep 1629 [DB 190–1]; confession of Wouter Loos, 24 Sep 1629 [DB 224–5]; testimony of Judick Gijsbertsdr, JFP 27 Oct 1629 [DB 225–6]; sentence on Andries Liebent, JFP 30 Nov 1629 [DB 243–4].

Murder of Hendrick Denys Confession of Jan Hendricxsz, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 181]. The skull of a Batavia victim, now in Geraldton Museum, has been identified as possibly that of Denys; see Juliïtte Pasveer, Alanah Buck, and Marit van Huystee, “Victims of the Batavia Mutiny: Physical Anthropological and Forensic Studies of the Beacon Island skeletons,” Bulletin of the Australian Institute for Maritime Archaeology 22 (1998): 47–8. My description of the wounds is largely based on an interview with Dr. Alanah Buck of the Western Australian Centre for Pathology and Medical Research in Perth, 12 June 2000. This skull (the jaw is missing and the remainder of the body still lies buried under the foundations of a fisherman’s house on Beacon Island), catalogue number BAT A16136, was originally excavated in 1964, during filming for a television reconstruction of the Batavia story (Hunneybun, op. cit., section 4.11), and in 2000 was the subject of detailed reconstruction by a forensic dentist, Dr. Stephen Knott. See the epilogue for additional details. The identification with Denys is conjectural; the wounds agree with the description given in the journals, but nothing definite is said about the disposal of the body. In general it may be stated that the sex, age, and wounds found on the bodies so far excavated on the island do not agree very well with the descriptions of the murders and burials listed in Pelsaert’s journals, which casts some doubt on the accuracy of the survivors’ recollections and the upper-merchant’s record.

Murder of Mayken Cardoes Confession of Andries Jonas, JFP 24–27 Sep 1629 [DB 201–2]; sentence on Andries Jonas, JFP 28 Sept 1629 [DB 202–4]. Jonas denied repeatedly, even under torture, that he had entered the predikant’s tent that night, but admitted freely to murdering Mayken Cardoes.

Attempted murder of Aris Jansz Testimony of Aris Jansz, JFP 27 Sep 1629 [DB 196–7]; sentence on Allert Janssen, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 199].

Chapter 6: Longboat

Phillip Playford’s books provide the best description of the Western Australian coastline between the Abrolhos and Shark Bay. I found Jean Gelman Taylor, The Social World of Batavia: European and Eurasian in Dutch Asia (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983) particularly useful in reconstructing early seventeenth-century Batavia, and R. Spruit, Jan Pietersz Coen: Daden en Dagen in Dienst van de VOC (Houten: De Haan, 1987), is the most up-to-date authority on the remarkable and controversial governor-general of the Indies. The only reasonably full account of the bizarre incident concerning Sara Specx and her lover, Pieter Cortenhoeff (which for its sheer awfulness deserves much more space than it has been possible to accord it here) that could be found is C. Gerretson, Coen’s Eerherstel (Amsterdam: Van Kampen, 1944). The fact that Gerretson felt compelled to give his book this title—it means “Coen’s Rehabilitation”—says a good deal about twentieth-century historians’ general disapproval of this most remarkable of Dutch empire builders.

Description of the longboat A reconstruction of the boat, based on contemporary plans, was completed in the Netherlands some years ago. I saw it in Sydney, where the full-size replica of the Batavia built in Lelystad (see epilogue) had gone as part of the 2000 Olympic celebrations; it seems tiny, and far too small ever to have held 48 people. A photo of the reconstructed longboat can be found in Philippe Godard, The First and Last Voyage of the Batavia (Perth: Abrolhos Publishing, nd, c. 1993), p. 150.

The plan Pelsaert’s resolution of 8 June 1629, JFP [DB 127–8].

The crew Neither the bos’n’s mate nor Nannings, both of whom were active mutineers, are mentioned among Jeronimus’s band, so they must either have been on board the longboat or—less likely—have been among the dozen men who drowned when the Batavia was wrecked. For other members of the crew, see Antonio van Diemen to Pieter de Carpentier, 30 Nov–10 Dec 1629, ARA VOC 1009 [DB 42–3]; Pelsaert’s resolution of 8 June 1629, JFP [DB 127–8].

The voyage up the coast JFP 8 June–7 July 1629 [DB 128–33]; Phillip Playford, Carpet of Silver: The Wreck of the Zuytdorp (Nedlands, WA: University of Western Australia Press, 1996), pp. 69–71; Godard, op. cit. pp. 149–56. De Vlamingh’s views are quoted in Playford’s Voyage of Discovery to Terra Australis by Willem de Vlamingh in 1696–97 (Perth: Western Australian Museum, 1999), pp. 49–50.

The first landing JFP 14 June 1629 [DB 129–30]. The breakers were still far too fierce to permit a landing, but six sailors managed to swim ashore through the heavy surf. It did no good; they found no water and did not even see the Aborigines who were undoubtedly present in the area until the end of the day, when the commandeur noted a frightening incident: “Saw four men creeping towards [our men] on hands and feet. When our folk, coming out of a hollow upon a height, approached them suddenly, they leapt to their feet and fled full speed, which was clearly seen by us in the boat; they were black savages, entirely naked, without any cover.”

The second landing JFP 15–16 June 1629 [DB 125n, 130].

The river of Jacop Remmessens It had been discovered by the boatswain of the VOC ship Leeuwin. JFP 16 June 1629 [DB 131]; Günter Schilder, Australia Unveiled: The Share of Dutch Navigators in the Discovery of Australia (Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1976), p. 77.

Decision to head for Java JFP 16 June 1629 [DB 131].

Conditions in the longboat Survivor’s letter, Dec 1629, published in anon., Leyds Veer-Schuyts Praetjen, Tuschen een Koopman ende Borger van Leyden, Varende van Haarlem nae Leyden (np [Amsterdam: Willem Jansz], 1630) [R 235-6]. For Bligh’s voyage, see John Toohey, Captain Bligh’s Portable Nightmare (London: Fourth Estate, 1999), pp. 62–4, 72–8. On psychological issues, see S. Henderson and T. Bostock, “Coping Behaviour After Shipwreck,” British Journal of Psychiatry 131 (1977): 15–20. Henderson and Bostock, who made a particular study of the case of 10 men cast adrift off the coast of Australia in 1973, are explicit concerning the importance of “attachment ideation,” as they term it: “Throughout the ordeal,” they write, “the most conspicuous behaviour was the men’s preoccupation with principal attachment figures such as wives, mothers, children and girl friends. . . . Every one of the survivors reported it as the most helpful content of consciousness which they experienced” (p. 16). In contrast, one man who died after five days adrift was said by the others to have “given up.”

The mutineers’ prediction that Jacobsz would go to Malacca JFP 17 Sep 1629 [DB 143–4].

One kannen of water left Pelsaert declaration, op. cit.

Making Sunda Strait JFP 3 Jul 1629 [DB 133].

Batavia Taylor, The Social World of Batavia, pp. 3–32; Jaap Bruijn et al., Dutch-Asiatic Shipping in the 17th and 18th Centuries (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 3 vols., 1979–1987), I, pp. 123–4; C. R. Boxer, The Dutch Seaborne Empire 1600–1800 (London: Hutchinson, 1965), pp. 189–93, 207; Bernard Vlekke, The Story of the Dutch East Indies (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1946), pp. 87, 91–2; Spruit, Jan Pietersz Coen, pp. 48–58.

Jan Coen He was born in January 1587 and sent to Rome as a young merchant at the age of 13. Returning to the United Provinces six years later, he signed on with the VOC as an under-merchant, aged only 20. Revisiting the Netherlands in 1611, he presented the Gentlemen XVII with a caustic report on the incompetence he had witnessed among its servants in the East. Impressed, they promoted him to upper-merchant and sent him back east in 1612 in command of a flotilla of two ships. He improved efficiency by cutting down on the number of landfalls his vessels made, and kept his crews healthy by feeding them lemons and plums, thus reducing the incidence of scurvy. These actions further commended him to the Gentlemen XVII, who in 1613 named him director-general, the second most senior position available in the Indies. Six years later Coen succeeded Governor-General Reael, serving in the latter post until 1623, and again from September 1627 until his death in 1629. Coen was well rewarded for his work. In 1624, at the conclusion of his first term as governor-general, the Gentlemen XVII awarded him the unheard-of gratuity of 20,000 guilders—money enough to set their servant up for life and enable him to make an advantageous marriage. Spruit, op. cit., esp. pp. 9–10, 16–8, 41–4.

The expulsion of the English and the conquest of the Banda Islands Spruit, op. cit., pp. 47–50, 71–3; Jonathan Israel, Dutch Primacy in World Trade, 1585–1740 (Oxford: Clarendon Press), pp. 172–6; Giles Milton, Nathaniel’s Nutmeg: How One Man’s Courage Changed the Course of History (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1999), pp. 286–7, 298–314. The English retained a foothold in the Spiceries thanks largely to the so-called Treaty of Defence (July 1619) between the Dutch Republic and the English crown, which guaranteed the East India Company a third of the produce of the Indies. The treaty had been signed before the authorities in the United Provinces became fully aware of Coen’s successes in the East. When news of the agreement at last reached Java, the governor-general was predictably apoplectic. Nevertheless, by 1628, when the English East India Company finally abandoned its foothold in Batavia, its only remaining factories in the Indies were in Bantam, Macassar, and Sumatra.

Coen and the attempted conquest of China Spruit, op. cit., pp. 74, 80–2.

The Amboina massacre The total armament available to the English contingent, it seems worth noting, consisted of three swords and two muskets. Ibid., pp. 89–92; John Keay, The Honourable Company: A History of the English East India Company (London: HarperCollins, 1993), pp. 47–51; Milton, op. cit., pp. 318–42.

“An oriental despotism of the traditional kind” Boxer, op. cit., p. 191.

Agung of Mataram Spruit, op. cit., pp. 92–105; Boxer, op. cit., pp. 190–2; Vlekke, op. cit., pp. 88–9, 94; Israel, op. cit., p. 181. The Mataramese war effort was covertly backed by the Portuguese. Mataram itself is nowadays known as Jogjakarta.

“. . . a small proportion of their ships . . .” Not all that many. The Company had lost four vessels in the years 1602–24, and would lose another 16 (14 wrecked and two captured) in the next quarter of a century, about 3 for every hundred voyages made during the period 1602–49. Jaap Bruijn et al., op. cit., I, p. 75.

“could never forget misdeeds . . .” The opinion of the historian Bernard Vlekke, cited by Drake-Brockman, op. cit., p. 45.

Sara Specx Coen’s principal motive in prosecuting this case was to assuage the disgrace done to the reputation of the Dutch in the eyes of the Javanese; Sara’s lover, a standard-bearer named Pieter Cortenhoeff, had bribed some slaves to allow him access to the girl’s chamber, and news of their actions had thus spread to the native community. Sara Specx was the natural child of Jacques, the president of the fleet Pelsaert was supposed to have sailed in. She was half-Japanese and was born on the island of Hirado in 1617. Taylor, The Social World of Batavia, p. 16.

Pelsaert before the Council of the Indies Minutes of the Governor-General in council, 9 Jul 1629, cited by Drake-Brockman, op. cit., p. 44. During Pelsaert’s time in Batavia, he was also interrogated by Anthonij Van den Heuvel, the fiscaal, as to the precise circumstances of the disaster. Pelsaert declaration, op. cit.

Coen’s encounter with the South-Land J. A. Heeres, The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606–1765 (London: Luzac, 1899), p. 52; Schilder, op. cit., p. 100; Miriam Estensen, Discovery: the Quest for the Great South Land (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1998), p. 152. Coen’s estimates of distance are given here in English miles; his original account gives them in Dutch mijlen,each of which was approximately 4H miles long.

“the other members of the council” Although the Council nominally had eight seats, there were in fact six vacancies at this time. Nor were the two remaining members in any real sense independent. Van Diemen was an undischarged bankrupt who had fled to the Indies, and Coen had shielded him from the Gentlemen XVII in spite of this because he recognized his great ability; he thus owed his entire career to the governor-general. Vlack was Coen’s brother-in-law. Gerretson, op. cit., p. 64.

Coen’s orders Order of 15 July 1629, cited by Drake-Brockman, op. cit., pp. 257–8.

Arrest of Jacobsz and Evertsz Drake-Brockman, op. cit., pp. 46, 63.

“Because Ariaen Jacobsz . . .” Governor-General in council, 13 July 1629, cited in ibid., p. 46.

Antonij van den Heuvel He had arrived in Batavia in June 1628 and three months later was appointed fiscaal. His principal task was to curb the excesses of the private trade, and in order to incentivize him the Gentlemen XVII had promised Van den Heuvel one-third of all the fines he imposed on those found guilty of the crime. The new fiscaal took to his job with enthusiasm, even fining members of the Council of the Indies for their activities. He quickly became the most hated man in Batavia as a result. Gerretson, op. cit., pp. 68–70.

The Sardam’s voyage JFP 15 Jul–16 Sep [DB 134–141]; Drake-Brockman, op. cit., pp. 46–7. For Gerritsz, Hollert, and Claas Jansz, see ibid., pp. 46, 68.

Gerritsz, Jacob Jansz, and Claes Jansz OV; JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 157]; Drake-Brockman, op. cit., p. 68; Pelsaert’s declaration, op. cit.

“Smoke on a long island . . .” JFP 17 Sep 1629 [DB 141].

Chapter 7: “Who Wants to Be Stabbed to Death?”

Gijsbert Bastiaensz’s letter home, the only personal account of life on Batavia’s Graveyard, was particularly important in compiling the information in this chapter. Information on the geography, geology, and archaeology of Wiebbe Hayes’s Island has been drawn from the various publications of the Western Australian Maritime Museum, and my discussion of the events surrounding Pelsaert’s return to the Abrolhos on the interpretations advanced in Jeremy Green, Myra Stanbury, and Femme Gaastra (eds.), The ANCODS Colloquium: Papers Presented at the Australia-Netherlands Colloquium on Maritime Archaeology and Maritime History (Fremantle: Australian National Centre of Excellence for Maritime Archaeology, 1999).

Gijsbert Bastiaensz LGB; J. Mooij, Bouwstoffen voor de Geschiedenis der Protestantsche Kerk in Nederlands-Indiï (Weltevreden: Landsdrukkerij, 1927), I, 328.

Jeronimus preaches his views Verdict on Jan Hendricxsz, JFP 28 Sep 1629; interrogation of Jan Pelgrom, JFP 26 Sep 1629 [DB 184, 209]; Mooij, op. cit., p. 308.

“He tried to maintain . . .” This summary was written by Salomon Deschamps, but presumably at Pelsaert’s dictation. JFP 30 Sep 1629 [DB 212].

Spiritual Liberty and its views Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970), pp. 148–97.

“Bastiaensz was rarely allowed to preach” In his evidence to the Church Council in Batavia, Bastiaensz claimed that he had continued to preach in the Abrolhos. It was certainly in his interests to assert this, since—as we will see—his perceived weakness during the Batavia episode had left him in danger of being prevented from taking up a post in the Indies. Since there are several references in the journals to a ban on religious services (cf. verdict on Andries Jonas, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 204]), the predikant was probably referring to his time on Wiebbe Hayes’s Islands, if he was telling the truth at all. There is, however, one reference in the Harderwijk MS to a religious ceremony on the island; see below. Mooij, op. cit., p. 328.

“Blaspheme and swear” Harderwijck MS [R 26].

“Let us sing” Ibid.

Severed seals’ fins Ibid.

Oaths of loyalty Later on, when circumstances compelled Jeronimus to remove potential rivals from his band, “he tore the Oath of agreement publicly, by which action he dismissed the same, and so those who had to die were murdered at night, and then a new agreement was made.” For this, and the oaths themselves, see JFP 19 Sep 1629; interrogation of Jeronimus Cornelisz, same date [DB 147–8, 166].

Those who signed Twenty-five men signed the first oath of loyalty, and 36 the second, not including Cornelisz himself. Their names are listed here; note the changes in the order of the names, which in certain cases seem to denote variations in status within the group. The original lists give occupations and places of origin for most of the men, which have had to be omitted here. Deschamps, who wrote out the documents, places himself at the bottom of each, no doubt to dissociate himself as far as possible from the mutineers, though his rank would have assured him of a higher place in the originals. Finally, note that Cornelisz signs as a member of the band on the first occasion, primus inter pares, while the second oath was sworn to him, as undisputed leader. From JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 165–7]. Additions to the ranks of the mutineers are marked* on the second list:

FIRST OATH, 16 JULY 1629	SECOND OATH, 20 AUGUST 1629
Hieronomus Cornelisz	Coenraat van Huyssen
Coenraat van Huyssen	David van Zevanck
Jacop Pietersz	Jacop Pietersz
David van Zevanck	Wouter Loos
Isbrant Isbrantsz	Gsbert van Welderen
Olivier van Welderen	Gijsbert Bastianesz*
Gsbert van Welderen	Reyndert Hendricx
Jan Pelgrom de Bye	Jan Hendricxsz
Jan Hendricxsz	Andries Jonas*
Lenert Michielsz van Os	Rutger Fredricx
Mattys Beer	Mattys Beer
Allert Janssen	Hans Frederick*
Hans Hardens	Jacques Pilman*
Rutger Fredricx	Lucas Gellisz
Gerrit Willemsz	Andries Liebent*
Cornelis Pietersz	Abraham Jansz*
Hans Jacob Heijlweck	Hans Hardens
Lucas Gellisz	Olivier van Welderen
Reyndert Hendricx	Jeuriaen Jansz
Daniel Cornelisz	Isbrant Isbrantsz
Wouter Loos	Jan Willemsz Selyns
Gerrit Haas	Jan Egbertsz*
Jan Willemsz Selyns	Cornelis Pietersz
Jeuriaen Jansz	Hendrick Jaspersz
Hendrick Jaspersz	Gillis Phillipsen*
Salomon Deschamps	Tewis Jansz*
	Hans Jacob Heijlweck
	Gerrit Haas
	Claas Harmansz*
	Allert Janssen
	Rogier Decker*
	Gerrit Willemsz
	Abraham Gerritsz*
	Jan Pelgrom de Bye
	Lenert Michielsz van Os
	Salomon Deschamps

The killers It would not do to suggest these men were too discriminating. Beer, for example, claimed never to have killed a woman, but in fact he slaughtered one of Bastiaensz’s daughters and helped to kill his wife. Nor did he display any reluctance to murder children. Interrogation of Mattys Beer, JFP 23 Sep 1629 [DB 190].

Jan Hendricxsz’s murders Upon Pelsaert’s return to the Abrolhos, Hendricxsz immediately and openly confessed to this number of killings, almost as though he were boasting of his achievement. JFP 17 Sep 1629 [DB 143].

The women Mutineers’ oath of 20 Aug 1629 [DB 147].

“. . . for common service . . .” JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 147].

Jan Hendricxsz’s woman Verdict on Jan Hendricxsz, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 184].

Mattys Beer’s woman Verdict on Mattys Beer, JFP 2 Oct 1629 [DB 193].

Olivier van Welderen’s woman Verdict on Olivier van Welderen, JFP 30 Nov 1629 [DB 245].

Loos’s and Van Os’s women Verdict on Wouter Loos, 24 Sep 1629; verdict on Lenert Michielsz van Os, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 188–9, 225].

Jan Pelgrom’s women Interrogation of Jan Pelgrom, JFP 26 Sep 1629 [DB 209].

“My daughter . . .” LGB.

“Almost as soon as he took power” The journals state that Cornelisz enjoyed Lucretia as his concubine “for two months.” Since he was captured by Hayes’s men on 2 September (see below), this implies that his relationship with her began early in July, though Zevanck’s conversation with Creesje suggests she did not sleep with him before 22 July. Verdict on Jeronimus Cornelisz, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 176].

Cornelisz’s wooing The romantic expectations of the period are mapped by Simon Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age (London: Fontana, 1987), pp. 437, 439–40. In seeking to seduce Creesje, Cornelisz naturally ignored the inconvenient fact of his existing marriage; by now he must have realized that, whatever happened on the Abrolhos, he would never see Haarlem again.

“. . . in the end . . .” Testimony of Wiebbe Hayes et al., 2 Oct 1629, OV [DB 68-9]. This testimony does not feature in Pelsaert’s journals, and was first published in Isaac Commelin’s pamphlet of 1647. As Drake-Brockman point out, it might be a forgery designed to clear Creesje of the suspicion that she submitted too tamely to Cornelisz; but there is internal evidence, in its dating, that it was at least written when it is supposed to have been, on the day of the apothecary’s execution.

Jan Pelgrom de Bye Interrogation of Jan Pelgrom, JFP 26–28 Sep 1629 [DB 209–11].

“Zevanck wanted to ensure . . .” It will be recalled that Stone-Cutter Pietersz was also present that night, but played no direct part in the massacre. Perhaps, as a member of Cornelisz’s council, he was beyond suspicion; perhaps, as Zevanck’s superior, he could not simply be ordered to take part in the killing.

Murder of Jan Gerritsz and Obbe Jansz Verdict on Jeronimus Cornelisz, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 174].

Murder of Stoffel Stoffelsz Confession of Jeronimus Cornelisz, JFP 23 Sep 1629; verdict on Jan Hendricxsz, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 169, 184]

Murder of Hendrick Jansz Statement of Jeronimus Cornelisz, JFP 24 Sep 1629; verdict on Rogier Decker, JFP 12 Nov 1629 [DB 169, 231–2] The date of this killing is variously given as 25 July and 10 August in the journals. Jansz was bound when Decker stabbed him and could not have put up much of a fight. Verdict on Jeronimus Cornelisz, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 175].

Murder of Anneken Hardens Verdict on Jan Hendricxsz, JFP 28 Sep 1629; verdict on Jan Pelgrom, JFP 28 Sep 1629; verdict on Andries Liebent, JFP 30 Nov 1629 [DB 184, 210, 244]. The date of this killing is variously given as 28 and 30 July.

Murder of Cornelis Aldersz Confession of Jeronimus Cornelisz, 23 Sep 1629; interrogation of Jan Pelgrom, 23 Sep 1629; interrogation of Mattys Beer, 26 Sep 1629; verdict on Mattys Beer, JFP 28 Sep 1629, [DB 169, 190–1, 195, 208–11]. In writing up his interrogation of Pelgrom, Pelsaert tells this story twice in almost exactly the same words. My quotations have been pieced together from these two accounts. Further variants appear in the commandeur’s notes on Mattys Beer. Pelsaert says on four occasions that Aldersz was decapitated by Beer’s single stroke, but another reference in the journals says merely that the soldier “with one blow near enough struck off his head.”

The murder of Andries de Vries Verdict on Jeronimus Cornelisz, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 174]; summary of the crimes of Rutger Fredricx, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 156]; verdict on Rutger Fredricx, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 207]; interrogation of Lenert van Os, JFP 23 Sep 1629 [DB 186–7]. The notion that Creesje and Andries shared a bond of friendship, and that De Vries was seen as an especial threat to the captain-general, arises from the fact that De Vries alone, rather than the mutineers in general, had sworn to forfeit his life if he ever talked to her.

The Selyns incident Confession of Wouter Loos, JFP 27 Oct 1629; verdict on Hans Jacob Heijlweck, 30 Nov 1629 [DB 226, 241].

Murder of Frans Jansz This incident took place on the High Island (Jansz was the only man to die there in the course of the mutiny), while Jeronimus and his principal lieutenants were negotiating with Wiebbe Hayes. A reserve body of mutineers stayed behind to act as reinforcements if required, and they had orders to dispose of Jansz while they were waiting for the others to return. Evidently Jeronimus had Hayes and his men firmly in mind at the time, and this must have help to crystallize his thought concerning the surgeon’s possible defection. Verdict on Hans Jacob Heijlweck, 30 Nov 1629 [DB 241].

“. . . creatures of miraculous form . . .” This was Pelsaert’s description of the tammar. The commandeur was the first Westerner ever to observe and describe marsupials, and his journal thus has considerable scientific as well as historical value. JFP 15 Nov 1629 [DB 235–6].

Wells According to one Defender, the wells were “50, 60 or even 100 vademen deep, being very sweet water.” Letter of 11 Dec 1629 in Leyds Veer-Schuyts Praetjen, Tuschen een Koopman ende Borger van Leyden, Varende van Haarlem nae Leyden (np [Amsterdam: Willem Jansz], 1630), pp. 15–8 [R 231]. The fact that two wells were discovered is mentioned by Pelsaert, JFP 20 Sep 1629 [DB 149]. Otherwise, see The ANCODS Colloquium, p. 99; Jeremy Green and Myra Stanbury, “Even More Light on a Confusing Geographical Puzzle, Part 1: Wells, Cairns and Stone Structures on West Wallabi Island,” Underwater Explorers’ Club News (January 1982): p. 2; Hugh Edwards, Islands of Angry Ghosts (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1966), pp. 174–5. Edwards comments that he finds it hard to believe it can have taken Hayes’s men almost three weeks to find the larger cisterns; an unresolved mystery. In any case, we are told that the quality of the water was excellent; it tasted “very sweet, like milk.” LGB.

Food Letter of 11 Dec 1629 in Leyds Veer-Schuyts Praetjen, Tuschen een Koopman ende Borger van Leyden, Varende van Haarlem nae Leyden, pp. 15–8 [R 231]. Shellfish were also available in abundance on the islands, but Dutchmen of the seventeenth century despised them as the poorest sort of food, and would have eaten oysters and mussels only in extremis. Gijsbert Bastiaensz, who spent some weeks on the island, commented on the fecundity of the island in very similar terms: “Miraculously God has blessed the good ones . . . with Water, with fowls, with fish, with other Beasts, with eggs in basketfull; there were also some Beasts which they called Cats with as nice a flavour as I ever tasted.” LGB. Tammars (Thylogale eugenii houtmani) stand up to two feet tall, and lack the extremely well developed hind limbs of the kangaroo.

New arrivals For the escape of people from Batavia’s Graveyard, see JFP 17 Sep 1629 [DB 143].

Improvised weapons Letter of 11 Dec 1629 [R 232]; LGB, which includes the reference to “guns”; Edwards, pp. 52–4.

Hayes’s dispositions For a full discussion of the coastal shelter and its inland counterpart, see chapter 10.

Location of Hayes’s boats See the discussions in The ANCODS Colloquium, pp. 93, 100.

Allert Jansz According to OV, he was a corporal rather than a cadet. This seems less likely, as, whatever Hayes’s qualities, an experienced corporal might have been expected to command the landing party, while a young cadet would not.

Jeronimus’s plans Verdict on Jeronimus Cornelisz, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 175]; Pelsaert’s “Declaration in short, [of] the origin, reason, and towards what intention, Jeronimus Cornelissen, undermerchant, has resolved to murder all the people . . . ,” JFP nd [DB 252].

“. . . by exploiting the well-known antipathy . . .” It is interesting, from this perspective, to note that when the mutineers signed their second oath of comradeship on 20 August, it included a clause that specified: “Also that the ship’s folk amongst us will not be called sailors any more, but will be reckoned on the same footing as the soldiers, under one company.” Oath of 20 August [DB 148].

Jeronimus’s letter Letter of 23 July to the French soldiers on Wiebbe Hayes’s Island [DB 148–9]. This letter was handed to Pelsaert by Hayes when the mutiny was over and was copied into the commandeur’s journals, together with the mutineers’ oaths, to form part of the evidence against Cornelisz and his men.

Cornelissen captured Verdict on Daniel Cornelissen, JFP 30 Nov 1629 [DB 240].

Attacks on Wiebbe Hayes’s island Pelsaert is inexact concerning the number and dates of these contacts. Drake-Brockman, op. cit., pp. 115–7, presents a chronology with the most likely dates. For the sources, see the commandeur’s “Declaration in Short” [DB 252–3]; verdict on Jeronimus Cornelisz, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 175]. Pelsaert’s earlier account (JFP 17 Sep 1629 [DB 159]) of the same episodes is partial, since it was based on Jeronimus’s original statement to him, and thus emphasized the roles of Zevanck and Van Huyssen while minimizing Cornelisz’s own. The second attack coincided with the murder of Frans Jansz, from which it appears that the mutineers split their forces and for some unknown reason chose to leave at least five of their best fighting men on the High Island.

Van Huyssen and Liebent grumble JFP 17 Sep 1629 [DB 159]; verdict on Andries Liebent, JFP 30 Nov 1629 [DB 244].

“To come to an accord . . .” Pelsaert, “Declaration in Short” [DB 253].

Clogs LGB. When he arrived on the island (see below), the Defenders gave Bastiaensz a pair of these homemade shoes, a gesture that touched him so deeply that he wrote that he would keep them for the rest of his life.

“. . . under cover, as friends . . .” JFP 17 Sep 1629 [DB 142].

Bastiaensz and the treaty of peace This occurred on 1 September, during a reconnaissance. Jeronimus was also present, and, according to the predikant, “Our Merchant offered them Peace, but [tried] to deceive them.” It would appear that Cornelisz was planning some sort of surprise attack, but two musketeers, who had instructions to pick off the Defenders when they came to the beach, found that their weapons persistently misfired, and Hayes had again emerged unscathed. Ibid.

“Saying joyfully . . .” “Declaration in Short” [DB 253].

“Very skinny . . .” Letter of 11 Dec 1629 [R233].

“Deceiving them with many lies . . .” LGB. Negotiations seems to have been conducted through Gijsbert Bastiaensz, who acted as go-between. JFP 17 Sep 1629 [DB 142]

“Hither and thither . . .” LGB.

Capture of Cornelisz and execution of his lieutenants JFP 17 Sep 1629 [DB 159]; “Declaration in Short” [DB 253]; LGB.

Jeronimus in the pit Harderwijk MS [R 28].

Election of Wouter Loos Verdict on Wouter Loos, JFP 13 Nov 1629 [DB 226-7]; “Declaration in Short” [DB 253].

Loos and Creesje Interrogation of Wouter Loos, JFP 24 Sep 1629 [DB 225].

Loos and Judick LGB.

New council Bastiaensz, ibid., refers to the setting up of a “new government” on the island.

Loos’s motives for attacking Francisco Pelsaert, in interrogating Loos, suggested that the attack was launched “on the pretext that they wanted to be Master of the Water,” but adds, remarkably, “but on the contrary no water ever was refused to them.” Verdict on Wouter Loos, JFP 13 Nov 1629 [DB 228].

“. . . at least some military experience . . .” I would count Wouter Loos, Jan Hendricxsz, Stone-Cutter Pietersz, Lenert van Os, Mattys Beer, Andries Jonas, Hans Jacob Heijlweck, Lucas Gellisz, and perhaps Hans Frederick (who was often ill) among the soldiers, and Rutger Fredricx, Jan Willemsz Selyns, Allert Janssen, Andries Liebent, and Cornelis Janssen among the sailors. Of the boys, Jan Pelgrom, Rogier Decker, Abraham Gerritsz, and Claes Harmansz Hooploper might have been relied on to fight, taking the mutineers’ maximum fighting strength to 18 men. The other signatories to Loos’s oath—there would have been 15 of them, if the numbers of the mutineers’ party had remained unchanged since the men had signed Cornelisz’s second oath of 20 August—had played no part in the earlier attacks or killings, even though there were four or five soldiers and a similar number of sailors among them. A couple, including Olivier van Welderen, were not well enough to fight, but plainly the rest had no appetite for the killing.

Two muskets “Declaration in Short” JFP nd [DB 253]. It took some time to get these weapons into action; according to Jan Hendricxsz, “had we shot them [Hayes’s men] immediately, we should certainly have got them, but the gunpowder burned away 3 to 4 time from the pan.” Cornelisz, told of this later when they were all under guard, admonished Hendricxsz, saying, “If you had used some cunning you would have got it all ready on the water, and then we should have been ready.” JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 160].

The final attack JFP 17 Sept–13 Nov 1629 [DB 142, 222, 227–8]; LGB. Pelsaert and Bastiaensz give conflicting accounts as to how the action ended; the predikant writes that Loos ordered a retreat before the rescue ship appeared, but Pelsaert implies that the attack was still continuing when the Sardam hove into view: “[The mutineers] apparently would have caused even more disasters if it had not pleased God that we arrived here with the Yacht at the same time, or in the very hour, when they were fighting, and thus all their design has been destroyed.” Verdict on Wouter Loos, JFP 13 Nov 1629 [DB 227]. Jan Hendricxsz confirmed this account, noting that “while they were fighting with the other party, they suddenly saw the ship.” Confession of Jan Hendricxsz, JFP 17 Sep 1629 [DB 178].

Chapter 8: Condemned

Pelsaert’s Batavia journals contain detailed summaries of the interrogations of all the major mutineers, together with the sentences passed on them. These, with the commentaries of Henrietta Drake-Brockman (Voyage to Disaster [Nedlands, WA: University of Western Australia Press, 1995]) and V. D. Roeper (De Schipbreuk van de Batavia, 1629 [Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 1994]), have been my principal sources for this chapter.

Pelsaert’s initial actions JFP 17 Sep 1629 [DB 141–2].

The Sardam’s anchorage Hugh Edwards, “Where Is Batavia’s Graveyard?,” in The ANCODS Colloquium, pp. 91–3; Jeremy Green, “The Batavia Incident: The Sites,” in ibid., p. 100.

“Frantic relief” “The pious ones jumped for joy,” wrote Bastiaensz, “and immediately went in their little boat to the jacht to warn them.” LGB.

Loos and Pelgrom Verdict on Jan Pelgrom, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 209–10].

Hayes’s anchorage Edwards, “Where Is Batavia’s Graveyard?” p. 93, persuasively advocates this as the most likely explanation for Hayes’s appearance “round the northerly point,” as mentioned in Pelsaert’s journals.

“Thick with nettles . . .” H. Edwards, Islands of Angry Ghosts (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1966), p. 174.

The crew of the mutineers’ boat JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 146] lists the 11 members of the crew as Stone-Cutter Pietersz, Jan Hendricxsz, Rutger Fredricx, Hans Jacob Heijlweck, Lucas Gellisz, Hans Frederick, Jan Willensz Selyns, Hendrick Jaspersz Cloet, Hans Hardens, Jacques Pilman, and Gerrit Haas. It is interesting to note that the last four were very minor figures, who had committed no specific crimes and who were in fact never actually punished for their involvement in the mutiny. Probably at this point all those who had signed Jeronimus’s oaths expected nothing but death as a result.

The “boat race” Philippe Godard, The First and Last Voyage of the Batavia (Perth: Abrolhos Publishing, nd, c. 1993), p. 174n. It should be pointed out that neither party seems to have been aware that the “race” was going on; both were simply trying to reach Pelsaert and the jacht as rapidly as possible.

Crew of the Sardam Drake-Brockman, Voyage to Disaster, p. 153n.

Encounter with Wiebbe Hayes JFP 17–28 Sep 1629 [DB 142–3, 152].

Swivel guns These were small cannons, on pivots, which were generally loaded with grapeshot, nails, or other antipersonnel devices and mounted on the poop rail to deter boarders. When Pelsaert, in JFP 17 Sep 1629 [DB 143] says that he and his men “made all preparations to capture the scoundrels,” he surely meant that he had these pieces loaded and prepared to fire; at least, the anonymous Defender implies as much when he writes that the commandeur “pointed his guns” at the men in the boat. Letter of 11 Dec 1629, Leyds Veer-Schuyts Praetjen, Tuschen een Koopman ende Borger van Leyden, Varende van Haarlem nae Leyden (np [Amsterdam: Willem Jansz], 1630), pp. 15–18 [R 321].

The arrival and arrest of the mutineers JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 152].

“They answered me . . .” JFP 17 Sep 1629 [DB 143].

“We learned from their own confessions . . .” JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 152].

“I looked at him with great sorrow . . .” JFP 17 Sep 1629 [DB 144].

“Where the rest of the scoundrels were . . .” JFP 18 Sep 1629 [DB 144–5].

“These have all been found . . .” Ibid. [DB 145].

“We found that the ship was lying in many pieces . . .” Ibid.

Pelsaert legally obliged to administer justice swiftly Roeper, De Schipbreuk van de Batavia, 1629, pp. 30–2.

Jan Willemsz Visch Drake-Brockman, in Voyage to Disaster, p. 157n, speculates that he was a sailor, but on no good evidence. My identification of him as the Sardam’s provost, or—given the small size of the crew—simply the man deputed to fill that role is also guesswork, but it fits the typical composition of a shipboard raad rather better. He was certainly illiterate, signing the various interrogations only with a mark.

Dutch law on confessions and evidence Roeper, op. cit., pp. 31–2.

Water torture Ibid., p. 32; Drake-Brockman, op. cit., pp. 101–2; Giles Milton, Nathaniel’s Nutmeg: How One Man’s Courage Changed the Course of History (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1999), pp. 328–9.

“Forcing all his inward parts . . .” Cited by John Keay, The Honourable Company: A History of the English East India Company (London: Harper Collins, 1993), p. 49.

Cornelisz’s testimony Interrogation of Jeronimus Cornelisz, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 160–70].

“Saying they are lying . . .” Interrogation of Jeronimus Cornelisz, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 170].

“On account of his unsteady and variable confessions . . .” Ibid.

“In order to speak again to his wife . . .” Ibid.

“Something was in it . . .” Ibid. Janssen and Hendricxsz indignantly denied the suggestion of their captain-general, calling out “as one Man that they would die on it, on the salvation of their souls, not to have lied in the least in the things heretofore confessed.”

“Mocked the Council . . .” Ibid.

“Confesses at last . . . He well knows . . .” Ibid.

Hendricxsz put to the torture Interrogation of Jan Hendricxsz, JFP 17 Sep 1629 [DB 177].

Torture of Andries Jonas Interrogation of Andries Jonas, JFP 24 Sep 1629 [DB 201].

Cornelisz betrays his followers Interrogation of Rutger Fredricx, JFP 20 Sep 1629 [DB 205–6]; interrogation of Lenert van Os, JFP 23 Sep 1629 [DB 168–9]; interrogation of Rogier Decker, JFP 24 Sep 1629 [DB 169]; interrogation of Mattys Beer, JFP 23 Sep 1629 [DB 189–90].

Jonas’s contrition Interrogation of Andries Jonas, JFP 27 Sep 1629 [DB 202].

Verdict on Cornelisz Sentence on Jeronimus Cornelisz, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 172–7].

Verdicts on the major mutineers JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 154–6].

Men held and released JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 156–7]; list of mutineers, 20 Aug, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 166–7].

Hayes’s promotion JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 157].

“Who had been without a commanding officer . . .” Gabriel Jacobszoon, the corporal, was dead, and Pietersz, the lance corporal, in prison.

“Keep his men supplied with food and water” The main wells on Wiebbe Hayes’s Island had begun to run dry, and it was only after careful searching that new sources of fresh water were at last uncovered on the High Island.

“The only goods recovered . . .” JFP 25 Sep 1629 [DB 150].

“It would not be without danger . . .” JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 151].

Executions set for 29 September This is the only date Pelsaert can have had in mind, since it must have been almost dark when sentences were passed on the 28th, and he states (JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 211]) that the executions would be “postponed” to 1 October. It would have been proper to have carried them out on the Sunday, 30 September.

Cornelisz requests a delay Ibid.

“The predikant put him at ease . . .” Ibid.

Jeronimus again begged to know . . . JFP 29 Sep 1629 [DB 211–2].

“Tut—nothing more?” Ibid.

Jeronimus’s letters JFP 29 Sep 1629 [DB 171].

Jacob Jansz Hollert The journals actually have “Jacop Jacopsz Holloch” at this point, an apparent error since no one of this name is referred to anywhere else in the text. Drake-Brockman interprets the name as a probable reference to “Jacob Jacobsz Houtenman,” the skipper of the Sardam; but the name as given actually seems closer to Jacob Jansz Hollert, the Batavia’s under-steersman, who had returned with Pelsaert; and this man does seem a much more probable recipient of the letters, since he would actually have known Cornelisz. Given that Ariaen Jacobsz is said to have stated [Interrogation of Jeronimus Cornelisz, JFP 19 Sep 1629, DB 164] that he mistrusted both Claes Gerritsz and “the under-steersman, my brother in law,” this reading would imply that Gillis Fransz Halffwaack was the skipper’s relative, but that Fransz’s colleague, Jacob Jansz, was—at least in Jeronimus’s eyes—more sympathetic to the mutineers. Before condemning Hollert as a crypto-mutineer, however, it is worth recalling that by this stage in the story, the under-merchant had wiped out all but a tiny handful of the people he had got to know in the retourschip’s stern; of his immediate peer group, only Pelsaert, Claes Gerritsz, Bastiaensz, and Creesje were both alive and present in the archipelago. Since Gerritsz seems to have been kept busy on the Council and at the wreck, and neither the predikant nor Creesje were at all likely to act willingly as messengers, Hollert may have been nothing more than a last, despairing hope. For a more conspiracy-oriented perspective, see Philip Tyler, “The BataviaMutineers: Evidence of an Anabaptist ‘Fifth Column’ within 17th Century Dutch Colonialism?” Westerly (December 1970): 36–7.

“Was, perhaps, a remnant of the batch . . .” The other possibility is that the poison was obtained from the Sardam’s apothecary’s chest. (Frans Jansz’s chest had evidently been lost with the Batavia, as the eventual rediscovery of some of its contents at the wreck site showed. Jeremy Green, The Loss of the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie Retourschip Batavia, Western Australia 1629: An Excavation Report and Catalogue of Artefacts (Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 1989), pp. 95–6, 99–101. This catalog lists two different sets of ointment jars; in excess of 24 jars, or about one-eighth of the original contents of the chest, were recovered from the seabed. It is however possible that the remainder of the jars were recovered by the mutineers.

The suicide attempt JFP 29 Sep 1629 [DB 211–2].

Pelsaert confronts Jeronimus’s religious views JFP 30 Sep 1629 [DB 212].

“Godless” Verdict on Andries Jonas, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 203].

“Evil-minded” Ibid.

“Innately corrupt” Pelsaert to the Gentlemen XVII of Amsterdam, 12 Dec 1629, ARA VOC 1630 [DB259].

“See how miraculously . . .” JFP 30 Sep 1629 [DB 212].

Site of the gallows Edwards, op. cit., p. 177.

Creesje and Cornelisz Testimony of Wiebbe Hayes, Claes Jansz Hooft et al, 2 Oct 1629, OV, pp. 59–60 [G pt. 2, p. 37]. As Drake-Brockman points out (op. cit., pp. 67–9), this testimony does not appear in JFP and there are no places in Pelsaert’s journal from which it could reasonably have been excised. Its first appearance was in Jan Jansz’s Batavia pamphlet of 1647. Drake-Brockman adds that it may [1] be a genuine addition to the record, which the pamphleteer somehow got hold of (it is in the first, rather than the third person, unlike JFP, but its content is consistent with the unpublished records of the VOC, making outright forgery unlikely) or [2] a fake, invented by someone who wished to make quite certain that Creesje Jans was cleared of any imputation that she submitted willingly to Cornelisz. Both modern editors of Pelsaert’s journals—Drake-Brockman and Roeper (op. cit., p. 210) tend to favor its authenticity.

“So that their eyes could see . . .” JFP 2 Oct 1629 [DB 213].

Amputation of hands OV [G pt. 2, p. 37]. There is some uncertainty as to whether the full sentence was carried out, as Bastiaensz, in LGB, mentions the amputation of only Cornelisz’s right hand. I tend to think the predikant was simply being inexact in what was not, after all, an official account.

“They all shouted . . .” JFP 2 Oct 1629 [DB 213]

“If ever there had been a Godless Man . . .” LGB.

Chapter 9: “To Be Broken on the Wheel”

Henrietta Drake-Brockman did invaluable work, in the 1950s and 1960s, on the aftermath of the Batavia mutiny, and her Voyage to Disaster, while inaccurate in some small details, includes almost all that is known about the later history of Pelsaert, Gijsbert Bastiaensz and his daughter, Ariaen Jacobsz, and Creesje Jans. My own research has added only a little to Drake-Brockman’s findings. The archives of Dordrecht, Haarlem, and Amsterdam did provide some fresh information, and the massive early Dutch histories of the Indies also proved invaluable—in particular the first volume of J. Mooij’s Bouwstoffen voor de Geschiedenis der Protestantsche Kerk in Nederlands-Indiï (Weltevreden: Landsdrukkerij, 1927), which translates as “Building Blocks for the History of the Protestant Church in the Netherlands Indies” and contains additional details concerning the fates of the predikant and his daughter.

Death by hanging John Laurence, A History of Capital Punishment (New York: Citadel Press, 1960), pp. 41–5.

“He could not reconcile himself . . .” JFP 2 Oct 1629 [DB 213].

“Dying as he had lived . . .” Anonymous Batavia survivor’s letter, December 1629, in anon., Leyds Veer-Schuyts Praetjen, Tuschen een Koopman ende Borger van Leyden, Varende van Haarlem nae Leyden (np [Amsterdam: Willem Jansz], 1630), pp. 19–20 [R 236]. For the identification of the author, see the general comments at the beginning of the notes.

Final confessions of the Batavia mutineers JFP 2 Oct 1629 [DB 213].

Display of executed prisoners at Haarlem William Brereton, Travels in Holland, the United Provinces etc. . . . 1634–1635 (London: Chetham Society, 1844), p. 49.

Salvage operations JFP 25–26 Sep, 3 Oct–14 Nov 1629 [DB 150–1, 213–22]. Pelsaert indicates, and other writers have assumed, that only one chest remained unsalvaged. However, the numismatist S. J. Wilson, in Doits to Ducatoons: The Coins of the Dutch East India Company Ship Batavia, Lost on the Western Australian Coast 1629 (Perth: Western Australian Museum, 1989), p. 9, reports that salvage operations undertaken in the period from 1963 brought up so much money—in excess of 10,000 coins—that the cash seems to have once filled two chests rather than one.

“With heart’s regret” JFP 12 Oct 1629 [DB 215].

“. . . well in excess of 150,000 guilders . . .” The Batavia herself had cost about 100,000 guilders, and the cash in the missing money chests totaled another 45,000 guilders. The value of the ship’s miscellaneous trade goods, particularly some of Pelsaert’s silver, must have totaled at least 5,000 guilders more. Wilson, op. cit., p. 9.

Loss of the Sardam’s boat JFP 12–13 Oct, 15 Nov 1629 [DB 215–16, 234]. Drake-Brockman’s translation is a little confusing at this point. As printed, it gives the distance from the Sardam to the yawl as “two miles” as though they were English units of measurement, but the original manuscript reads “2 mijlen,” seventeenth-century Dutch miles, each of which was equivalent to about 4.6 English statute miles.

The possibility of a second mutiny Allert Janssen had, indeed, warned Pelsaert on the way to the gallows that the commandeur should “watch very well on the Ship because quite many traitors remained alive who would seize an opportunity to execute that which they had intended; without naming anyone, saying that he did not wish to be called an informer after his death.” JFP 28 Sep–2 Oct 1629 [DB 157, 213].

Leniency shown to Wouter Loos Pelsaert’s moderation in this case still seems remarkable today. It was not until the end of October, when Judick Gijsbertsdr belatedly came forward to testify against him, that the mutineers’ last leader was closely questioned about his activities on Batavia’s Graveyard, and though he finally confessed, under repeated torture, to the murders he had previously denied, there was never any talk of increasing his sentence. Testimony of Judick Gijsbertsdr, 27 Oct 1629 [DB 225–6].

The trials on board the Sardam Sentences on Daniel Cornelissen, Hans Jacob Heijlweck, Cornelis Janssen, Jean Thirion, Andries Liebent, Hans Frederick, Olivier van Welderen, Jan Renou, and Isbrant Isbrantsz, JFP 24 Sep–20 Nov 1629; [DB 240-6].

Numbers of Batavia survivors Pelsaert to the Gentlemen XVII, 12 Dec 1629, ARA VOC 1630 [DB 259–61]. The names of the survivors are nowhere given, but Pelsaert seems definite that only seven women survived the disaster. Two of them—Zwaantie Hendricxsz and her companion—had reached Batavia in the longboat, so it would appear that either Anneken Bosschieters or Marretgie Louys, two of the women kept for “common service,” must have died on the islands. Neither is mentioned among Cornelisz’s victims, and both survived the wreck and the initial days without supplies, so presumably the death can be attributed to injury or disease.

The return to Batavia JFP 15 Nov–5 Dec [DB 234–9, 247].

The marooning The exact spot where the two mutineers were put ashore is still debated. Henrietta Drake-Brockman favored the mouth of the Hutt River. Most modern authors identify the location as a cove just north of Red Bluff, which stands at one end of Wittecara Gully. The Red Bluff site is several miles to the north of Drake-Brockman’s preferred location. Today a small memorial marks the spot. JFP 16 Nov 1629 [DB 237]; Phillip Playford, Carpet of Silver: The Wreck of the Zuytdorp (Nedlands, WA: University of Western Australia Press, 1996), pp. 237–42.

The Sardam’s council Thanks to the loss of Jacob Jacobsz, the council numbered only five on this occasion. The principal members were Pelsaert, Claes Gerritsz, Sijmon Yopzoon, and Jan Willemsz Visch. For some reason Gijsbert Bastiaensz and Jacob Jansz did not sit in judgment on the mutineers; possibly they were ill. Remarkably, however, Salomon Deschamps retained his place even though he had been sentenced to be keelhauled and flogged only a fortnight earlier. Once again, the only likely explanation is that he alone among those on board had the clerical skills needed to keep the necessary records.

Sentences passed on board the Sardam JFP 30 Nov 1629 [DB 239–47]. Daniel Cornelissen was sentenced to receive 200 strokes, twice the number meted out to Deschamps and the other minor mutineers who had been sentenced in the Abrolhos. Cornelis Janssen received 150 strokes and the fine of 18 months’ wages (the larger fine may simply represent a longer service with the VOC) and Hans Jacob Heijlweck was sentenced to 100 strokes and the loss of six months’ wages. The lightest flogging was meted out to Isbrant Isbrantsz, who received only 50 strokes.

“in order not to trouble . . .” Ibid. [DB 239].

Zussie Fredericx As we have seen, the unfortunate Zussie had already been made to sleep with Jan Hendricxsz, who had kept her as his concubine for two months, as well as with Mattys Beer and Jan Pelgrom (Sentence on Jan Hendricxsz, 28 Sep 1629 [DB 184]; sentence on Mattys Beer, 28 Sep 1629 [DB 193]; interrogation of Jan Pelgrom, 26 Sep 1629 [DB209]), so the allegation, if true, would take to at least six the number of men she had intercourse with in the Abrolhos.

The second siege of Batavia Bernard Vlekke, The Story of the Dutch East Indies (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1946), pp. 93–4; Drake-Brockman op. cit., pp. 71–2; R. Spruit, Jan Pietersz Coen: Daden en Dagen in Dienst van de VOC (Houten: De Haan, 1987), pp. 103–7.

The death of Jan Coen Spruit, op. cit., pp. 106–10; F. W. Stapel (ed.), Beschryvinge van de Oostindische Compagnie, vol. 3 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1939), p. 456.

The elevation of Jacques Specx Specx had not actually left the Dutch Republic until 25 January 1629, two months after Pelsaert had sailed. His election was merely provisional, as the appointment was made by the Council of the Indies and not by the Gentlemen XVII, but it was later made permanent and he served in the position for three years. F. W. Stapel, De Gouveneurs-Generaal van Nederlandsch-Indiï in Beeld en Woord (The Hague: Van Stockum, 1941), p. 19.

Execution of justice on the Sardam Drake-Brockman draws attention to the fact that Deschamps was back on the Sardam’s council by 30 November, a fortnight after he was supposedly keelhauled and flogged—apparently because she doubted that he could have recovered from his punishment so quickly. Gijsbert Bastiaensz, the only witness to have left any sort of account, says merely that “of the others, some were punished on the Ship, some were brought to Batavia.” The last comment may simply refer to Jacop Pietersz, but since the reference to people is in the plural, I think it more probable that none of the sentences actually passed on the Sardam eight were actually carried out in the five days between the delivery of the verdicts and the ship’s arrival in Batavia. There is reason to assume that the five prisoners sentenced earlier did receive their punishments, since Pelsaert was quite definite, in his summing up, that they would take place “tomorrow,” i.e., on 13 November. It is certainly not impossible that Deschamps had recovered sufficiently to act as Pelsaert’s clerk again by the end of the month; much would depend on the actual severity of the flogging he received. It is beyond question that naval men who received a flogging were expected back at their posts more quickly than that. Sentences on Salomon Deschamps, Rogier Decker, Abraham Gerritsz, and Claes Harmansz, JFP 12 Nov 1629 [DB 231–4]; LGB; Drake-Brockman, op. cit., p. 247n.

Specx’s sentences “Final sentences on men already examined and sentenced aboard Sardam,” ARA VOC 1011 [DB 270–1].

Stone-Cutter Pietersz The Batavia journals contain no details of any interrogation of Pietersz, which makes ascertaining his part in the mutiny unusually difficult. See, however, the confession of Jan Hendricxsz, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 178] for Pietersz’s role in the Traitors’ Island killings.

Breaking on the wheel Philippe Godard, The First and Last Voyage of the Batavia (Perth: Abrolhos Publishing, nd, c. 1993), p. 215; Laurence, op. cit., pp. 224–5. An executioner was typically paid three guilders for performing such an execution.

The proportion of casualties Francisco Pelsaert left the following note regarding the fate of the people embarked on board the Batavia (ARA VOC 1098, fol. 582r [R 220]; Godard, op. cit., pp. 205–8):

VOC PERSONNEL AND SOLDIERS
	Men of little worth who deserted before departure by running away throughthe dunes		6
	Transferred to the Galiasse and the Sardam, two consorts, onthe eve of departure		3
	Died from illness, especially scurvy, during the voyage		10
	Drowned during shipwreck, trying to swim ashore		40
	Died on the island where the Batavia was wrecked, either fromillness or from drinking seawater		20
	Reached the East Indies with the Batavia longboat		45
	Murdered by Jeronimus Cornelisz by drowning, strangling, decapitation, orbutchery by axe		96
	Executed by Wiebbe Hayes after being captured in their attack against hispositions on the Cats’ Island		4
	Condemned to death and hanged on Seals’ Island		7
	Condemned to death, then reprieved and abandoned on the continent		2
	Died accidentally on board the Sardam during the return to Batavia		2
	Arrived safely at Batavia on board the Sardam		68
	Total		303

PASSENGERS OF BOTH SEXES
Died of illness or thirst on Batavia’s Graveyard		9 children, 1woman
Killed by the mutineers		7 children, 12 women
Reached Batavia safe and sound on board the Sardam		2 children, 7women
Total		38

Giving a total complement of 341, of whom 329 were apparently on board when the ship sailed. At least two babies are known to have been born on the ship, and a boy, Abraham Gerritsz, was picked up in Sierra Leone, while 10 other people died of illness during the voyage itself. This gave the Batavia a total complement of 332, which had been reduced to 322 by the time she was wrecked. Of these, a minimum of 110 were killed by Cornelisz’s men (in his journals Pelsaert puts this figure as “more than 120,” and on one occasion “124”), 82 died of accident and illness, 13 were executed or marooned, and the remainder survived to reach Batavia in either the retourschip’s longboat or the Sardam. In addition, however, Jan Evertsz at least, and probably Ariaen Jacobsz and Zwaantie Hendricx, died as a direct result of the events on board the ship, and five more mutineers were executed after their arrival at Batavia, taking the number of deaths associated with the mutiny and the shipwreck to as many as 218. There is still some possibility of error here, since accounts written in the Indies suggest that the longboat carried 48 people and not the 45 mentioned by the commandeur.Taking  Pelsaert’s own estimates, however, 36.7 percent of the Batavia’s actual complement survived, and if Evertsz and the five minor mutineers executed in the Indies are excluded from those figures, and Jacobsz and his paramour included, on the grounds that their true fate remains unknown, the proportion falls to the figure cited: 116 survivors from the total complement of 332, or 34.9 percent.

Perhaps remarkably, no definitive list of the passengers and crew of the Titanic actually exists, but best estimates suggest that the total number of people on board was 1,284 passengers and 884 crew, a total of 2,168. Lists compiled of the survivors give from 703 (Board of Trade enquiry) to 803 people (consolidated list). My calculation assumes that the consolidated list favored by most researchers is correct, and that 37 percent of the liner’s complement therefore survived.

Travails of the year 1629 Jeremy Green, The Loss of the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie Retourschip Batavia, Western Australia 1629: An Excavation Report and Catalogue of Artefacts (Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 1989), p. 1; Malcolm Uren, Sailormen’s Ghosts: The Abrolhos Islands in Three Hundred Years of Romance, History and Adventure (Melbourne: Robertson & Mullens, 1944), pp. 218–9. The apparent discrepancy between Van Diemen’s total of 74 survivors and Pelsaert’s figure of 77 is explained by the fact that these men—Pelsaert, Gerritsz, and Holloch—had originally escaped in the longboat and then returned in the Sardam.

Van Diemen’s letter Van Diemen to Pieter de Carpentier, 10 December 16298, ARA VOC 1009, cited by Henrietta Drake-Brockman, Voyage to Disaster (Nedlands, WA: University of Western Australia Press, 1995), pp. 49–50.

Goods salvaged from the wreck “Notice of the retrieved cash and goods taken with the Sardam to Batavia,” ARA VOC 1098, fol. 529r–529v, [R 218]. In an enclosure, Van Diemen listed all goods retrieved from the wreck with the scrupulous thoroughness expected by the VOC. Realen were pieces of eight, valued at rather more than two guilders each, and a rijksdaalder, or riksdollar, was worth two and a half guilders:

“Nine chests with realen, with one chest No. 33 with nine bags of ducatons and 41 bags of double and single stuivers. Some of the stuivers have fallen out of the chest, and are missing.

One chest, retrieved broken, without lid, the money being stuck together by rust, in total 5,400 rijksdaalders in 27 bags, 400 rijksdaalders in two small bags, found on the island and taken from the crew.

One small case of jewellery, with four small boxes belonging to the VOC, worth 58,671 guilders 15 stuivers, from which is missing one small necklace worth 70 guilders nine stuivers. In total 58,601 guilders and six stuivers.

In the same case is a jewel belonging to Caspar Boudaen, which the VOC allowed him to sell in India.

One small case containing 75 silver marcken, consisting of four Moorish fruit dishes, two small eating dishes, one Moorish wash-basin, and some broken silver plate. In this case there is also some silver and gold braid, but most of it is spoiled.

Three small casks with cochenille, of which one has been very wet, each cask weighing 52 Brabant pounds.

Two cases with various sorts of linen, many spoilt.

One chest with various kinds of linen, most of them spoilt.

One small case with some linen.

Various rijksdaalders retrieved by the Gujerati divers.

Two small cases with thin copper, each case containing some smaller ones, but most of it having gone black.

Two pieces of artillery, that is, one weighing 3310 pounds and one iron one weighing 3300 pounds.

Some ironwork.

Two small casks of Spanish wine.

One filled with oil.

One filled with vinegar.

Two casks of beer.

One pack of old linen.”

Torrentius A. Bredius, Johannes Torrentius (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1909), pp. 54–69; A. J. Rehorst, Torrentius (Rotterdam: WL & J Brusse NV, 1939), pp. 65–6; Govert Snoek, De Rosenkruizers in Nederland, Voornamelijk in de Eerste Helft van de 17de Eeuw. Een Inventarisatie (Ph.D. thesis, University of Utrecht, 1997), pp. 75–6.

The surviving painting It was identified by being matched to the description of a piece acquired for Charles in 1628, and by the discovery of the King’s mark on the reverse. Rehorst, op. cit., pp. 73–8. It is the work described by Zbigniew Herbert in his Still Life With a Bridle: Essays and Apocryphas (London: Jonathan Cape, 1993).

Specx’s later career and death Stapel, De Gouverneurs-Generaal, p. 19; M. A. van Rhede van der Kloot, De Gouverneurs-Generaal en Commissarissen-Generaal van Nederlandsch-Indiï, 1610–1888 (The Hague: Van Stockum, 1891), pp. 41; W. Ph. Coolhaas, “Aanvullingen en Verbeteringen op Van Rhede van der Kloot’s De Gouveneurs-Generall en Commissarissen-Generaal van Nederlandsch-Indiï (1610-1888),” De Nederlandsche Leeuw 73 (1956): 341; J. R. Bruijn et al., Dutch-Asiatic Shipping in the 17th and 18th Centuries (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1987), I, p. 88.

The fate of Sara Specx On the aftermath of the Specx affair, see C. Gerretson, Coen’s Eerherstel (Amsterdam: Van Kampen, 1944), pp. 58–70; Coolhaas, op. cit., p. 342; Van Rhede van der Kloot, op. cit., p. 41.

Escape of the minor mutineers The fate of Nannings, Gerritsz, and Jan Jansz Purmer is conjecture on my part. Although ne’er-do-wells at best, and most likely active mutineers, their names do not appear on the lists of Jeronimus’s band found in the captain-general’s tent after Pelsaert’s return. It is certainly possible that one or more of them drowned on board the Batavia or died of thirst on Batavia’s Graveyard before the mutiny began; but all three were experienced sailors and I think it much more likely they were with Ariaen Jacobsz in the longboat.

Ryckert Woutersz’s fate is nowhere mentioned in the journals, but the likelihood is that he was dead by 12 July, when his name was conspicuously absent from the first list of those swearing loyalty to Jeronimus. It was Hugh Edwards who first suggested that he was murdered by his confederates, which is entirely plausible, though one might expect to find some reference to it in the interrogations. Edwards, Islands of Angry Ghosts (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1966), p. 37.

Jan Willemsz Selyns JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 157]; sentence on Mattys Beer, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 193]; confession of Wouter Loos, 27 Oct 1629 [DB 226].

Pelsaert’s later career and death The renewed onset of the illness can probably be dated to some time shortly before 14 June, on which day Pelsaert made his will. Drake-Brockman, pp. 52–60, 259–61; Roeper, op. cit., pp. 39–41; D. H. A. Kolff and H. W. van Santen (eds.), De Geschriften van Francisco Pelsaert over Mughal Indiï, 1627: Kroniek en Remonstrantie (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1979), p. 41.

Pelsaert’s affair with Pieterge Mooij, p. 330; Kolff and van Santen, op. cit., p. 33.

Jambi Today the town is called Telanaipura. It lies on the northern side of the island, more than 50 miles up the River Hari. The Dutch expeditionary force, which Pelsaert joined, was so substantial that the Portuguese fled when it appeared, and the siege was lifted without the necessity of firing a shot.

“. . . wholly ill . . .” Pelsaert to the Gentlemen XVII of Amsterdam, 12 December 1629, ARA VOC 1630 [DB 258–60]. This is apparently the only letter known to have been written by Pelsaert still extant. It was the commandeur’s covering note to the journals containing his account of the disaster.

Council of the Indies Neither Specx nor Pelsaert seems to have been aware that Pelsaert himself had been nominated to the Council as a “councillor extraordinary,” or supernumerary, at a salary of 200 guilders per month. The letter noting this appointment was written in the Netherlands at the end of August 1629, when the commandeur was still searching for the Abrolhos in the Sardam, and would not have arrived until some time in the spring of 1630. By then Pelsaert had been posted to Sumatra, and there is no record that he ever took up the seat or even learned that he had received the honor. Drake-Brockman, op. cit., pp. 36–7. Pelsaert’s new salary is mentioned in a letter from the Gentlemen XVII to Jan Coen, governor-general of the Indies, cited in ibid.

The fate of the cameo A. N. Zadoks-Josephus Jitta, “De lotgevallen van den grooten camee in het Koninklijk Penningkabinet,” Oud-Holland 66 (1951): 191, 200–4; Roeper, op. cit., pp. 40–1; Kolff and Van Santen, op. cit., p. 42.

Pelsaert’s private trade Roeper, op. cit., pp. 41, 59; Drake-Brockman, op. cit., pp. 56–9.

Pelsaert’s mother Roeper, op. cit., pp. 41, 59; Kolff and Van Santen, op. cit., p. 42. Roeper points out that the payment of any compensation at all implies that the Company could not entirely substantiate its allegations of private trading, as it would certainly have confiscated the entire amount had the case been thoroughly clear-cut.

Wiebbe Hayes and the Defenders’ rewards Drake-Brockman, op. cit., pp. 270–1; Roeper, op. cit., pp. 38, 59.

Records of Winschoten As noted above, only the town’s judicial records (in the Provincial Archive at Groningen) survive from this period, and no signature of a Wiebbe Hayes can be found in them—not even among the marriage contracts. There are no notarial records from Winschoten, either.

Hayes’s fate Mortality rates for soldiers in the Indies ran to 25–33 percent over the course of a commission. C. R. Boxer, “The Dutch East-Indiamen: Their Sailors, Their Navigators and Life on Board, 1602–1795,” The Mariner’s Mirror 49 (1963): 85.

The fate of Gijsbert Bastiaensz LGB; Mooij, op. cit., pp. 328, 331–2, 339–42, 344–5, 347, 359, 366–8, 380–1, 446, 456; Drake-Brockman, op. cit., pp. 79–80.

The fate of Judick Gijsbertsdr The 600-guilder payment comprised 300 guilders to which she was entitled as the widow of a Company predikant, and the unusual ex gratia sum of 300 more, paid in recognition of her tribulations in the Abrolhos. Will of Judick Gijsbertsdr, ONAD 58, fol. 817v–819; CAL van Troostenburg de Bruijn, Biographisch Woordenboek van Oost-Indische Predikanten(Nijmegen: np,  1893), pp. 176–7; Drake-Brockman, op. cit., pp. 80–1.

“. . . like roasted pears . . .” L. Blussé, “The Caryatids of Batavia: Reproduction, Religion and Acculturation under the VOC,” Itinerario 7 (1983): 64, citing the eighteenth-century Dutch historian Valentijn.

The later life of Creesje Jans Drake-Brockman, op. cit., pp. 63–71. A search of the surviving records of Leyden seems to confirm that Drake-Brockman was wrong in assuming Creesje and her husband went to live in the city. No burial records can be found for the couple and they have left no trace in Leyden’s church or solicitors’ records, with the exception of the two occasions on which they stood as godparents. Furthermore, Cuick’s name does not appear in the Leyden Poorterbooks, which scrupulously list every full citizen of the town. Finally, it defies belief that a couple with some money—and we know that Creesje was reasonably well-off—could have lived for more than 15 years in a city without once requiring the services of a solicitor. Had they dwelled in Leyden, in short, they would surely have left more record of their presence.

Creesje’s husband Cuick was a widower, having been the husband of Catharina Bernardi of Groningen. Drake-Brockman notes, from the records of Amsterdam’s Orphans’ Court, that Creesje may have taken a third husband between the other two—a certain Johannes Hilkes, of whom nothing else is known. No other records exist to prove the case either way, but the church records of Batavia record that when Creesje married Cuick, she did so as the widow of Boudewijn van der Mijlen and not of Johannes Hilkes. The Orphans’ Court papers may therefore be in error. If Hilkes did marry Lucretia Jans, he must have done so almost immediately after she arrived in Batavia, and died perhaps as rapidly as Judick’s Pieter van der Heuven. Even if that was the case, Lucretia could not have completed the appropriate period of mourning either for Boudewijn or Johannes before marrying Jacob van Cuick. Drake-Brockman, op. cit., pp. 64n, 71.

Creesje Jans as godmother On the first occasion, 4 September 1637, Creesje alone stood as godparent to twins named Willem and Dirck; on the second, 3 December 1641, she and her husband both became godparents to another pair—this one a boy and a girl—who were christened Willem and Neeltje; presumably the first Willem must have died in the interim. Some years earlier, in Batavia, Jans had also stood as godmother to two other infants baptized in the Dutch Church there. Ibid. pp. 70n–71n.

It also seems worth noting that the first husband of Creesje’s sister, Sara, was called Jacob Kuyk (ibid. p. 67). The tangled interfamily relationship between the Janses, the Cuicks, and the Dircxes may thus have been even more complicated than it first appears.

Lucreseija van Kuijck GAA, burial registers 1069, fol. 38.

The further interrogation of Ariaen Jacobsz Drake-Brockman, op. cit., pp. 46, 62–3. As has already been noted, a good deal of paperwork concerning Jacobsz’s case went missing somewhere between Batavia and the VOC record office. In its absence, it is impossible to say for certain how good or bad the evidence against the skipper was.

“The skipper was very much suspected . . .” Specx to the Gentlemen XVII, 15 Dec 1629, ARA VOC 1009 in Drake-Brockman, op. cit., p. 63.

“Jacobsz . . . is still imprisoned . . .” Van Diemen to the Gentlemen XVII, 5 June 1631, in ibid., p. 58.

The fate of Belijtgen Jacobsdr ONAH 132, fol. 157v; GAH, rood 215, burgomasters’ decisions 1628–32, fol. 94v; for the significance of the burgomasters’ memorials, see Gabrielle Dorren, “Burgers en hun besognes. Burgemeestersmemorialen en hun Bruikbaarheid als bron voor Zeventiende-Eeuws Haarlem,” Jaarboeck Haarlem (1995): 53–5; for the social status of the Cornelissteeg, see Dorren, Het Soet Vergaren: Haarlems Buurtleven in de Zeventiende Eeuw (Haarlem: Arcadia, 1998), p. 17; for the date of the arrival of the news of the Batavia mutiny in the Republic, see Roeper, op. cit., pp. 42, 47, 61.

Decomposition of the bodies and the blooming of Batavia’s Graveyard Archaeological excavation has revealed that many of the Batavia corpses lie partially buried in a dense black mass. Analysis of this substance has shown it is composed almost entirely of decayed plant roots, with a 1 percent trace of human fat. The explanation appears to be that plants were tapping into the nutrients offered by the decomposing bodies; food of any sort was so scarce on the island that competition for such resources must have been fierce. Author’s interview with Juliïtte Pasveer and Marit van Huystee, Western Australian Maritime Museum, 12 June 2000.

Epilogue: On the Shores of the Great South-Land

It is impossible to say with any certainty what became of the Dutch survivors thrown up on the Western Australian coast. The most important sources, which are archaeological, are well summarized by Phillip Playford, the rediscoverer of the Zuytdorp wreck, in his Carpet of Silver: the Wreck of the Zuytdorp (Nedlands, WA: University of Western Australia Press, 1996), which is probably the most interesting and best-researched contribution to the subject yet published. The case for survival is put by Rupert Gerritsen in And Their Ghosts May Be Heard . . . (South Fremantle, WA: Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1994), though many of his most important points have subsequently been rebutted. For the archaeology of the Batavia victims’ skeletons, I turned mainly to Myra Stanbury (ed.), Abrolhos Islands Archaeological Sites: Interim Report (Fremantle: Australian National Centre of Excellence for Maritime Archaeology, 2000), Juliïtte Pasveer, Alanah Buck, and Marit van Huystee, “Victims of the Batavia Mutiny: Physical Anthropological and Forensic Studies of the Beacon Island Skeletons,” Bulletin of the Australian Institute for Maritime Archaeology 22 (1998), and Bernandine Hunneybun, Skullduggery on Beacon Island (BSc Hons dissertation, University of Western Australia, 1995).

The fate of the two mutineers “Instructions to Wouter Loos and Jan Pelgrom de By van Bemel,” JFP 16 Nov 1629 [DB 229–30]; J. A. Heeres, The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606–1765 (London: Luzac, 1899), pp. 64–7; Henrietta Drake-Brockman, Voyage to Disaster (Nedlands, WA: University of Western Australia Press, 1995), pp. 81–3; Gerrilsen, pp. 64–8, 224–32; Playford, pp. 237–42.

The champan As Drake-Brockman points out (op. cit., pp. 123n, 229n), Pelsaert’s nowhere else uses the word champan in his journals. Normal ship’s boats are referred to throughout as boot—a longboat or yawl—or schuijt—a small jolly-boat or dinghy. It defies belief that the commandeur would have supplied the two mutineers with a VOC boat, which he would certainly have had to account for on his return to Batavia, particularly as it would have meant leaving himself and the people on the Sardam without a single boat of their own.

Wittecarra spring The spring could be seen in its original state as late as 1967, but by 1996 it had dried up due to the extraction of groundwater from a nearby bore. Phillip Playford, Voyage of Discovery to Terra Australis by Willem de Vlamingh in 1696–97 (Perth: Western Australian Museum, 1998), p. 47.

“. . . the first western vessel . . .” The identity of the first Westerners to discover the fifth continent remains a matter of dispute. George Collingridge, author of The Discovery of Australia: a Critical, Documentary and Historical Investigation Concerning the Priority of Discovery in Australasia Before the Arrival of Lieut. James Cook in the Endeavour in the Year 1770 (Sydney: Hayes Brothers, 1895), and Kenneth McIntyre, in The Secret Discovery of Australia: Portuguese Ventures 200 Years Before Captain Cook (Medindie, South Australia: Souvenir Press, 1977), have both argued for the primacy of the Portuguese, and a date somewhere in the sixteenth century. This is not unlikely, although some of the specific evidence these authors advance—early maps, and, in particular, the discovery of “Portuguese” cannon off the northwest coast—has since been called into question. There is, in addition, a tradition on the southern Australian coast of a so-called mahogany ship, popularly supposed to be of Spanish origin, aground on a beach near Warrnambool, Victoria, and discovered sometime between 1836 and 1841. This vessel, if it ever existed, is supposed to have vanished subsequently beneath the sands and has never been rediscovered. See “Notes on Proceedings of the First Australian Symposium on the Mahogany Ship: Relic or Legend?,” Regional Journal of Social Issues, monograph series, no.1 (copy in the library of the Western Australian Maritime Museum). A balanced, popular view of the controversy is provided by Miriam Estensen, Discovery: the Quest for the Great South Land (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1998), pp. 47–50, 52–81. The latter book also mentions the alleged salvage of a “Spanish helmet” dating to ca. 1580 from Wellington harbor, New Zealand, around 1904 (p. 97).

The Duyfken, the Arnem, and the Pera on the northern coast James Henderson, Sent Forth a Dove: Discovery of the Duyfken (Nedlands, WA: University of Western Australia Press, 1999), pp. 32–42, 212n; Heeres, op. cit., pp. 4–6, 22–5; Günter Schilder, Australia Unveiled: The Share of Dutch Navigators in the Discovery of Australia (Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1976), pp. 43–53, 80–98; J. P. Sigmond and L. H. Zuiderbaan, Dutch Discoveries of Australia: Shipwrecks, Treasures and Early Voyages off the West Coast (Adelaide: Rigby, 1979), pp. 20–1, 47–9. Records of the Duyfken’s voyage are, however, so incomplete that it is uncertain whether her men were killed on the shores of Australia or New Guinea, though most authorities argue that at least one was lost on a riverbank somewhere on the Cape York Peninsula.

Early Dutch-Aboriginal relations Noel Loos, “Aboriginal-Dutch Relations in North Queensland, 1606–1756,” in Jeremy Green, Myra Stanbury, and Femme Gaastra (eds.), The ANCODS Colloquium: Papers Presented at the Australia-Netherlands Colloquium on Maritime Archaeology and Maritime History (Fremantle: Australian National Centre of Excellence for Maritime Archaeology, 1999), pp. 8–13.

“. . . look out keenly . . .” “Instructions to Wouter Loos and Jan Pelgrom de By van Bemel,” JFP 16 Nov 1629 [DB 229–30].

Gerrit Thomasz Pool Heeres, op. cit., p. 66; Schilder, op. cit., pp. 129–37.

Abel Tasman The relevant portion of Tasman’s instructions read as follows: “. . . Continue your course along the land of d’Eendracht as far as Houtman’s Abrolhos, and come to anchor there at the most convenient place, in order to make efforts to bring up from the bottom the chest in which eight thousand rixdollars, sunk with the lost ship Batavia in 1629, owing to half a brass cannon having fallen upon it . . . and so save the same together with the said gun, which would be good service done to the Company, on which account you will not fail diligently to attend to this business. You will likewise make search on the mainland to ascertain whether the two Netherlanders who, having forfeited their lives, were put ashore here by the commandeur Francisco Pelsaert at the same period, are still alive, in which case you will from them ask information touching the country, and, if they should wish it, allow them to take passage hither with you.” Drake-Brockman, op. cit., pp. 81–2; Schilder, op. cit., pp. 139–94.

“. . . circumnavigating the continent . . .” In 1642–3 Tasman actually sailed south from Mauritius, east across the Roaring Forties until he came across Tasmania, east again to New Zealand, and then north through Polynesia, reaching the Indies via the north coast of New Guinea. He saw no part of the Australian mainland throughout the voyage. In 1644, he explored the northern coast and sailed down the west coast to about latitude 23H south. Beacon Island (Batavia’s Graveyard) lies at lat. 28 28’, about 350 miles further to the south. Cf. Schilder, op. cit., p. 154; Sigmond and Zuiderbaan, op. cit., pp. 72–85.

“The ‘mutineers’ hut” De Vlamingh’s landing party found five huts in all, but this was the only one regarded as worthy of description—implying it was probably noticeably superior in construction and design to the other four. Gerritsen, op. cit., p. 227; Playford, Voyage of Discovery, pp. 46–7. Gerritsen fails to identify this structure with the two mutineers, whom he believes were marooned a little further south at Hutt River, preferring to suggest it was built by Jacob Jacobsz, the skipper of the Sardam, and the crew of the boat apparently lost in the Abrolhos on 12 October 1629. In any case, there is no real reason to suppose it was not built by the Nanda people.

VOC losses J. R. Bruijn et al., Dutch-Asiatic Shipping in the 17th and 18th Centuries (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 3 vols., 1979–1987), I, pp. 75, 91.

The wreck of the Vergulde Draeck James Henderson, Marooned (Perth: St. George Books, 1982), pp. 42–155. The wreck site was rediscovered in 1963 by Graeme Henderson, who is now the director of the Western Australian Maritime Museum; he was then a schoolboy on a fishing expedition.

The three rescuers R. H. Major, Early Voyages to Terra Australis, Now Called Australia (Adelaide: Australian Heritage Press, 1963), p. 58. The real total may have been higher than this; a second party of eight sailors sent after the first three also vanished; their boat was found smashed to pieces on a beach, and it remains a matter of some doubt whether the crew ever got ashore. The VOC nearly lost a third boatload two years later, when another effort at rescue and salvage was made. Fourteen men from a fluyt, the Waeckende Boey, led by the steersman Abraham Leeman, were abandoned on the coast and had to sail their small boat back to the Indies. Most of them survived the voyage, but landed on the southern coast of Java many miles from Batavia. Only Leeman and three other men eventually reached the city alive. Henderson, marooned, pp. 95–155.

Evidence of survival Ibid., p. 96; Gerritsen, op. cit., pp. 48–63.

“. . . followed by the Zuytdorp . . .” Two other ships, the Ridderschap van Holland (1694) and the Concordia (1708) may have been lost on the Australian coast before this date. C. Halls, “The Loss of the Ridderschap van Holland,” The Annual Dog Watch 22 (1965): 36–43; Playford, Voyage of Discovery, pp. 4, 71n; Femme Gaastra, “The Dutch East India Company: A Reluctant Discoverer,” The Great Circle 19 (1997): 118–20. Halls’s view, that the Ridderschap van Holland sprung her mast, limped north to Madagascar, and fell victim to the pirate leader Abraham Samuel at Fort Dauphin on the southern coast, cannot be correct; Samuel did not arrive at the port until some time after July 1697. There certainly was a rumor that he had captured a Dutch ship and killed all her crew, but contemporary documents date this supposed event to January 1699; the vessel concerned was probably a small slaver. There were, however, plenty of pirate ships on the northern coast of Madagascar, based on St. Mary’s, that could perhaps have accounted for a wounded retourschip. Jan Rogozinski, Honour Among Thieves: Captain Kidd, Henry Every and the Story of Pirate Island (London: Conway Maritime Press, 2000), pp. 67–8.

The fate of the Zuytdorp Without a boat—the Zuytdorp’s pair must surely have been reduced to matchwood by the surf—their only real hope of rescue was to attract the attention of another Dutch ship as she passed along the coast. The cliffs offered good vantage points, and they had gone aground close to the spot where VOC ships normally made their Australian landfall, but any experienced hands among the survivors would have known that although fires were often seen along the shoreline, they were routinely attributed to the local Aborigines and ignored. It must have been for this reason that the Zuytdorp’s men went to the effort of hauling ashore eight bronze breech blocks for the swivel guns mounted on the poop. In the right circumstances these could have been loaded with shot and used to signal to passing ships. Unfortunately for the survivors, however, none of the guns could be got out of the stern before it broke up and drifted away. The breech blocks were then abandoned at the foot of the cliffs, where they were eventually rediscovered more than 200 years later.

There was plenty of driftwood about, however, and the survivors evidently did gather large quantities of it and built at least one huge bonfire on the cliffs immediately above the wreck site. Up to seven other East Indiamen would have made their way along the coast during the next two months, beginning with a ship called the Kockenge, which apparently passed the Zuytdorp survivors’ position only a week after they came ashore, and the discovery of what appears to be the remains of a signal fire next to the wreck site—a substantial layer of charcoal mixed with melted hinges, barrel rings, and clasps—suggests that at least one of them came within view of the shipwrecked sailors and that the Zuytdorp’s survivors hurriedly lit their beacon and piled everything they had onto the fire—sea chests and barrels as well as driftwood—in the desperate hope of being noticed. That they received no response is suggested by another modern discovery along the cliffs: the smashed remains of many old Dutch bottles that had once been filled with wine or spirits, which appear to have been drained by men determined to drink themselves into oblivion.

The ship had run aground early in the southern winter, and there would have been sufficient fresh water about to sustain a small group of survivors for some months. The men could have collected large quantities of shellfish from along the cliffs, and if they were able to salvage any firearms from the ship, it would have been possible for them to hunt for kangaroos. In these circumstances, it seems likely that they stayed close to the wreck site for as long as they could in the hope that rescue ships might be sent from Java when their failure to arrive was noticed. By September or October, however, the rains would have ceased, and any survivors would have had to move inland in search of water. The only supplies available for miles in any direction were Aboriginal soaks—areas of low ground where water ran and collected during the wet season, and which the local Malgana tribe “farmed” by digging them out and covering them with stones to keep wildlife away and prevent evaporation.

The Zuytdorp’s men would have required the help of the Malgana to have located these rare spots, but there is some evidence that Dutch sailors did receive assistance from the local Aborigines. The Malgana were certainly aware of the wreck; the event made such an impact on them that 120 years later, when British colonists arrived in the area, it was still talked of as though it had been a recent happening. Aboriginal tradition suggested that the survivors had lived along the cliffs in two large and three small “houses” made of wood and canvas, and exchanged food for spears and shields. Playford, Carpet of Silver, pp. 68–77, 78–82, 115, 200–4; The ANCODS Colloquium, p. 49; Fiona Weaver, Report of the Excavation of Previously Undisturbed Land Sites Associated with the VOC Ship Zuytdorp, Wrecked 1712, Zuytdorp Cliffs, Western Australia (Fremantle: Western Australian Maritime Museum, 1994); Mike McCarthy, “Zuytdorp Far from Home,” Bulletin of the Australian Institute for Maritime Archaeology 22 (1998): 52. The Zuytdorp, incidentally, was the same ship that lost a large proportion of her crew in the Gulf of Guinea on the voyage out; see chapter 3.

The tobacco tin Playford, Carpet of Silver, pp. 214–5; McCarthy, op. cit., p. 53. It has also been argued that the lid could have been carried to Wale from the Zuytdorp wreck site by an Aboriginal farm hand in more recent years; no definite resolution of this conundrum is likely.

“The third and last . . .” Two other retourschepen—the Fortuyn (1724) and the Aagtekerke (1726), the former from Amsterdam and the latter a ship of the Zeeland chamber, both on their maiden voyages—disappeared between Batavia and the Cape just before the loss of the Zeewijk, and may possibly have deposited survivors on the Australian coast. C. Halls, “The Loss of the Dutch East Indiaman Aagtekerke,” The Annual Dog Watch 23 (1966): 101–7; Graeme Henderson, “The Mysterious Fate of the Dutch East Indiaman Aagtekerke,” Westerly (June 1978): 71–8; Playford, Carpet of Silver, pp. 28–9.

The Zeewijk and her survivors Hugh Edwards, The Wreck on the Half-Moon Reef (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1970).

“. . . from New South Wales to China . . .” David Levell, “China Syndrome,” Fortean Times 123 (June 1999): 28–31. The distance between the two territories was supposed by these prisoners to be about 150 miles (it is actually 5,565 miles from Sydney to Beijing). The first recorded attempt was made by 20 men and one pregnant woman in November 1791; the last around 1827.

Evidence of survival Gerritsen, op. cit., pp. 70–81; Playford, Carpet of Silver, pp. 217–32. Gregory’s recollection may not be entirely reliable, as he recorded it only in 1885. Much of other evidence advanced by Gerritsen, such as the presence of what appear to be Dutch loan words in Aboriginal languages, have been subject to considerable criticism by specialists.

Unfortunately for the Aborigines of the western coast, the great majority died out soon after the first Europeans arrived with their guns, diseases, and modern agricultural practices, and evidence of the sort supplied by Daisy Bates and her contemporaries can never be more than merely anecdotal. It is also true that relations with passing sealers or the earliest settlers, or genetic mutation, could account for the light-skinned individuals found in the areas where the Zuytdorp survivors and the Batavia mutineers came ashore. Only genetic evidence is likely to prove at all conclusive; but since old Aboriginal skeletons are sometimes exposed by wind and water throughout Western Australia, it may eventually be found.

One clue that intermarriage between Dutch and Aboriginals did actually occur may already have emerged. In 1988 Phillip Playford, one of Australia’s leading experts on the Zuytdorp, was approached by a woman whose part-Aboriginal husband apparently suffered from porphyria variegata, a condition that can cause rashes, blisters, and sensitive skin. This disease is an inherited one and can be passed to children of either sex. It is also relatively rare, except among the white population of South Africa, where an estimated 30,000 people carry the gene for the condition.

Geoffrey Dean, a British doctor based in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, became aware of the unusual incidence of porphyria in the region in 1949 and devoted years to researching the family trees of all the sufferers he treated. He claimed to have traced all known cases of the disease to a single Dutch couple, Gerrit Jansz van Deventer and Ariaantje van den Berg, who were married at the Cape in 1688. Van Deventer had settled there in 1685, and his bride was one of eight orphans sent out to provide wives for the early burghers three years later. The couple had eight children, half of whom Dean showed must have carried the gene for porphyria variegata. Dean and Playford have suggested that the disease may have been introduced to Australia by an Afrikaner signed on to the Zuytdorpat the Cape to help make good the extensive losses among the crew that had occurred on the passage from the Netherlands, who survived the wreck and lived long enough to join an Aboriginal community.

A good deal of work remains to be done if this disease is to be traced to the arrival of Dutch mariners on the western Australian coast in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It remains entirely possible that it was introduced at a much later date, and its appearance in Australia cannot can be regarded as definite evidence for the long-term survival of Loos and Pelgrom and their compatriots. Nevertheless, evidence of interaction between VOC sailors and the Aborigines continues to emerge occasionally, and it is not impossible that a definite link will be established one day. Interview with Dr. F. W. M de Rooij, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, 26 June 2000. De Rooij’s work in South Africa has confirmed Dean’s thesis that most South African porphyriacs can trace the source of their disease to their kinship with Ariaantje van den Berg. Playford, Carpet of Silver, pp. 227–32; Geoffrey Dean, The Porphyrias: A Story of Inheritance and Environment (London: Pitman Medical, 1971), pp. 114–30; The ANCODS Colloquium, pp. 50–1; “First Europeans in Australia,” History Today (June 1999): 3–4. A second condition—Ellis van Creveld syndrome, which results in children being born with short limbs, extra fingers or toes, and heart defects—exists among the Aborigines of Western Australia and has also been tentatively linked to the arrival of shipwrecked Dutchmen. It has been calculated that about one Aborigine in 40 carries the recessive Ellis van Creveld gene—the second-highest incidence of the disease among any community in the world. The highest incidence, tellingly enough, occurs among the Amish people of Pennsylvania, a Mennonite sect whose ancestors emigrated from the Netherlands in 1683.

“. . . purely anecdotal evidence . . .” Even today, speculation as to the existence of Dutch survivors has not entirely died away, and the most recent discovery is, in fact, also one of the strangest. It concerns reports of an expedition into the interior of Australia that set out from Raffles Bay, at the end of the Coburg Peninsula in the Northern Territories, some time prior to 1834. (Raffles Bay was the site of a British military outpost established in 1818 and abandoned in 1829, which may date the expedition more precisely.) This party included a Lieutenant Nixon, and it was on his private journals that newspaper reports concerning what appeared to be a whole colony of white people living in the interior were eventually based.

Nixon and his colleagues, it appears, explored the interior of the Northern Territories for two months. One day, to their considerable surprise, they reached a spot quite different from the untamed wilderness they had been traversing: “a low and level country, laid out as it were in plantations, with straight rows of trees.” Exploring further, Nixon then encountered “a human being, whose face was so fair, and dress so white, that I was for a moment staggered with terror, and thought I was looking at an apparition.”

The “apparition” spoke in broken Dutch, which—remarkably enough—was understood by Nixon, who had spent time in the Netherlands in his youth. It thus emerged that the local people believed they were descended from the survivors—80 men and 10 women—of a Dutch ship that had been wrecked on the coast many years earlier. This group had been forced by famine to go inland, where they had established their colony and lived off maize and fish from a nearby river. They were now led by a man who claimed descent from a Dutchman named Van Baerle, and “did not have books or paper, nor any schools; their marriages were performed without any ceremony, they retained a certain observance of the Sabbath by refraining from daily labours and performing some sort of superstitious ceremony on that day all together.” Evidently they had refrained from mixing with the local Aborigines.

This tale could be a nineteenth-century hoax, and it would be unwise to accept it at face value without any supporting evidence. However, research by Femme Gaastra, the noted Dutch historian of the VOC, has discovered that an assistant named Constantijn van Baerle was indeed lost, with 129 others, on the ship Concordia, which vanished in the Indian Ocean some time in 1708. Van Baerle is not a particularly common surname in the Netherlands; just possibly, then, this discovery corroborates Lieutenant Nixon’s original report. Femme Gaastra, “The Dutch East India Company: A Reluctant Discoverer,” The Great Circle 19 (1997): 117–20, citing the Leeds Mercury of 25 Jan 1834, p. 7 col. a. The sponsors and the purpose of the expedition remain a mystery. Its members are reported to have been conveyed back to Singapore on a merchant ship, which may suggest it was not naval in origin. From an examination of the map, it would appear that the Coburg Peninsula—which lies 700 miles to the east of Batavia—and the interior of Arnhem Land generally are far from the first places one would look for the survivors of a ship that had sailed west from Java and was apparently last heard of near Mauritius.

Lort Stokes John Lort Stokes entered the Royal Navy in 1826 and served in South American waters, joining Darwin’s Beagle as a midshipman, and rising to command the ship from 1841 to 1843 (this was after the naturalist had left her). In addition to his work in the Abrolhos, Stokes conducted the first survey of New Zealand since Cook’s day, and was the author of Discoveries in Australia 1837–1843. Despite a lifetime in the hydrographical service, he was passed over for the position of Hydrographer of the Navy in 1863 in favor of Captain (later Vice Admiral Sir) George Richards, the pioneer oceanographer. See G. S. Ritchie, The Admiralty Chart: British Naval Hydrography in the Nineteenth Century (London: Hollis & Carter, 1967), pp. 180, 190, 307, 313.

Stokes in the Abrolhos Malcolm Uren, Sailormen’s Ghosts: the Abrolhos Islands in Three Hundred Years of Romance, History and Adventure (Melbourne: Robertson & Mullens, 1944), pp. 238–43; Drake-Brockman, op. cit., pp. 278–9. He conducted the survey under the orders of Commander John Wickham.

“. . . published by a Perth newspaper . . .” It appeared in the Christmas 1897 edition of the Perth Western Mail. The translation was by Willem Siebenhaar; it has since been reprinted by Philippe Godard as part of his The First and Last Voyage of the Batavia (Perth: Abrolhos Publishing, nd, c. 1993).

Gun island as Batavia’s Graveyard Uren, op. cit., pp. 244–5.

Identity of the wreckage The debris was described by the Zeewijk’s crew as noticeably old, while the Aagtekerke had vanished only the previous year and the Fortuyn three years earlier. This seems to make an identification with the Ridderschap van Holland, lost in 1694, at least possible. See also Graeme Henderson, Maritime Archaeology in Australia (Nedlands, WA: University of Western Australia Press, 1986), pp. 26–7.

Drake-Brockman and the Broadhurst collection Hugh Edwards, Islands of Angry Ghosts (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1966), pp. 93–5; The ANCODS Colloquium, pp. 106–7; Drake-Brockman, pp. xxi–xxii; 279n. The Broadhurst Collection is now in the Western Australian Maritime Museum, Fremantle. Henrietta Drake-Brockman was the author of a historical novel, The Wicked and the Fair (Sydney: Angus & Roberston, 1957), which was based on the Batavia’s story and identified present-day Goss Island as Batavia’s Graveyard. She died, in her mid-60s, in 1968.

“. . . an article published in 1955 . . .” Henrietta Drake-Brockman, “The Wreck of the Batavia,” Walkabout Magazine 21, no. 1 (1955).

The first artifacts Edwards, Islands of Angry Ghosts, pp. 98–101; The ANCODS Colloquium, pp. 107–8.

Discovery by Johnson and Cramer Edwards, Islands of Angry Ghosts, pp. 111–2, 116–7.

“The sea had dug a grave . . .” Ibid., pp. 134–5.

The Batavia artefacts Jeremy Green, The Loss of the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie Retourschip Batavia, Western Australia 1629: An Excavation Report and Catalogue of Artefacts (Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 1989), pp. 37, 45, 55–60, 83, 90–1, 95–6, 99–101, 178, 183–5, 197–200; Edwards, Islands of Angry Ghosts, pp. 149–51. The mortar bears the—in the circumstances ironic—inscription AMOR VINCIT OMNIA: “Love conquers all.”

Wiebbe Hayes’s dwellings Robert Bevacqua, “Archaeological Survey of Sites Relating to the Batavia Shipwreck,” Early Days Journal 7 (1974): 64–9; Jeremy Green and Myra Stanbury, “Even More Light on a Confusing Geographical Puzzle, Part 1: Wells, Cairns and Stone Structures on West Wallabi Island,” Underwater Explorers’ Club News (January 1982): 1–6; The ANCODS Colloquium, p. 10. There is considerable doubt that these structures are now as they would have been several hundred years ago. There is anecdotal evidence of extensive reconstruction, as well as general “tidying,” particularly by film crews filming reconstructions of the events of 1629.

The Batavia reconstruction The ship can be seen at the Bataviawerf in Lelystad, to the east of Amsterdam. Philippe Godard, The First and Last Voyage of the Batavia (Perth: Abrolhos Publishing, nd, c. 1993), pp. 246–73; J. R. Bruijn et al., Dutch-Asiatic Shipping in the 17th and 18th Centuries (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 3 vols., 1979–87), I, pp. 37–40, 42–44.

Skeletons Hunneybun, pp. 1.4a, 3.14, 4.2–4.13, 5.2–5.7; Myra Stanbury (ed.), Abrolhos Islands Archaeological Sites: Interim Report (Fremantle: Australian National Centre of Excellence for Maritime Archaeology, 2000), pp. 5–10; The ANCODS Colloquium, pp. 159–61; Juliïtte Pasveer, Alanah Buck, and Marit van Huystee, “Victims of the Batavia Mutiny: Physical Anthropological and Forensic Studies of the Beacon Island skeletons,” Bulletin of the Australian Institute for Maritime Archaeology 22 (1998): 45–50; Edwards, op. cit., pp. 3–7, 165–6; author’s interviews with Juliïtte Pasveer, Alanah Buck, and Stephen Knott, 12–13 June 2000. The seven bodies in the grave pit consist of five partial skeletons and two separate sets of teeth. In the case of “Jan Dircx,” who was exhumed by Max Cramer in 1963, the musket ball has been separated from the body and now lies mounted as part of a display in the dining room of the Batavia Motor Inn motel in Geraldton. “Dircx,” if that is who he was, suffered from rickets and was so physically immature he must have made a poor sort of soldier. His body (catalogued as BAT A15508) has no skull, but a similarly weathered skull, BAT A15831, may belong to it. The two relics have been attributed ages of 16–18 and 18–23, respectively, which is how I have arrived at an estimated age of 18 for this body.

Death of Jacop Hendricxen Drayer Sentence on Jan Hendricxsz, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 183]. Buck’s reexamination of this body has revealed no trace of the broken shoulder that some early writers on the subject say the skeleton displays.

The death toll in the islands Pelsaert to the Gentlemen XVII of Amsterdam, 12 Dec 1629 ARA VOC 1630II [DB 259]; “Note regarding the fate of the people embarked on board the Batavia,” ARA VOC 1098, fol. 582r [R 220]. It is hard to know what Pelsaert meant by “children.” Certainly the Batavia’s cabin boys must have been included among the 96 “employees of the VOC,” but when the offspring of Pieter Jansz, Claudine Patoys, Hans and Anneken Hardens, and Mayken Cardoes are added to the six children of the predikant, the number of children definitely known to have been killed in the archipelago rises to at least 10. Conversely, if we take “children” to mean those under the age of, say, 10, and count Bastiaensz’s three daughters as “women,” thus correcting the number of children who died to the number given by the commandeur, the number of female deaths cannot be less than 14. Bernandine Hunneybun, in Skullduggery on Beacon Island (BSc Hons dissertation, University of Western Australia, 1995), section 5-5, suggests a total death toll of 137 in the archipelago, including the 11 mutineers who died on Seals’ and Wiebbe Hayes’s Islands.

“. . . more than 120” “Declaration in Short,” JFP nd [DB 248].

“. . . all but two of the children . . .” The exceptions were one child who was among those who fled to Wiebbe Hayes, and the babe in arms who reached Batavia in the longboat.

“. . . almost two-thirds of the women . . .” There were seven survivors among the 20 women on the ship: Creesje Jans, Zwaantie Hendricx, Judick Bastiaens, Zussie and Tryntgien Fredricx, either Anneken Bosschieter, or Marretgie Louys, and the unnamed mother who sailed on the longboat.

Pelsaert on Jacobsz’s responsibility “Declaration in Short,” op. cit.; see also Drake-Brockman, op. cit., p. 61.

“Torrentian” JFP 30 Sep 1629 [DB 212] (where the word is spelled phonetically, “torrentiœnschen,” an indication of its rarity).

“Epicurean” Ibid.; verdict on Andries Jonas, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 203].

“Following the beliefs of Torrentius” Van Diemen to Pieter de Carpentier, 10 Dec 1629, ARA VOC 1009 [DB 50].

Anonymous sailor Letter of December 1629, published in Leyds Veer-Schuyts Praetjen, Tuschen een Koopman ende Borger van Leyden, Varende van Haarlem nae Leyden (np [Amsterdam: Willem Jansz], 1630), pp. 19–20 [R 235]. It has been suggested that the author was the upper-steersman, Claes Gerritsz, and certainly the man, whoever he was, seems to have returned to the Abrolhos with the Sardam, judging from the details in his letter.

Torrentius’s views Govert Snoek, De Rosenkruizers in Nederland, Voornamelijk in de Eerste Helft van de 17de Eeuw. Een Inventarisatie (Ph.D. thesis, University of Utrecht, 1997), pp. 80–7.

Jeronimus and Torrentius How, then, it might be asked, did the word Torrentian find its way into Pelsaert’s journals? Torrentius’s trial had been such a cause célèbre that it is certainly possible the upper-merchant used it as a label for something he hardly understood. But Pelsaert was not in Holland when Van der Beeck was arraigned, and there is no sign that he was familiar with the minutiae of the charges or the trial. On the whole it seems more likely that it was indeed Jeronimus who brought up the painter’s name.

If so, Cornelisz’s reasoning remains obscure. Admitting that he had known such a notorious heretic was hardly likely to help his case, and it may be that Van der Beeck’s name was dragged from him under torture. However, it is perhaps more likely that Jeronimus volunteered it freely, perhaps with the intention of using it in mitigation—presenting himself as the painter’s dupe. Such an effort would be in keeping with his earlier attempt to place the blame for all the murders on his dead councillors, and it would have been equally characteristic for the under-merchant to assimilate a few of Torrentius’s beliefs into his own warped worldview, while ignoring any that did not fit his preconceived opinions.

“Well spoken” “Declaration in Short,” op. cit.

The psychology of Jeronimus Cornelisz Theodore Milton, Erik Simonsen, Morton Birek-Smith, and Roger Davis (eds.), Psychopathy: Antisocial, Criminal and Violent Behaviour (New York: Guildford Press, 1998), pp. 34–6, 161–9; Robert Hare, Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us (New York: Guildford Press, 1999), pp. 12–4, 18, 34–5, 38, 40, 44, 46, 52, 135–6, 158, 166–70, 195–200; Hare, Psychopathy: Theory and Research (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1970), pp. 95–109.

“Most clinicians and researchers . . .” Hare, Without Conscience, p. 22.

“Rebel without a cause” Cited in ibid., p. 81. In 1944, Lindner wrote a well-regarded study of criminal psychopathy titled Rebel Without a Cause, which was later turned—with extensive modifications—into the famous film of the same name.

“Psychopaths have a narcissistic view . . .” Hare, Without Conscience, p. 38.

“Careful observers . . .” Ibid., p. 52.

Psychopathy has no cure Ibid., pp. 195–7.

Source of Chapter Heading Quotes

Opening quote	JFP 17 Sep 1629—Resolution of Francisco Pelsaert, JFP28 Sep 1629 (DB 144, 153)
Prologue	From Francisco Pelsaert’s last letter to the Gentlemen XVII ofAmsterdam, 12 Dec 1629, ARA 1098, fol. 583–4 [DB 259–61]
Chapter 1	JFP 17 Sep 1629 [DB 158]
Chapter 2	John Keay, The Honourable Company: A History of the English EastIndia Company (London: HarperCollins, 1993), p. 34.
Chapter 3	Jacques Specx to the Gentlemen XVII, ARA VOC 1009 [DB77]
Chapter 4	JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 164]
Chapter 5	JFP 17 Sep 1629 [DB 158]
Chapter 6	Letter by an anonymous sailor, published in Leyds Veer-schuyts .. . [R235]
Chapter 7	JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 146]
Chapter 8	LGB
Chapter 9	JFP 2 Oct 1629 [DB 213]
Epilogue	JFP 13–16 Nov 1629 [DB 222–37]