Batavia (63 page)

Pieces of silver-service tableware recovered from the wreck of the
Batavia
and possibly intended for the Indian ‘toy’ trade.
(Western Australian Museum)

The inscribed brass trumpet bell found by Pop Marten on Beacon Island added to the evidence that this was indeed the scene of murder most foul.
(Western Australian Museum)

The
Batavia
display at the Shipwreck Galleries in the Western Australian Museum, Fremantle, including timbers from the boat and a gateway constructed from the stones she was carrying.
(Western Australian Museum)

Pelsaert intended turning a profit trading the Great Cameo of Gaspar Boudaen – a priceless agate stone over 1000 years old – at the Mogul Court of India. It is still one of the finest cameos in the world and now safely resides in the Royal Coin Museum, The Hague.
(Geldmuseum, Utrecht)

An astrolabe – an early navigational instrument – posed on the otherwise desolate shore of Beacon Island.
(Western Australian Museum)

Notes and References

Preface

Corroborated by primary documents:
Dash, p. ix.

It is not a narrative history:
Review by Mike Dash on Amazon:
www.amazon.com/voyage-disaster-henrietta-drake-brockman/dp/1875560327.

Introduction: The Spice Trade

No man should die:
‘Spices and the Spice Islands’,
Duyfken
1606 Replica Foundation:
www.duyfken.com/original/spice-islands.html
.

600 times its original price:
Milton, p. 267.

A faraway land peopled by warriors:
Milton, p. 4.

Eight different companies dispatched 65 ships:
Jacobs, p. 11.

Labourers, housemaids and clergymen:
Ibid., p. 16.

Various islands, found uninhabited:
Heeres, p. 65.

We unexpectedly came upon a low-lying coast:
De Houtman to Managers of the East India Company, 7 October 1619, quoted in Heeres, p. 78.

We saw no high land or mainland:
Heeres, p. 69.

It was an added warning:
There is, however, controversy over the interpretation of this term, with other experts saying that the word ‘
Abrolhos
’ actually meant ‘spiked obstruction’ in the Portuguese language of the time. Either way, it was a warning.

Your Honours should know by experience:
Boxer, p. 96.

At liberty to destroy their town:
From a letter to the Dutch Company, dated Bantam, 1 January 1614, printed in Tiele, Part I, p. 42.

A furore throughout the Indies:
Milton, p. 311.

Lords of the land of Java:
Corn, p. 160.

Begin their day with gin and tobacco:
Ibid., p. 98.

Ardently addicted to the pleasures of love:
Ibid., p. 189.

Maintenance of ten clove trees:
Jacobs, p. 74.

Women of the Moghul nobles:
Dash, pp. 61–2.

Not quite everyone was in his thrall:
Godard, p. 52.

Scarface and Hook:
At the very least, Jacobsz was rough and ready and mixed with a crowd exactly like that.

Not the manner in which to sail:
Pelsaert, 19 September 1629.

A moot point:
Dash, pp. 27–8.

Haarlem no place for him to be:
Ibid., p. 31.

Other raw kashoobs:
Jacobs, p. 39.

Chapter One: Across the Seven Seas

Mighty East Indiaman:
An East Indiaman was the largest, most heavily armed of the VOC merchant ships engaged in trade with the East Indies.

Still she wants to be with him:
Dash, p. 78.

Heave the sheets:
Witsen, pp. 406–9.

Pompous prig that he was:
The fleet was originally meant to sail as a convoy of 18 ships, with Jacques Specx as
Commandeur
. Very late in the piece, however, Specx was delayed in Amsterdam on Company business, so it was decided that the fleet would, effectively, be split in two, with the first half sailing immediately with Pelsaert as
Commandeur
, while Specx would follow shortly thereafter with the second half.

Very good reports of his previous services:
H. T. Colenbrander, J. P. Coen,
Levensbeschrijving
, 1934, Vol. V, quoted in Drake-Brockman,
Voyage to Disaster
, p. 32.

That profit will have to be shared:
Dash, p. 165.

Swear their own oath of allegiance:
Jacobs, p. 41.

You cursed dogs:
Ibid.

Heave to, I say:
Witsen, pp. 406–9.

I will give you a beating:
Meister.

Come, move like one man:
Ibid.

As tightly as a school of herring:
Dash, pp. 173–4.

The crew are all fit and well:
Corn, p. 190.

I suggest you forthwith retire:
While this particular clash is not documented, it is beyond doubt that there were clashes of this nature in this first part of the journey, as Pelsaert’s strait-laced ways clashed with Jacobsz’s rambunctiousness.

Cursed with an equally sensitive stomach:
Andries de Vries’s seasickness here is an instance of poetic licence. We only know that Andries was of a sensitive nature.

Projectile vomiting green bile:
This scene has been created from a combination of the evidence of de Vries’s character in Pelsaert’s Journal and descriptions of daily life aboard a VOC Indiaman in texts such as Godard’s and from expert consultants. I have concluded that de Vries was a weak yet honest man, susceptible to seasickness and given to experiencing horror at a typical butchery scene aboard an Indiaman such as this.

In Amsterdam there lived a maid:
This version was first noted in
The Rape of Lucrece
by Robert Heywood in 1608.

Bound to the victim and thrown overboard:
Milton, p. 60.

Powders, pills and potions:
Pelsaert, 18 September 1629; Drake-Brockman,
Voyage to Disaster
, p. 67. Pelsaert’s use of the address ‘Mr’ before the surgeon’s name was a sign of respect for his vocation. This sixteenth-century honorific was the origin for today’s practice of referring to surgeons as ‘Mr’ rather than ‘Dr’.

He who can’t fart:
Meister.

Het Zuidland:
Het Zuidland
, translated as the Southland, is the name Pelsaert uses to describe Australia throughout his journal, and similarly it will be used throughout this book. The name ‘New Holland’ in reference to Australia was not used until 1644, by Abel Tasman. As a point of interest, it was Tasman’s voyage around the bottom of Australia in 1642 that proved Australia and Antarctica were not joined as part of a hypothesised supercontinent referred to as
Terra Australis
.

Because Pelsaert is
paying
her:
Godard, p. 85.

Talking point for days to come:
Meister.

Taken three times around the mast:
Jacobs, p. 47.

Chapter Two: Cry Mutiny!

They proceed towards
Tafelbaai:
Godard, p. 78.