Batavia (66 page)

Chapter Ten: In Justice Reunited

They have a sloop:
Pelsaert, 17 September 1629.

The captain of 47 people:
Ibid.

The heroism of Wiebbe Hayes:
Ibid.

I looked at him with great sorrow:
Ibid.

Before binding them hand and foot:
Ibid., 18 September 1629.

I am glad to see you are alive:
We know, at least, that Lucretia has remained in the tent of Jeronimus, and that this is where Pelsaert’s chest was found. Given Pelsaert’s subsequent determination to track down every last bit of Company property, it stands to reason that his first port of call would be where his own chest lay.

We the undersigned:
Pelsaert, 19 September 1629.

If you had used cunning:
Ibid., 18 September 1629.

The prisoner is hurried on to the interrogation tent:
All indications are that Pelsaert found it extremely uncomfortable to be around Jeronimus upon his return. He was horrified by what he had done and yet still wary of his capacity to charm his way out of trouble.

He goes on to swear on his soul:
Pelsaert, 17 September 1629.

Something that he is now very sorry for:
Ibid., 19 September 1629.

Our plan was to greet such a yacht:
Ibid., 28 September 1629.

Giving a total of ten chests:
Although surprisingly not recorded in Pelsaert’s Journal, three more money chests were obviously recovered after these first seven because Pelsaert says they retrieved a total of ten before departing the Abrolhos.

Lucretia and Judick were not molested:
Pelsaert, 13 November 1629.

Foment mutiny and seize the vessel:
Ibid., 28 September 1629.

I still dream that one day:
Ibid.

Ships and men in further danger:
Ibid.

He desires to be baptised:
Ibid.

If ever there was Godless Man:
Bastiaensz (Predikant’s Letter), pp. 253–4.

All claims which here in India he may have:
Pelsaert, 28 September 1629.

Jans Willems Selijns of Amsterdam, cooper:
Ibid.

On a pay of 15 guilders per month:
Ibid. Another of Wiebbe Hayes’s men was similarly rewarded with an increased salary. However, for ease of storytelling, his name has been omitted.

Because there is no evil or badness in Himself:
Ibid., 30 September 1629.

Scuttlebutt of the highest order:
Ibid., 29 September 1629.

Bemused, Holloch:
Ibid.

Still, it is troubling enough:
Ibid.

God will perform unto me this night a miracle:
Ibid.

From below as well as from above:
Ibid.

He refuses to come:
Ibid., 30 September 1629.

Say it before these witnesses:
Drake-Brockman,
Voyage to Disaster
, pp. 62–3, quoting
Ongeluckige Voyagie
, 2 October 1629.

You were in my tent for 12 days:
For what it’s worth, I believe that Jeronimus would have used here the Dutch word
‘dozijn’
, as in dozen, which is not strictly ‘twelve’ but thereabouts.

Before I could succeed:
Drake-Brockman,
Voyage to Disaster
, p. 62, quoting
Ongeluckige Voyagie
, 2 October 1629.

Seducer of men:
Pelsaert, 2 October 1629.

And so Jeronimus dies stubborn:
Ibid.

There are many more Mutineers still alive:
Ibid.

Feeling entirely useless, offers to help:
Ibid., 12 and 24 October 1629.

The wind suddenly picks up:
Ibid., 12 October 1629.

There, do you see?:
Ibid., 18 October 1629.

Reckless determination:
St John, p. 324.

The Sultan of Mataram has exacted a terrible price:
Ibid., pp. 323–7.

So that, by God’s Truth:
Pelsaert, 24 October 1629.

They declare upon their manly truth:
Ibid., 12 November 1629.

The further ignominy of having to record:
To this point, Deschamps has only been required as a signatory to the declarations of truth. The following day, he is to deliberate on and record his own sentencing.

This is the mark of Jan Willemsen Visch:
Pelsaert, 12 November 1629.

Flogged with 100 strokes:
Ibid.

Man’s luck is found in strange places:
Ibid., 13 November 1629.

For certain what happens in these lands:
Ibid., 16 November 1629.

It is a question that Hayes would contemplate:
Though there is no formal record of interaction between Hayes and Loos, there are similarities between the two – and likely, therefore, an empathy – in that both rose to positions of pre-eminence among their fellows by the force of their personalities alone. By this point, it is more than credible that each would have reflected on the fate of the other and noted that destiny had marked out such entirely different paths for them.

Jean Thiriou, who cracked the money chests open:
Pelsaert, 2 December 1629.

In place of rigour of the justice:
Pelsaert, ‘The guilty sentenced and punished aboard the
Sardam
on the return leg’.

She warmly thanks Pelsaert:
Despite her ordeal, there is never any sense emerging from the primary documents that Lucretia in any way blamed Pelsaert for what had occurred. One can’t help but feel that every ounce of venom she had in her would have been reserved for Jeronimus, in any case, the monster from whom Pelsaert rescued her.

Epilogue

This then, in large outline:
Bastiaensz (Predikant’s Letter), p. 249.

Lost the ship and left the people:
J. van Lohuizen, entry on Pelsaert, Australian Dictionary of Biography Online Edition, http:// adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A020287b.htm?hilite=pelsaert.

All these goods were duly confiscated:
Drake-Brockman,
Voyage to Disaster
, p. 52.

Scribbling it out and writing 18 guilders:
Ibid., p. 145.

No further trace is recorded of him:
Dash, pp. 274–5; Godard, p. 218.

Pelsaert and his Broad Council had been far too lenient:
Dash, p. 263.

Having his right hand cut off:
Godard, p. 215.

The unlucky Decker:
Ibid.

Despite having survived being keel-hauled:
Dash, pp. 262–6.

Were merely flogged, branded:
Edwards,
Islands of Angry Ghosts
p. 80; Godard, p. 215.

As to what happened to her:
Godard Drake-Brockman,
Voyage to Disaster
, p. 58.

The couple returned to the Netherlands:
Corn, p. 195.

An old, old woman:
Drake-Brockman,
Voyage to Disaster
, pp. 64–5.

Dropped from the yardarm:
Dash Drake-Brockman,
Voyage to Disaster
, pp. 74–5.

Because of all the trouble she had suffered:
Drake-Brockman,
Voyage to Disaster
, pp. 75–6.

Corn suggests that perhaps he was poisoned:
Corn, p. 195.

Singularly fortunate to die in his bed:
Ibid.

Replaced by none other than Hendrick Brouwer:
Drake-Brockman,
Voyage to Disaster
, p. 46.

Dutch religious sect known as the Mennonites:
Gerritsen, pp. 287–90.

When those seedlings began to grow:
Milton, p. 198.

Not prove to be one of the more astute trades:
Ibid., p. 363.

All of the Indonesian archipelago:
Peter Reynders, ‘Why Did the Largest Corporation in the World Go Broke?: An Economic Review’ (abridged version), http://gutenberg.net.au/VOC.html.

By the account of Giles Milton:
Milton, p. 373.

Further continue your course:
Edwards, ‘Dead Men’s Silver’, p. 2.

A Western Australian businessman by the name of Florance Broadhurst:
Henrietta Drake-Brockman, entry on Florance Broadhurst, Australian Dictionary of Biography Online Edition, http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A030527b. htm?hilite=broadhurst.

Leading the charge was Henrietta Drake-Brockman:
Cramer, p. 81; Edwards,
Islands of Angry Ghosts
, p. 95.

He got down on his hands and knees:
Edwards,
Islands of Angry Ghosts
, p. 99; Jeremy Green and Myra Stanbury, ‘Report and Recommendations on Archaeological Land Sites in the Houtman Abrolhos’, Department of Maritime Archaeology, Western Australian Maritime Museum, No. 29, 1988, p. 9.

They didn’t like visitors in these parts:
Cramer, p. 81.

Two policemen from the nearest mainland town:
Edwards,
Islands of Angry Ghosts
, p. 100.

As to the wreck itself:
Ibid., p. 104.

It proved to be brass:
Cramer, p. 81.

Cramer proved to be a good diver:
Edwards, ‘Dead Men’s Silver’, p. 3.

He was not crazy about visitors:
Ibid., p. 2.

My first thought was that a bomb had gone off:
Cramer, p. 84.

Max Cramer and a group of Geraldton divers:
Edwards,
Islands of Angry Ghosts
, p. 111.

Cannons, coins, artefacts, anchors:
Ibid., pp. 143–151.

60-year-old Henrietta Drake-Brockman!:
Edwards, ‘Dead Men’s Silver’, p. 12.

Amor Vincit Omnia:
Ibid., p. 4.

Indeed the site of Batavia’s Graveyard:
Edwards,
Islands of Angry Ghosts
, pp. 165–8.

The soil has a characteristic dark greasiness:
Edwards, ‘Dead Men’s Silver’, p. 6.

Bibliography

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Media Lost and Found
, Fordham University Press, New York, 2001

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Voyage to Disaster

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