Batavia's Graveyard (64 page)

“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):

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.