Batavia's Graveyard - Mike Dash [138]
The lance corporal thus lived to be the last of Jeronimus’s close confederates from the island, and, when he died, the mutiny on Batavia’s Graveyard in some respects died with him. It had cost the lives of two in every three of the people who had sailed from Texel 15 months earlier—at least 216 men, women, and children from a total complement of 332, which was a slightly higher proportion of deaths than that suffered by the passengers and crew of the Titanic almost three centuries later. Even today, the massacres on Houtman’s Abrolhos remain the bloodiest page in the history of white Australia.
It only remains to trace the fate of the survivors.
1629 proved to be a disappointing year for the Gentlemen XVII. In addition to the loss of the brand-new Batavia, with most of her cargo and two chests of silver valued at 44,788 guilders, another ship from Pelsaert’s flotilla, the ’s Gravenhage, had been disabled by bad weather in the Channel and required costly and extensive repairs. A third retourschip, the Wapen van Enkhuizen,*50 had blown up off the coast of Sierra Leone on 12 October when fire reached her powder magazine. The survivors—there were only 57 of them, many terribly wounded—were picked up by the Leyden, which herself lost her skipper and her upper-merchant in an attempt to fight the fire, plus another 170 men—more than half her crew—from disease on the outward voyage. The survivors were eventually forced to put in to the port of Sillebor, in Sumatra, for a month to nurse the sick, which greatly irritated the Gentlemen and cost the Leyden’s remaining officers all chance of earning bonuses for the speed of their voyage out.
Even so, none of these disasters put more than a dent in Jan Company’s profits for the year, and thanks to Hayes and Pelsaert and the Sardam’s men, even the loss of the Batavia could be viewed with some equanimity by Antonio van Diemen. “The 5th of this month returns here to anchor from the Southland the yacht Sardam,” Van Diemen wrote in December,
“bringing with them 74 souls from the wrecked ship Batavia together with 10 chests of Cash, amongst them the chest No.33 with nine sacks of ducats. Item, the Cash with Jewels to the value of 58,000 guilders and some wrought silverwork, three barrels of Cochineal*51 and other baggage . . . . Thanks be to the Almighty for this, we would not have expected it to come out so well.”
An attached list of the goods retrieved mentions 32 items, from money chests and cannon to a “pack of old linen.” Toward the bottom of the page, one of the minor pieces listed is “a small cask filled with vinegar,” of the sort that had cost the lives of the five men in the Sardam’s boat. Its value was so insignificant that Van Diemen did not bother to assess it.
Not many of those who outlived Jacop Pietersz and his fellow mutineers fared well.
One of the few who did was Johannes van der Beeck. Torrentius, in whose name Jeronimus had been accused of murdering some 115 men, women, and children, served only 2 years of his 20-year sentence for heresy. He was housed in relatively comfortable surroundings, granted a good ration of wine, and was permitted to receive and entertain visitors in his cell. His wife, Cornelia—from whom he had been separated for 14 years—was among those who called on him. She received permission to stay with him for up to two weeks at a time.
Torrentius still had some powerful friends, both in the Netherlands and overseas. They included the stadholder, or governor, of the Dutch Republic, Prince Frederik Hendrik of Orange himself, who tried unsuccessfully to get the painter released soon after he was sentenced. Another of Van der Beeck’s admirers was King Charles I of England, who seems to have been untroubled by his heresies. In 1630 the King wrote to Holland to inquire if Torrentius could be sent to England. Frederik Hendrik agreed to pardon him, very much against the wishes of the burgomasters of Haarlem, and Charles, in turn, promised that the painter “will not be allowed to exercise his godless tongue, but