Batavia's Graveyard - Mike Dash [140]
Perhaps half a dozen active mutineers slipped through Pelsaert’s net before they could face charges for their crimes. Four of them—Dirck Gerritsz, Jan Jansz Purmer, Harman Nannings, and the bos’n’s mate—were sailors who seem to have been among the crew of the longboat. Three of them had taken part in the assault on Lucretia Jans, which had cost Jan Evertsz his life, but their names only emerged when the other members of their party were interrogated in the Abrolhos. By the time the commandeur returned to Java, the men had dispersed, and there is no record that any of them were ever brought to trial.
Luckier still was Jan Willemsz Selyns, the Batavia’s upper-cooper, who seems to have led something of a charmed life. He had taken part in the awful massacre of women and children on Seals’ Island on 18 July, when almost 20 people died, and was thus at least an accessory to murder. Then, on 5 August, he had come under suspicion as a potential defector to Wiebbe Hayes and only survived Jeronimus’s attempt to kill him when Wouter Loos personally intervened on his behalf. Later, he had been a member of the boat’s crew that set off to capture the Sardam and murder half her crew, and he had thus been held on board the jacht for further questioning. Many of those with whom he shared a cell—Jacop Pietersz and Daniel Cornelissen among them—were executed for their crimes, and all the other members of the group had at least been flogged and keelhauled, but so far as can be ascertained Selyns entirely escaped punishment. Perhaps he simply died of natural causes en route to Java, but Pelsaert’s journals make no mention of this, and it seems more likely that he somehow convinced the commandeur of his innocence.
The fate of a sixth man, Ryckert Woutersz, is still a greater mystery. The disgruntled gunner, whose loose tongue had revealed Jeronimus’s plans soon after the wreck, had certainly schemed to seize the ship and taken part in the attack on Creesje, but his name does not appear on the lists of suspects compiled by Pelsaert and he was never accused of any crime. At some point the gunner simply disappears, and it seems likely that it was Cornelisz who dealt with him, arranging for his throat to be slit one night in the Abrolhos as payment for his treachery. There is no proof of this, however, so perhaps Woutersz did somehow contrive to stay alive and found his way to Batavia with the other survivors of the under-merchant’s brief and bloody reign.
Francisco Pelsaert reverted briefly to his womanizing ways. Almost as soon as he had disembarked in Java—and certainly long before he finished his report to the Councillors of the Indies—the upper-merchant contrived to form a close liaison with a married woman named Pieterge, who was the wife of a certain Willem Jansz. Pieterge’s husband was away from Batavia, and the woman took full advantage until, in December 1629, she and two female friends were caught by the local predikant carousing in the “young, rash” company of de gentlemen Croock, Sambrix, and Pelsaert. Pieterge and Pelsaert received stern warnings from the cleric, and the whole affair was reported to Batavia’s Church Council. The preacher’s notes leave little doubt that the relationship was a sexual one, which would probably have continued for some time had it not come to the attention of the Church.
The warnings had the required effect, however, and the affair seems to have been over by the end of January 1630, when Pelsaert was summoned before the Council of the Indies to present his credentials. This interview must have caused him some concern. The Council might have been expected to deal harshly with a man who had not only failed to keep good order on his ship, but also abandoned several hundred people to Jeronimus’s mercies while he himself sailed to Java to fetch help. However, the prompt recovery of almost all of the Batavia’s