Batavia's Graveyard - Mike Dash [167]
Owing to the quirks of the Dutch legal system, which placed overwhelming significance on confessions, there is virtually no room in the journals for evidence from ordinary passengers who witnessed the extraordinary events that took place on the Abrolhos; in particular, it is noteworthy—though unsurprising—that none of the Batavia’s women were heard. It is, furthermore, entirely possible that other material—perhaps a good deal of material—has been omitted altogether, either because it seemed irrelevant or because it cast some of the protagonists in an unfavorable light. Finally, it is important to remember that the journals were compiled to be read by the directors of the Amsterdam chamber of the VOC. It was these gentlemen who would determine the future career—if any—of Pelsaert and the other officers of the Batavia. It would be naive to suppose that they were not written with this thought very much in mind.
Some idea of the degree of editing that may have occurred during the writing-up emerges from a study of the journal’s authorship. The commandeur’s report is not in Pelsaert’s own cramped and unconfident hand, which is known from a single surviving letter in the VOC archives [ARA VOC 1098, fol. 583r–4r], and throughout much of it Pelsaert himself is referred to in the third person. It would appear, therefore, that the Batavia journals were actually written by one of the commandeur’s clerks, almost certainly Salomon Deschamps, who was himself one of the unwilling mutineers. This contention is supported by the fact that the handwriting in the journal matches that in the VOC’s copy of Pelsaert’s remonstrantie on Mogul India, which Deschamps is known to have compiled. It is therefore noteworthy that although the lists of Cornelisz’s followers, copied into the journal, are given—as was the custom—in descending order of rank, the name of the relatively high-ranking Deschamps always appears at the bottom of the lists. From this it would appear that the hapless clerk was doing what he could to distance himself from the mutineers [R 42–7]. It is, thus, not strictly accurate to refer to Pelsaert’s journal as “his,” though for the sake of simplicity I have often done so.
The only other account of the mutiny that still exists in manuscript form comes to us at third hand in the form of a collection of anecdotes concerning Dutch journeys to the Indies, preserved among the municipal archives of Harderwijk, a small port in Gelderland. This MS [Gemeente Archief Harderwijk, Oud Archief 2052, fol. 30–7] contains some details of events on the Abrolhos—such as the story of Wybrecht Claasen’s swim to the wreck for water, and the anecdote of Cornelisz being imprisoned in a limestone pit and forced to pluck birds—that do not appear in any other sources. It seems likely that the anonymous compiler had them from a member of the Batavia’s crew. From internal evidence, it would appear that these anecdotes were written down in about 1645 [R 22–8, 57].
Four further eyewitness accounts were printed and preserved in various contemporary and near-contemporary pamphlets. The most important of these was produced, anonymously, by Isaac Commelin, an Amsterdam bookseller whose Origin and Progress of the United Netherlands Chartered East-India Company, published in 1645, helped to start the Dutch vogue for accounts of voyages to foreign lands.
Commelin (1598–1676) followed up this success with Ongeluckige Voyagie, Van ’t Schip Batavia (The Unlucky Voyage of the Batavia), a densely packed pamphlet, illuminated with copper-plate engravings, that included not only the details of Cornelisz’s mutiny but also accounts of two other voyages. The book was first published by the Amsterdam printer Jan Jansz in 1647 and was closely based on Pelsaert’s unpublished journals, rearranged and transposed where necessary to the third person from the first. It includes one short interpolation [OV (1647) pp. 59–60], in the form of a purported statement by Wiebbe Hayes that does not appear among the VOC archives.