Batavia's Graveyard - Mike Dash [171]
Another 270 people . . . This figure assumes 50 of the Batavia’s 150 sailors were on watch. The ship had originally set sail with 332 people (List of those on board the Batavia, ARA VOC 1098, fol. 582r [R 220–1]), but 10 had died en voyage—rather a low total for the period, as will be seen.
Actions after the wreck JFP 4 June 1629 [DB 122–3]. For the various dimensions of the Batavia, see Willem Vos, Batavia Cahier 1: De Herbouw van een Oostindiïvaarder: Bestek en Beschrijving van een Retourschip (Lelystad: np, 1990).
“What have you done . . . ?” JFP 4 June 1629 [DB 123].
“The smallest of the Batavia’s eight anchors” This anchor was eventually recovered by marine archaeologists from a position some distance from the wreck. A woodcut in OV shows a cable run out through one of the Batavia’s stern gunports. This ancient method of hauling a ship off rocks is still sometimes used today. It is known as “kedging off.”
The sounding lead Dutch leads were about 18 inches long and cast with a hollow, bowl-shaped end. This would have been filled with sticky tallow, which would bring up traces of mud or sand where the bottom was soft. In unknown waters the lead was swung regularly from the bows and the results reported to the officer of the watch by loudly singing out the depth. For the details of the soundings, see Governor-General in Council, Batavia, 9 July 1629, in H. T. Colenbrander, JP Coen: Bescheiden Omtrent zijn Bedrijf in Indiï, V, pp. 756–7 [DB 44].
“Dutch East Indiamen were built strong . . .” Boxer, “The Dutch East-Indiamen,” p. 82.
View of the Abrolhos from the wreck site Hugh Edwards, “Where Is Batavia’s Graveyard?,” in Jeremy Green, Myra Stanbury, and Femme Gaastra (eds.), The ANCODS Colloquium: Papers Presented at the Australia-Netherlands Colloquium on Maritime Archaeology and Maritime History (Fremantle: Australian National Centre of Excellence for Maritime Archaeology, 1999), pp. 88–9.
“The largest island” This was East Wallabi (Pelsaert’s “High Island” in the journals), which, with a 50-foot hill as its highest point, is visible from considerably farther off than any other island in the Wallabi Group.
“The great Yammer . . .” JFP 4 June 1629 [DB 124].
“There was no order to the evacuation . . .” In truth, the men of the Batavia were no better and no worse than the other sailors of their day. In the 1620s—and indeed for the next 200 years—perhaps only 1 in every 7 people could swim, and it was rare indeed for the crew of any vessel to remain disciplined in the aftermath of a shipwreck. Skippers were much more likely to save themselves than they were to remain at their posts until the last of their men had been rescued. Sailors frequently commandeered the ship’s boats for themselves and left their passengers to drown. There was no recognized emergency drill for the men to follow. The concept of “women and children first” did not exist, and the very idea of carrying lifeboats sufficient to save all passengers and crew on a vessel the size of an East Indiaman was regarded as preposterous. See the numerous examples cited by Edward Leslie, Desperate Journeys, Abandoned Souls: True Stories of Castaways and Other Survivors (London: Papermac, 1991). For the contemporary Spanish view, see Pérez-Mallaína, op. cit., pp. 214–5.
Death of a dozen people by drowning Pelsaert’s declaration, 20 July 1629, ARA VOC 1098, fol. 223r–224r [R 212–4].
Food and water from the wreck JFP 4 June 1629 [DB 124–5]. There was much more food than water—66 gallons of bread (the Dutch measured their