Batavia's Graveyard - Mike Dash [218]
Loos and Creesje Interrogation of Wouter Loos, JFP 24 Sep 1629 [DB 225].
Loos and Judick LGB.
New council Bastiaensz, ibid., refers to the setting up of a “new government” on the island.
Loos’s motives for attacking Francisco Pelsaert, in interrogating Loos, suggested that the attack was launched “on the pretext that they wanted to be Master of the Water,” but adds, remarkably, “but on the contrary no water ever was refused to them.” Verdict on Wouter Loos, JFP 13 Nov 1629 [DB 228].
“. . . at least some military experience . . .” I would count Wouter Loos, Jan Hendricxsz, Stone-Cutter Pietersz, Lenert van Os, Mattys Beer, Andries Jonas, Hans Jacob Heijlweck, Lucas Gellisz, and perhaps Hans Frederick (who was often ill) among the soldiers, and Rutger Fredricx, Jan Willemsz Selyns, Allert Janssen, Andries Liebent, and Cornelis Janssen among the sailors. Of the boys, Jan Pelgrom, Rogier Decker, Abraham Gerritsz, and Claes Harmansz Hooploper might have been relied on to fight, taking the mutineers’ maximum fighting strength to 18 men. The other signatories to Loos’s oath—there would have been 15 of them, if the numbers of the mutineers’ party had remained unchanged since the men had signed Cornelisz’s second oath of 20 August—had played no part in the earlier attacks or killings, even though there were four or five soldiers and a similar number of sailors among them. A couple, including Olivier van Welderen, were not well enough to fight, but plainly the rest had no appetite for the killing.
Two muskets “Declaration in Short” JFP nd [DB 253]. It took some time to get these weapons into action; according to Jan Hendricxsz, “had we shot them [Hayes’s men] immediately, we should certainly have got them, but the gunpowder burned away 3 to 4 time from the pan.” Cornelisz, told of this later when they were all under guard, admonished Hendricxsz, saying, “If you had used some cunning you would have got it all ready on the water, and then we should have been ready.” JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 160].
The final attack JFP 17 Sept–13 Nov 1629 [DB 142, 222, 227–8]; LGB. Pelsaert and Bastiaensz give conflicting accounts as to how the action ended; the predikant writes that Loos ordered a retreat before the rescue ship appeared, but Pelsaert implies that the attack was still continuing when the Sardam hove into view: “[The mutineers] apparently would have caused even more disasters if it had not pleased God that we arrived here with the Yacht at the same time, or in the very hour, when they were fighting, and thus all their design has been destroyed.” Verdict on Wouter Loos, JFP 13 Nov 1629 [DB 227]. Jan Hendricxsz confirmed this account, noting that “while they were fighting with the other party, they suddenly saw the ship.” Confession of Jan Hendricxsz, JFP 17 Sep 1629 [DB 178].
Chapter 8: Condemned
Pelsaert’s Batavia journals contain detailed summaries of the interrogations of all the major mutineers, together with the sentences passed on them. These, with the commentaries of Henrietta Drake-Brockman (Voyage to Disaster [Nedlands, WA: University of Western Australia Press, 1995]) and V. D. Roeper (De Schipbreuk van de Batavia, 1629 [Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 1994]), have been my principal sources for this chapter.
Pelsaert’s initial actions JFP 17 Sep 1629 [DB 141–2].
The Sardam’s anchorage Hugh Edwards, “Where Is Batavia’s Graveyard?,” in The ANCODS Colloquium, pp. 91–3; Jeremy Green, “The Batavia Incident: The Sites,” in ibid., p. 100.
“Frantic relief” “The pious ones jumped for joy,” wrote Bastiaensz, “and immediately went in their little boat to the jacht to warn them.” LGB.
Loos and Pelgrom Verdict on Jan Pelgrom, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 209–10].
Hayes’s anchorage Edwards, “Where Is Batavia’s Graveyard?” p. 93, persuasively advocates this as the most likely explanation for Hayes’s appearance “round the northerly point,” as mentioned in Pelsaert’s journals.
“Thick with nettles . . .” H. Edwards, Islands of Angry Ghosts (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1966),