Australia’s
pp. 91-92 · Read in the full issue
Grisly Deeds On Australia’s West Coast
Two hours before daybreak on June 4, 1629, a big, richly laden Dutch merchant ship, the Batavia, ran aground on a reef of the barren Abrolhos Islands, off the coast of Western Aus tralia, while on her way from Holland to the Dutch East Indies.
SO began one of the greatest dramatic tragedies in Australian history, “beside which,” one Aus tralian historian once wrote, “the mutiny on the Bounty is an anaemic tale.”
The wreck occurred when mutiny was brewing in the ship—this being directed against Francisco Pelsaert, the ship’s non-seafaring commandeur (a sort of merchant commodore).
Long Boat Voyage
Of the 250 people aboard, 180 (in cluding Pelsaert) were landed on a small, desolate island before bad weather prevented the ship’s boat from going back for the rest. Mean while, those on board began looting Pelsaert’s sea chest, throwing his papers overboard, and rioting over drinking water.
Less than 36 hours after the wreck, the Batavia’s captain told Pelsaert that he was going to leave the island in the boat to search for water; and
as Pelsaert did not trust him to come back, he decided to accompany him.
Forty-six other people, two of them women, left with the captain and Pelsaert. Less than four weeks later, having covered 1,200 miles, the boat reached the Straits of Sunda where those on board were picked up by a Dutch merchantman and taken to Java.
There the high boatswain was hanged for his part in an assault on one of the Batavia’s 30 women passengers. The skipper was arrested for negligence in wrecking the Batavia. And the Dutch Governor- General ordered the yacht Sardam, with Pelsaert on board, to go to the wreck site in the hope of rescuing those who had been left behind, and of salvaging the ship’s cargo, which included a rich casket of jewels and four chests of cash containing 250,000 guilders.
Meanwhile, on the Abrolhos islands, a mutinous fellow called Jeronimus Cornelisz had assumed command, and a bloody reign of terror began that is probably without parallel.
Between July 4, 1629 (when a soldier was drowned as a punishment for tapping a keg of wine and get ting drunk) and mid-September of that year (when the Sardam reached the Abrolhos from Java), Cornelisz was responsible for the murder of well over 100 of the Batavia’s passengers and crew. Some of the victims, such as the sick, had their throats cut by night; others were killed while trying to escape from Cornelisz; others, again, were publicly decapitated, etc.
Put to Death With a strong band of soldiers at his command, Pelsaert had no trouble in rounding up the murd erers on his arrival at the Abrolhos, and they, in their turn, were put to death after being tried aboard the Sardam.
Cornelisz had both his hands cut off before being hanged on a gallows set up on one of the Abrolhos islands; others had one hand cut off before being hanged, etc.
Pelseart later salvaged some of the Batavia’s valuable cargo and took it hack to Java, where other members °r Cornelisz’s band were condemned and executed.
Needless to say, the story of the atavia has long interested Australian writers, yet it is only now that Pelsaert s account of the affair, as
set down at the time, has been trans lated into English and published.
The person responsible for its pub lication is Henrietta Drake-Brock man, a Western Australian novelist, who first became interested in the Batavia story as a girl, and who began to give serious thought to writ ing a book on the subject in 1938.
After locating Pelsaert’s journals in The Hague, she had them trans lated into modern Dutch by a Dutch scholar, and later rendered into Eng lish.
Mrs. Drake-Brockman used the journals and other material as the basis for a novel, The Wicked and the Fair, which was published a couple of years ago.
Now she has published a factual book. Voyage to Disaster, which.
comprises Pelsaert’s journal, 100 pages on Pelsaert’s life and times* and 10 appendices on related matters* Mrs. Drake-Brockman’s researches* incidentally, led to the discovery by skindivers in 1963 of the remains o;< the Batavia in the Wallabi Group o:< the Abrolhos islands. It had pre-; viously been thought that the Batavia had been wrecked further south in what has erroneously become known as Pelsaert Group.—RL. (VOYAGE TO DISASTER. Published by Angus and Robertson. 42/-.)