Voyage – Shipwrecked – Mutiny – Rescue & Punishment
Shipwrecked
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FOURTH of JUNE, being Monday morning, on the 2 day of Whitsuntide, with a clear full moon (2) about 2 hours before daybreak during the watch of the skipper (Ariaen Jacobsz), I was lying in my bunk feeling ill and felt suddenly, with a rough terrible movement, the bumping of the ship's rudder, and immediately after that I felt the ship held up in her course against the rocks, so that I fell out of my bunk. Whereon I ran up and discovered that all the sails were in Top, the wind South west, that during the night the course had been north east by North, and that lay right in the middle of a thick spray. Round the ship there was only a little surf, but shortly after that heard the Sea breaking hard round about. I said, "Skipper, what have you done that through your reckless carelessness you have run this noose round our necks?" (from Pelsaert’s Journal)
On the morning of the fourth of June 1629, the Batavia was wrecked on Morning Reef, on the Houtman Abrolhos (Lat. 28º 29.422S, Long. 113 º 47.603E), off the coast of Western Australia. She was the first of the Dutch ships lost off the west coast of Australia. The shipwreck was a prelude to an extraordinary tragedy.
Immediately following, 180 persons – among them 30 women and children – were ferried off the ship, while some 70 odd men remained, including Jeronimus Cornelisz, the undermerchant.
The survivors landed on Beacon Island. Commander Pelsaert, Captain Jakobsz and some 40 men made camp on Traitor’s Island. They had rescued some ship’s provisions, barrels of biscuit and some water. That, however, was not going to sustain them for long, since there was no fresh water on these ‘coral shallows’.
”At last, after having discussed it very well and weighed up that there was no hope of getting water out of the ship unless the ship should fall to pieces and it [water in barrels] should so float to land, or that there should be a good daily rain with which we could quench our thirst (but as these were all very uncertain means), resolved after long debating, as appears out of the resolution, (l4) that we should go in search of water on the islands most nearby or on the continent [vaste landt ] to keep them and us alive, and if we could find no water, that we should then sail with the boat without delay to Batavia, with God's grace there to relate our sad, unheard of, disastrous happening.” (Pelsaert’s Journal)
Thus, Commander Pelsaert, all the senior officers (except Jeronimus Cornelisz, who was still on the wreck), some crew and passengers, 48 in all, deserted the 268 on two waterless islands, whilst they went in search of water. Quickly abandoning this fruitless search on the mainland coast, they then made their way to Batavia, to obtain help. They took, in all, 33 days to get there.
On arrival in Batavia, the ship Batavia’s high boatswain was executed, on Commander Pelsaert's indictment, for outrageous behaviour before the loss of the ship. Skipper Jacobsz was arrested, again on Pelsaert's word, for negligence.
Governor General Coen dispatched Pelsaert seven days later in the jacht Sardam to effect a rescue of the survivors. With extraordinary bad luck, it took 63 days to find the wreck site, almost double the time it took the ship's boat to get to Batavia.
Voyage – Shipwrecked – Mutiny – Rescue & Punishment
