Batavia Epub

by Pete Fitzsimons

  As busy as the nigh-on 200-strong crew are, however, there are many sailors and no few of the embarking soldiers who take pause as this handsome blonde Dutchwoman boards the vessel for the first time. Something in her regal yet achingly sensual bearing is nothing less than intoxicating, and they watch closely as she is hoisted onto the ship’s deck courtesy of a ‘bosun’s chair’ – a plank with four holes to allow for lines attached to a pulley suspended from the mainstay.

  She is closely followed by her buxom maid, who is obvious by her black dress, white lace cap and apron atop heavy clogs, and by the fact that, unlike her mistress, this ’un must climb one of the steep ladders going from the kaag to the mighty retourschip. And with them both come some grand and ornately designed sea chests, undoubtedly containing all of this beautiful lady’s jewels and finery.

  Such luggage is in strict contrast to that of the crew, who have come aboard in recent weeks with little more than their humble chests containing only their plate, mug, knife, tobacco, pipes, tinderbox for making a flame, a hammock or mattress filled with horsehair, rough pillow . . . and the stinking rags they happened to be wearing at the time they were recruited.

  Yes, they are rough, but she is fine. She is likely, many of them reflect, the most beautiful woman they have ever seen, which fits well with the fact that she is coming aboard such a beautiful vessel.

  But to work, lads, and keep loading!

  28 October 1628, Texel

  All through the next day come the last of the supplies onto the ship, destined for her copious storerooms, including 3000 pounds of cheese, 20 tons of hardtack (a long-lasting type of biscuit), 34 tons of meat in tight barrels, 27 tons of herring, eight and a half tons of butter, 37 tons of dried peas, 17 tons of dried beans, three and a half tons of salt and 250 barrels of beer – the basic provisions required to see the soldiers, sailors, crew and passengers through their nine-month voyage. Enormous barrels of fresh water are stored in the hold, each one containing over 65 gallons. There are supplies of other foodstuffs, plus yet more barrels of wine, beer and spirits, making many hundreds of barrels in all, but these latter are not for the consumption of those on the ship; rather, they are supplies that the settlement at Batavia is in urgent need of.

  Make way, make way, I say, for these pieces of finely crafted furniture destined for the hold! These are intended to help furnish the ever-increasing number of houses in the new settlement, as well as these boxes of gold and silver plates for its finest pantries, and whole bales of the most delicate fabrics and lace to dress both its women and other important ladies throughout the Indies. There are additional bales of the finest wool, velvet and linen, with trimmings of gold and silver lace, all of it purely for trading in India. (Even though the settlement of Batavia is a lot further from Amsterdam than India, the ship will not be stopping in India, for the Javanese outpost is the hub of this vast trading empire, and everything – ships, people and goods, imports and exports – must pass through it first.)

  As it has long been established that ships are faster and more stable when they are well balanced and trimmed, the heaviest cargo is stored in the hold. This includes the spare cannons and anchors, the cannonballs, the 137 disassembled stones of a massive portico that is to stand at the entrance to Batavia citadel, the spare timbers for repairs to the ship and thousands of yellow ballast bricks, small paving stones that, upon arrival, will help to pave the streets of the settlement. The heaviest thing of all, ingots of lead, for the roofs of Batavia, are also stored there. As to just where in the hold to place this particularly heavy cargo, that is part art, part science. Too high and the ship risks keeling over in heavy weather. Too low and the ship becomes ‘laboursome’, hard to move through the water. Long maritime experience has taught that the heaviest cargo is best placed somewhere just below the most central part of the ship, and to that effect the carpenters have built a great deal of scaffolding to hold it there tightly.

  Beyond that, there are many objets d’art and precious jewels to flatter potentates in their trading regions, along with baubles of various descriptions, including elaborately designed crockery and mirrors to impress those who are a little lower down on the trading scale but still important to the Company. Oh, and not to forget, the muskets and their ammunition must also come aboard, as must tons of neatly bundled wood to keep the stove in the galley going for the next few months. Much of this has been carefully loaded into the ship over the previous weeks, and they are now adding the last bits and pieces.

  But at noon on this, the day before departure, comes the most important cargo of all, unloaded from the wharf onto the ship under armed guard.

  Terug, ga terug, zeg ik. Back! Get back, I say!

  It is 12 money chests, each one filled with around 8000 silver coins worth some 250,000 guilders and tipping the scales at 500 pounds of dead weight. These coins are intended as a means of trade for all of the VOC’s many activities throughout their entire East Indies empire, stretching from India’s Bay of Bengal, along the coast of Java, through all of the Spice Islands and all the way to Japan.

  This, the most valuable piece of cargo ever sent from the shores of the Dutch Republic, is way too precious to be stored in the hold and is instead held in the Great Cabin – the virtual nerve centre of the entire ship. Here, the Batavia’s commercial and maritime officers will eat, meet and make all of the key decisions affecting the course of their venture – all of it entirely sealed off and secured from the rest of the ship by an armed guard. The Great Cabin also provides sleeping quarters for Skipper Ariaen Jacobsz.

  Happily, to help both safely transport and defend such a tempting treasure on board the Batavia, there is a collection of 190 ship’s officers and seamen – far more than are needed to run the ship over 24 hours, but they expect to have a few die along the way – together with 100 mercenary soldiers in direct employ of the VOC.

  And that is the last of the soldiers streaming aboard this very afternoon. They are bound for a tour of duty in the colonies, where their job will be to defend the citadel in Batavia and put down whatever native insurrections might occur throughout the East Indies. Their presence, of course, means they can also protect the ship’s cargo and enforce the iron rule of the Company during the long voyage.

  Finally making up the ship’s complement are some 50 passengers, including a few Vrijburgers, the free settlers looking to make a new life in the East Indies. Some of them are accompanied by their families, while others are women and children travelling solo to Batavia, where the father of the family is seeing service. All up, there are 341 souls aboard the Batavia, of whom 22 are women and 16 are babies or children, all of the non-crew members staying well clear as the final arrangements are put in place. By dusk, the loading is finally complete and all is secured. Everything is in readiness for departure the following morning, provided the fair winds blow.

  29 October 1628, Texel

  And so they do! With the morning breeze coming from the required north-east – the usual wind is from the south-west – and the tide going out from the Zuyder Zee to the North Sea, the Batavia makes ready to move off from Texel at just after nine o’clock.

  At a nod from the skipper, the opperstuurman, upper-steersman, Claas Gerritsz utters the words all the sailors have been waiting for, words that sound like a nautical prayer. ‘We have a strong, fair breeze,’ he announces. ‘Drop the foresail, drop the main and main topsail, unleash the mizzen and let it hang in clews, also the spitsail and the mizzen topsail, unleash the sprit topsail, also the fore and main topgallant sail, unleash the fore tack, heave the sheets . . .’

  With each order, the sailors scamper up the rigging and across the spars, unfurling sails, pulling lines and attending to the tasks that the first mate keeps doling out. And, sure enough, from the moment the anchors are hauled up and the sails are set to the wind, the mighty ship, at first tentatively and then with increasing confidence, begins to move off. Within minutes, she is heading towards the entrance to the North Sea at a ra
te of three knots. It is a sight to behold.

  From all three of her mighty masts fly the red, white and blue flags with the large, black VOC symbol embossed in the middle, indicating that this is the flagship of the fleet. All of the flags flap brightly in the reflected light from the pristine sails as yet unsullied by long contact with sea air. From the gay wash of her blunt-nosed bow hurtles the carved figure of a magnificent scarlet Lion of Holland, leaping out at all those who would dare get in her mighty way.

  And, appropriately on this glorious autumnal day, all the other craft on the Zuyder Zee do indeed fall back in fear and awe, as this wondrous ship heads out towards the open sea on her maiden voyage. Yes, the Batavia has four mighty anchors strapped to the sides of her blunt bow, but they seem superfluous, for this looks to be a ship made for travelling fast, not for stopping.

  The more experienced of the mariners on those lesser craft admire both her size and her contours as she begins to rhythmically ply the waters, this acme of Dutch maritime design setting to sea. From the long and complicated construction of her beakhead – the small platform that extends out over her bow, a fifth of the length of the body of the ship – the lines elegantly step down to her midships and then all the way back up again to her towering stern, some 40 feet above the waterline, with exclusive cabin space dedicated to the elite officers and passengers just beneath the curved poop deck.

  All of that upper superstructure on the stern is ornately painted in pale green, with red and gold ochre trimmings all over. From bow to stern, around the entire ship on both sides, intricately carved gargoyles with grotesque expressions and bulging eyes – all of them based on the beliefs of the ancient Batavians – keep the evil spirits at bay. Her complicated rigging, though a baffling spiderweb to the uninitiated, is nothing less than a masterpiece of logic to true mariners. There is not one more line than necessary, and not one less. This is a powerful ship in every sense of the word; she carries a total of 30 cannons, 12 heavy guns a side on her lower deck, ranging in size from eight-up to 24-pounders and individually up to two tons in weight, and if that weren’t sufficient three either side on her upper deck. No, it is not just those who gaze upon her from afar who are impressed.

  Skipper Ariaen Jacobsz, on his quarterdeck, is surveying his new ship and the whole scene with great satisfaction. Notwithstanding the bitter, bitter cold on this choppy sea of late October, with winter fast approaching, he always feels at his best at this very moment – when a ship under his command is once again heading out to sea and he can look forward to long uninterrupted months on the oceans. And this is far and away the finest ship he has ever skippered.

  Not that the Batavia will be alone for all that; she will be the flagship of a fleet of eight. There are three other retourschips – the Dordrecht, Galiasse and Gravenhage – smaller versions of the Batavia but all of them large enough to be able to make regular trips to the East Indies and back carrying heavy cargo. There are the Assendelft and the Sardam – a fluyt and a jacht respectively – small, very manoeuvrable trading ships designed for carrying smaller amounts of cargo between the Spice Islands. There is also a heavily armed man-of-war, the Buren, there to fend off any of the pirate ships frequently found off the coast around Dunkirk, and thereafter whatever enemy ships they might come across. And, finally, there is the fastest and most manoeuvrable vessel of all, the jacht Kleine David, whose purpose is to act as a messenger and transport between all the ships.

  In Jacobsz’s possession are the VOC orders commanding him to guide his ship, and with it the fleet, down through the North Sea and the Kanaal, English Channel, before continuing down the French and Portuguese coasts, past the Strait of Gibraltar and all the way down Africa’s west coast to Sierra Leone before taking advantage of the north-east trade winds to head out into the Atlantic Ocean. He is to continue south-west until he is just off the coast of South America, where he is to do a turnabout to catch the winds and currents that will quickly propel the ships to the southern tip of Africa. At this point, they can take their first break to rest and revictual, before heading on to Batavia, following the Brouwer route.

  The departure from Texel in late October has been designed to ensure that the small fleet will catch the Roaring Forties trade winds when they are at their strongest. If all goes according to schedule, the ships will be in Batavia by early July the following year, some nine months hence, propitiously at the very time the freshly harvested spice crop will be ready to load.

  The only thing not to the liking of Jacobsz at this point is the presence of the slightly wan man standing just five yards from him on the upper-deck – far too close for the skipper’s liking, and, in his view, a serious intrusion. The man is Commandeur Francisco Pelsaert, who travelled back to the Netherlands from India on Jacobsz’s ship earlier in the year, and with whom the skipper had a time most turbulent, pompous prig that he was . . . It was the sincere hope of both men once they had parted on the docks at Texel that they would never see each other again, but now, by a malicious twist of fate, here they are.

  While Skipper Jacobsz has nautical command of this ship, Commandeur Pelsaert has commercial control of both the entire fleet and the whole exercise on which they are embarked. Despite Pelsaert’s previous vow to himself to never return to tropical climes and the fact that he has not yet fully recovered his health, the VOC managed to tempt him once more with its offer of, first, being the Commandeur of this fleet, and then of great advancement within the VOC’s hierarchy in the Dutch East Indies. His brother-in-law, Hendrick Brouwer, even whispered to him that there was every chance he would be appointed to the immensely powerful and prestigious East Indies Council once he arrived in Batavia – an extraordinary honour for one so young.

  In his own pocket, Pelsaert has a letter from the Heeren XVII, addressed to Governor-General Jan Pieterszoon Coen, recommending him for higher office once he arrives in Batavia:

  Click Here

  Pelsaert is a good officer, with a highly developed sense of loyalty to the Company, and yet he is not leaving the shores of the Dutch Republic with any sense of rising joy. One reason is that he is uncomfortable at being engaged in common project with one he detests as much as the skipper. Another is that the very thing that makes Jacobsz so joyous at the beginning of this voyage is the same thing that makes Pelsaert heavy of spirit. Jacobsz is an old sea dog who is only truly in his element when well out to sea, whereas Pelsaert is a commercial man whose natural element is terra firma, organising trade deals advantageous to the Company. And though the Commandeur has no loving family that he is agonised about leaving behind – he has never married, nor even engaged in long-term relationships, as that would have interfered with his work – still his glumness matches that of even the most devoted family man leaving his loved ones behind.

  For the Commandeur, the long journey ahead is naught but something to be endured, so that he can get to his true work in the East Indies, where he first journeyed a decade earlier when very junior in the Company. One bit of solace, at least, is that if all goes well, this trip will make him a very rich man. Notwithstanding the fact that Pelsaert’s original falling out with Jacobsz was over the former’s discovery that the skipper was engaging in private trade, Pelsaert is travelling with a chest containing four bags of jewels, together with an extremely valuable foot-long agate cameo that is over 1000 years old.

  The cameo comes from the Eastern Roman Empire and was created early in the fourth century to celebrate Constantine the Great’s coronation (it depicts his family in a classical scene). It is rumoured to be owned by the great Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens, and the famed Amsterdam jeweller and agent Gaspar Boudaen has had it mounted within an enamelled frame of silver gilt encrusted with precious stones. Pelsaert thinks it will likely find favour at the Mogul court, where he will hopefully be able to sell it at a profit of 50 per cent. That profit will have to be shared with both Boudaen and the VOC itself – for Pelsaert has at least been careful to inform the Company of it, and it has all
owed it. For all aboard the ship, the authority of the Company is like a palpable force, an unseen presence that extends from bow to stern.

  It is not only the Batavia’s officers who are obliged to swear fealty to the VOC at the moment of taking up their commission; it is the crew too. Just a short time before departure, a high Company official with the post of Monster-Commisaris came aboard to ensure that every post on the ship was filled, to read to the crew the ship’s articles – the regulations they must obey and the severe penalties they face if they breach those regulations – and to hear each crew member swear their own oath of allegiance before him.

  Now, when anyone high in the hierarchy of the Company gives an order to someone lower, he does so in the total confidence of having the full weight of the Company behind him. This applies to none more so than Pelsaert, who is the very embodiment of Company power. And if soldiers and sailors complain about anything at all to do with the VOC – their terms of employment, the ship, the skipper, Pelsaert himself, anything – the reason they whisper such complaints only to their closest confidants is that it is understood by everyone that the Company is among them at all times, that the walls, the decks, the very hatch doors themselves have eyes and ears, and any disloyalty to the Company risks severe punishment.

  And yet, during these first glorious hours of the journey, there is no complaint from anyone. All aboard are aware that this is not just another trip to the East Indies, on just another ship. Apart from being one of the finest ships that the Dutch Republic has ever constructed, she also bears the richest cargo ever assembled. And they are on her!