Early Voyages to Terra Australis, Now Called Australia: / A Collection of Documents, and Extracts from Early Manuscript Maps, Illustrative of the History of Discovery on the Coasts of That Vast Island, from the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century to the Time of Captain Cook.

by Richard Henry Major

My High Excellency, together with the Council of the Netherlandish India, I pray of you most urgently to send me help and assistance against these robbers of the money and goods from the wreck Zeewyk, who have divided the money and goods among themselves. I am stark naked; they have taken every thing from me. O, my God! They have behaved like wild beasts to me, and everyone is master. Worse than beasts do they live; it is impossible that on board a pirate ship things can be worse than here, because every one thinks that he is rich, from the highest to the lowest of my subordinates. They say among themselves, “Let us drink a glass to your health, ye old ducats!” I am ill and prostrate from scurvy.

APPENDIX III.

EXTRACT PROM THE DELIBERATIONS AND RESOLUTIONS IN THE COUNCIL OF INDIA.

Monday, April 26th, 1728.

At five o’clock this afternoon we received a letter by the patchialang De Veerman, very unexpectedly and fortunately, from the former skipper and under-merchant of the ship Zeewyk, bound for these parts, written in the Straits of Sunda, but undated, reporting the wreck of the ship on the reef lying before the Islands Frederick Houtman’s Abrolhos, near the Southland, at 28° L., on the 9th of June of last year. The crew having afterwards fetched several necessaries from the wreck, made from the timber a sloop or vessel, on board of which eighty-two souls have reached these straits, together with the money taken out by the ship, consisting of three tuns, according to the double invoice received. But, besides that letter, there also came to hand a little card, unsigned, apparently in the handwriting of the skipper, in which he complains in unmistakeable terms of the behaviour and dishonesty of the crew; so that we cannot but suppose that the money chests have been broken open, in order that so splendid a booty might be divided. Therefore on the motion of the Governor-General, it was resolved to send out at once to the assistance of the suffering vessel and crew, who were obliged, in default of fresh water, to put up with salt water for some time. Accordingly the brigantine De Hoop, the sloop De Olyftack, and the patchialangs De Snip and the before-named Veerman, being made ready by order of his excellency, the advocat-fiscal of India, Mr. Jacob Graafland, with two commissioners from the Council of Justice, assisted by the secretary and usher, together with one sergeant, two corporals, and twelve private soldiers, was dispatched, in order that the ready money might be secured without any delay, as much of it, that is, as might still be found. Further; a thorough search was to be made after the remainder, both among the crew and in all the corners and nooks of the sloop, which has been put together by them.

This said sloop no other vessels shall be allowed to approach, with the sole exception of that on board of which the commissioners are; so that all possibility may be removed of any clandestine transfer of the stolen booty to another crew, and of the noble company’s being thus injured by a complot of a gang of expert thieves. The guilty ones shall be seized and subjected to an exemplary punishment, as a warning to all other evil doers in similar lamentable and fatal occurrences.

J. J. Hendricks, Secr.

APPENDIX IV.

The Trials. About two hundred years have elapsed since the instructions here mentioned were drawn up, and still these cliffs belong to the “doubtfuls.” To what is this to be attributed? Do they in reality not exist at all? The Governor-General, Antonio Van Diemen, to whom the science of geography is so deeply indebted, did not doubt their existence. He thus writes to the governor of Mauritius, Adrian van der Hael, on the 2nd of September, 1643.

“The yacht Cleen Mauritius has, like the former ships bound for these parts, not seen anything of the Trials. This, however, proves nothing. Those who would discover those shoals (as they are usually called) in coming from your country, must be ordered to touch at the Southland at about 27° S. L., or Dirk Hartog’s Reede; they must then sail as far north as 20°, when they would find themselves about fifty miles E. of the Trials. They then have to sail W., as there is no doubt that they lie in 20° S. L.”