Description
In 1629, the magnificent Batavia – pride of the Dutch East India Company – is on her maiden voyage from Amsterdam to the Dutch East Indies, laden down with the greatest treasure to ever leave the Dutch Republic. She is already boiling over with a mutinous plot that is just about to be put into action when, just off the coast of Western Australia, she strikes an unseen reef in the middle of the night.
While Commandeur Francisco Pelsaert decides to take the longboat across 2000 miles of open sea for help, his second in command, Jeronimus Cornelisz, takes over, quickly deciding that 220 people on a small island is too many for the scant amount of supplies they have. Quietly, he puts forward a plan to 40-odd mutineers to save themselves by killing most of the rest, sparing only a half-dozen or so women, including his personal fancy, Lucretia Jans – one of the noted beauties of the Dutch Republic – to service their sexual needs.
A reign of terror begins, countered only by a previously anonymous soldier, Wiebbe Hayes, who begins to gather to him those prepared to do what it takes to survive…hoping against hope that the Commandeur will soon return with the rescue yacht.
Extraordinary and terrible as it seems, it all happened, long ago, and it is with very good reason that Peter Fitzsimons has long maintained that this is one of the greatest stories in Australian’s history.
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