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In the absence of Pelsart, he became commander, and deemed this a suitable occasion for putting his original design into execution, concluding that it would not be difficult to become master of that which remained of the wreck, and to surprise Pelsart when he should arrive with the assistance which he had gone to Batavia to seek, and afterward to cruise in these seas with his vessel.
It was the wreck of this Dutch ship that led to the discovery of this part of the continent of Australia, Commodore Pelsart himself having crossed over to it in a boat in search of water. April 8. In the afternoon we got underweigh, with a fresh south wind.
They went next to examine the wreck, which they found staved into an hundred pieces; the keel lay on a bank of sand on one side, the fore part of the vessel stuck fast on a rock, and the rest of her lay here and there as the pieces had been driven by the waves, so that Captain Pelsart had very little hopes of saving any of the merchandise.
The BATAVIA, commanded by Commodore Francis Pelsart, was separated from her consorts by a storm, and during the night of the 4th of June struck on the rocks of Frederick Houtman. The crew and passengers were landed on one island, and two small islets in the neighbourhood, and the ship broke up. No fresh water was found, and Pelsart sailed in one of the boats in search of some on the mainland.
In the year 1628 a colonizing expedition of eleven vessels left Holland for the Dutch East Indies. Among these ships was the Batavia, commanded by Francis Pelsart.
Things were in this situation when Captain Pelsart arrived in the Sardam frigate. He sailed up to the wreck, and saw with great joy a cloud of smoke ascending from one of the islands, by which he knew that all his people were not dead.
The directors of the East India Company, animated by the return of five ships, under General Carpenter, richly laden, caused, the very same year, 1628, eleven vessels to be equipped for the same voyage; amongst which there was one ship called the Batavia, commanded by Captain Francis Pelsart.
Pelsart remained another week at the Abrolhos, endeavoring to recover some of the Batavia's treasure, and succeeded in finding all but one chest. The mutineers were tried by the officers of the Sardam, and all but two were executed before the ship left the scene of their awful crime.
One of them, by name Wouterlos, who escaped from this rout, returned the following day to renew the attack, but with little success. "Pelsart arrived during these occurrences in the frigate Sardam. As he approached the wreck he observed smoke from a distance, a circumstance that afforded him great consolation, since he perceived by it that his people were not all dead.
Pelsart, like Easter Group, is marked by a detached islet lying a mile off its north-east extreme. May 3. We fetched in under the Lee of Easter Group as the north-west gale of this morning commenced. The barometer did not indicate the approach of the gale, falling with it, and acting as in those we had encountered at Swan River.
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