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.
They sailed out of the Texel on the 28th
of October, 1628; and as it would be tedious and
Troublesome to the
reader to set down a long account of things perfectly well known, I
shall say nothing of the occurrences that happened in their passage
to the Cape of Good Hope; but content myself with observing that on
the 4th of June, in the following year 1629, this vessel, the
Batavia, being separated from the fleet in a storm, was driven on
the Abrollos or shoals, which lie in the latitude of 28 degrees
south, and which have been since called by the Dutch, the Abrollos
of Frederic Houtman. Captain Pelsart, who was sick in bed when this
accident happened, perceiving that his ship had struck, ran
immediately upon deck. It was night indeed; but the weather was
fair, and the moon shone very bright; the sails were up; the course
they steered was north-east by north, and the sea appeared as far as
they could behold it covered with a white froth. The captain called
up the master and charged him with the loss of the ship, who excused
himself by saying he had taken all the care he could; and that
having discerned this froth at a distance, he asked the steersman
what he thought of it, who told him that the sea appeared white by
its reflecting the rays of the moon.
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