Voyage to Disaster

Jan Hendrycks confesses that one day he had been called by Jeronimus into his tent and that he gave him to know that at night time he must help him with the murder of the Predikant’s family. At night, Zeevonk has called outside Wiebrecht Clausen, a young girl, whom Jan Hendrycks stabbed with a dagger, and inside, all peopleâ??the mother with her six childrenâ??had their heads battered in with axes . . .He said, certainly, I have a knife. So without any objection, Andreas has gone to Myken Soers who was heavily pregnant and threw her underfoot and cut her throat . . .”â??Extracts from Francisco Pelsaert’s The Disastrous Voyage of the Ship Batavia