ACCOUNT OF THE WRECK OF THE SHIP “DE VERGULDE DRAECK”

Summary

The ship De Vergulde Draeck, equipped by the Chamber of Amsterdam, having sailed on the 4th of October, 1655, from Tessel to East India, with a rich cargo, including 78,600 guilders in cash, in eight boxes, was wrecked very suddenly on the 28th of April, at night, at the beginning of the first day-watch, on the coast of the Southland, on a reef stretching out to sea about one mile and a half, latitude 30⅔°. Of one hundred and ninety-three souls only seventy-five, among whom were the skipper Pieter Aberts and the under-steersman, reached the shore alive. Nothing was saved from the ship, which foundered and sunk at once, except a small quantity of provisions washed on shore by the waves. The news was brought to Batavia by one of the ship's boats, with the above-mentioned steersman and six sailors, after beating about for a month, on the 7th of June, with the account that the sixty-eight persons who remained behind were exerting themselves to get their boat afloat again, which lay deeply embedded in the sand, that they might send it also with some of their number to Batavia. The General and Council resolved, for the rescue both of the above-mentioned unfortunate men, and also of the Company's specie and merchandise, to get ready without delay a quick-sailing fly-boat, the Witte Valck, provisioned for five months, with some further supplies for the above-mentioned men at the Southland; as also some expert divers, with hatchets and other necessary implements.