_Letter from the Governor of Banda to the Governor-General Pieter De
Carpentier, May 16, 1623._
Noble, Worshipful, Wise, Valiant and very Discreet Sir,
* * *
The day before yesterday...we sighted...a ship. We forthwith presumed it
to be Mr. Carstens, or perhaps one of the Yachts Pera or Arnehem...The
ship turned out to be the Arnehem, which during the preceding night had
lost her rudder...
(They) have not done much worth mentioning, for at the place where the
chart [*] they had with them, led them to expect an open passage, they
did not find any such, so that they could not get to the island they
wished to reach...[**]
[* It is highly probable that this is another allusion to a chart of the
voyage of Willem Janszoon with the Duifken in 1605-1606, because other
documents concerning this expedition of the Arnhem and the Pera put it
beyond a doubt that they had on board a chart of the voyage of the ship
Duifken. In that case the passage in the text proves that Willem Janszoon
already suspected the existence of Torres Strait, since the "open
passage" can hardly refer to anything else.]
[** The remaining part of the letter refers to the time when the two
ships were still together, and contains nothing new.]
Done in the Castle of Nassauw at Nera in the island of Banda, this 16th
of May, A.D. 1623. (signed) ISACK De BRUNE.