_Letter of the Governor-General and Councillors to the Managers of the
E.I.C. at the Amsterdam Chamber, November 30, 1697._
...As regards the results of the voyage of the three...vessels aforesaid
[de Geelvink, de Nijptang and het Wezeltje], which, pursuant to the
letters of the "Heeren XVII" of November 10, 1695, and March 16, 1696,
and in accordance with Your Worships' Instructions of April 23 of the
same year, have successfully accomplished their voyage by way of the
Tristan de Cunha Islands and the Cape of Good Hope, furthermore via the
islands of Amsterdam and St. Paulo, and along the land of d'Eendragt or
the South-land, and have arrived here in good condition as regards ships
and crews, we shall in the main beg leave to refer you to the journals
kept on board the said ships, and to their annotations, together with the
charts and a number of drawings of the said places, all which will be
handed to Your Worships by the bearer of the same, Almoner Victor
Victorszoon, who is now homeward bound in the ship Slants Welvaren. The
drawings are packed in a case to the number of 11, to wit:
7 of divers places in the South-land,
1 of the island of Tristan de Cunha,
1 of the island of Amsterdam,
1 of the island of St. Paulo, and
1 of the island of Mony [*].
[* I have not found these drawings.--In the seventeenth-century charts
Mony is South-west of Java.]
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We besides beg to forward to you a number of larger and smaller disks of
wood, brought over from the said South-land by skipper Willem de
Vlamingh, concerning which wood he had noted in his journal at the dates
December 30 and 31, 1696, and January 2, 1697, that it was odoriferous, a
point which we have not been able to verify here, although we have
directly ordered a small portion of it to be distilled, and beg to hand
you with the rest a small bottle of the oil thus gained for Your
Worships' examination...together with a box containing shells collected
on the beach, fruits, plants, etc., the whole, however, of little value
and decidedly inferior to what elsewhere in India may be found of the
same description; so that in general in this part of the South-land,
which in conformity with their instructions they have diligently skirted,
surveyed and observed, they have found little beyond an arid, barren and
wild land, both near the shore and so far as they have been inland,
without meeting with any human beings, though now and then they have seen
fires from afar, some of the men fancying that two or three times they
have seen a number of naked blacks, whom however they have never been
able to come near to, or to come to parley with; nor have they found
there any peculiar animals or birds, excepting that especially in the
Swaene-revier [*] they have seen a species of black swans, three of which
they have brought to Batavia alive, which we should have been glad to
send over to Your Worships, but that shortly after their arrival here
they all of them died one after another. Nor, so far as we know, have
they met with any vestiges of the lost ship de Ridderschap van Hollant or
of any other bottoms, either in those parts or near the islands of
Amsterdam and St. Paulo, so that in sum nothing of any importance has
been discovered in this exploratory voyage. Only, we must not omit to
mention that in an island situated in 25° S.L. near or before the
South-land, they have found fastened to a pole, which though half-rotten
stood still erect, a common pewter dish of medium size, which had been
flattened and nailed to the pole aforesaid, where they found it still
hanging; the said dish bearing the following words engraved on it, still
distinctly legible:
[* Opposite to the Rottenest island.]
"A.D. 1616, on the 25th of October there arrived here the ship den
Eendragt, of Amsterdam; supercargo Gillis Miebais, of Liege; skipper
Dirck Hartog, of Amsterdam; she set sail again for Bantam, on the 27th
do.; subcargo Jan Steyn, upper-steersman Pieter Ledocker van Bil."
This old dish which skipper Willem de Vlaming brought us, has now
likewise been handed to the Commander [*] in order to be delivered to
Your Worships, who with us will no doubt stand amazed that the same has
for so long a series of years been preserved in spite of its being
exposed to the influence of sky, rain and sun [**].
[* Viz. of the fleet with which this letter was sent to the Netherlands.]
[* The dish would seem to be no longer extant.]
In the same spot they have again erected a new pole with a flattened
pewter dish nailed to it in commemoration of their visit, having first
had the following inscription engraved on the dish, as is more amply set
forth in the Journals:
"A.D. 1697, on the 4th of Febr. there arrived here the ship de Geelvinck,
skipper Willem de Vlaming, of Vlieland; assistant Joannes van Bremen, of
Copenhaguen; upper-steersman Michiel Blom, of Bremen; the hooker de
Nijptang, skipper Gerrit Collart, of Amsterdam; assistant Theodorus
Heermans, of do.; upper-steersman Gerrit Gerrits, of Bremen; the galiot
't Weseltje, master Cornelis de Vlaming, of Vlieland; steersman Coert
Gerrits, of Bremen; the whole of our flotilla sailed from here on the
12th do., in order to explore the South-land with destination for
Batavia" [*]
[* This dish was afterwards brought to Paris by the French expedition,
with the ships l'Uranie and la Physicienne (1817-1820), (see L. DE
FREYCINET, _Voyage autour du monde, sur les corvettus l'Uranie et la
Physicienne_, Historique, Paris, 1825. pp. 449, 482-486) and would seem
to be no longer extant there. An evidently inaccurate copy of the
inscription engraved on the dish, is here reproduced on a reduced scale
from _Planche 14_ of the _Atlas Historique_ accompanying De Freycinet's
work.]
[Map No. 12. Opschrift op den schotel, door Willem De Vlamingh op het
Zuidland achtergelaten (Inscription on the dish, left by Willem De
Vlamingh at the Southland), 1697.]
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And since it is our intention, in order to let Your Worships have the
more information and satisfaction touching this voyage, to dispatch to
the Netherlands again in the last return-ships sailing from here, the
ex-leader of the expedition, Skipper Willem de Vlaming Senior, together
with his upper-steersman Michiel Blom, they having not yet returned from
Bengal with their ships Geelvinck and Nijptang, but being expected every
day, therefore we shall not trouble Your Worships with further
particulars, but would beg leave to refer you to their verbal reports for
ampler information touching their experiences in the said expedition...
In the Castle of Batavia, on the last day of November, 1697.