Richard Henry Major

“ We cannot without painful feelings think of the heavy misfortunes, from which the Company has been a sufferer during the last nine or ten years, especially in the loss of many ships and treasures, which mishaps have to our great concern been considerably increased in number, not only by the disaster which befell the ship Luchtenberg, on the Wielingen, on the Zeeland Banks, shortly after leaving port, as communicated to us by the Directors of several Chambers, and particularly by the letter from Amsterdam of the 8th of January ”

“ The late veteran captain C. Brandligt has assured me that he saw them; but he could not find the journals by which he wished to prove the statement to me.
1 1 The Zeeland ship Vaderland Getrouw, sailed from Rammekens on the 6th of January, 1707, arrived on the 5th of May at the Cape, left Table Bay on the 31st of the same month, and came to anchor before Batavia on the 5th of August.--U. S. Nautical Magazine and Naval Journal, 1856, No. 4. "Rocks and shoals in the ocean have been frequently seen and their true position given, but on further search could not be found. ”

“ On the 26th of April a letter1 unexpectedly came to hand by the patchialang De Veerman, from the late skipper and under-merchant of the Zeeland ship Zeewyk, Jan Steyns and Jan Nibbens, written from the Straits of Sunda, but without date communicating the fact that this vessel, after leaving the Cape of Good Hope on the 21st. of April, had been wrecked, on the 9th of June, on the reef lying before the islands Frederick Houtman's Abrolhos, situated near the Southland, in S. lat. 29°, and otherwise called the Tortelduyff's Islands. ”

“ This said sloop no other vessels shall be allowed to approach, with the sole exception of that on board of which the commissioners are; so that all possibility may be removed from any clandestine transfer of the stolen booty to another crew, and of the noble company's being thus injured by a complot of a gang of expert thieves. The guilty ones shall be seized and subjected to an exemplary punishment, as a warning to all other evil doers in similar lamentable and fatal occurrences. ”

“ Took the bearings of the pointed island, lying E.N.E., at five and a half to six miles distance from us, and found the longitude to be 124° 34'; I had calculated it at 123° 6', so that by the position of these islands we were 1° 28' more to the E. than we imagined. S.L. 20° 34'. I then corrected my reckonings. Afternoon wind S. and S.S.E., blowing at top-sail and top-gallant-sail breeze, with fog and drizzle. In the evening, again heaved the lead, but found no bottom. Shortened sail in order to heave the lead during the night. ”

“ Extract from the journal of the skipper. Franchoys Buscop, on his voyage out in the ship t' Vaderland Getrouw, under date July 21st, 17071, about his falling in with the Trials.
In the morning, at seven o'clock, in the day watch, we saw the littie islands of the Trials' Shoals, at E. by E. well E., about five miles from us, being three in number, the most southerly of them running up to a sharp point and hanging over towards the S.E. being at its top a little rounder than the one in the middle, but lower than the north one, and a little more pointed. ”

“ The crew having afterwards fetched several necessaries from the wreck, made from the timber a sloop or vessel, on board of which eighty-two souls have reached these straits, together with the money taken out by the ship, consisting of three tuns, according to the double invoice received. ”