Author:Francisco Pelsaert

Francisco Pelsaert
(c. 1591 – c. 1630)

Works

Of Pelsaert's few works, all of which were in Dutch, only one has been translated into English. This is his journals of the voyage and shipwreck of the Batavia, and the subsequent mutiny and massacre amongst the marooned survivors. This work has made its way into English by a number of paths:

• In 1648, Isaac Commelin published the Dutch work Ongeluckige voyagie, van't schip Batavia ("Unlucky voyage of the ship Batavia"). Although purportedly an original work based on various sources, this was essentially a third person transliteration of Pelsaert's journals.
  • In 1663, a greatly abridged French translation of Ongeluckige voyagie, van't schip Batavia by Melchisidec Thevenot was published in Recueil de divers voyages curieux.
    • Thevenot's abridged French translation was translated into English and published in John Harris's 1705 Navigantium atque itinerantium bibliotheca
    • Thevenot's abridged French translation was translated into English and published in John Callander's 1766 Terra Australis Cognita
    • Thevenot's abridged French translation was translated into English and published in Richard Henry Major's 1859 Early Voyages to Terra Australis as The Voyage and Shipwreck of Captain Francis Pelsart.
  • In 1897, Author:William Siebenhaar translated Ongeluckige voyage, van't schip Batavia into English, publishing it in The Western Mail under the title The Abrolhos tragedy.
• In 1963, a translation into English of Pelsaert's original journal, by E. D. Drok, was published in Henrietta Drake-Brockman's Voyage to Discovery as The Journals of Francisco Pelsaert. This work is currently under copyright.
• In 1998, a translation into English of Pelsaert's original journal, by Marit van Huystee, was published by the Western Australian Maritime Museum as The Batavia journal of Francisco Pelsaert (Department of Maritime Archaeology Report No. 92). This work is currently under copyright.