CHAPTER VII

THE ATTACK UPON THE WEST COAST OF AMERICA

This is the story of another expedition which tried to get possession of the Indian route by way of the Strait of Magellan. It was a sad business.

Oliver Van Noort, although he met with many difficulties, managed to bring one ship home and added greatly to the fame of the Dutch navigators. But the second expedition, equipped by two of the richest men of Rotterdam and sent out under the best of auspices, proved to be a total failure. The capital of half a million guilders which had been invested was an absolute loss. Most of the participants in the voyage died. The ships were lost. Perhaps everything had been prepared just a trifle too carefully. Van Noort, with his little ships, knew that he had to depend upon his own energy and resourcefulness; but the captains of the five ships which left Rotterdam on the twenty-seventh of July, 1598, with almost five hundred men were under the impression that half of the work had been done at home by the owners. Perhaps, too, there is such a thing as luck in navigating the high seas. One fleet sails for the Indies and has good weather all the way across the ocean. When the wind blows hard it blows from the right direction. The next squadron which leaves two weeks later meets with storms and suffers from one unfortunate accident after the other; everybody gets sick, and when the sailors look for relief on land they find nothing but a barren desert. And so it goes. It is not for us to complain, but to recite faithfully the sad adventures of the good ships the _Hoop_, the _Liefde_, the _Geloof_, the _Trouwe_, and the _Blyde Boodschap_, all of which tried very hard to accomplish what Van Noort had been allowed to do with much less trouble.

The ships, as we said, left Rotterdam in July, and after two months they reached the Cape Verde Islands. There they found a couple of ships from Hamburg, for the Germans at the early period of exploring and discoveries were very active sailors. A few years later, however, the Thirty Years' War was to destroy their seafaring enterprises for centuries at least.

Near these islands the Hollanders had their first encounter with the Portuguese. The stories of such meetings between the early Dutch navigators and the Portuguese owners of African and Asiatic islands always read the same way. The Hollanders ask for leave to go on shore to get fresh water and to buy provisions. This leave is never granted. Then the two parties fight each other. In most cases the Hollanders are victorious, though they still have too much respect for the traditional power of the Portuguese to risk a definite attack upon their strongholds. Very slowly and only after many years of experiment do they venture to drive the Portuguese out of their colonies and take possession of this large, but badly managed, empire.

When our five Dutch ships reached the island of San Thome they sent a messenger to the Portuguese commander and asked him, please, to give them some fresh water. The Portuguese told the Hollanders to wait. But they could not wait, for the water on board the ships had all been used up. Therefore they landed with one hundred and fifty men and charged the hill upon which the Portuguese had built a fortress. The garrison was forced to surrender. Before any more fighting took place the Portuguese offered to treat the Hollanders as welcome guests if they would sail to the next harbor of San Iago, where there was an abundance of stores and where general provisions were for sale at reasonable prices. This proposal was accepted. The sailors went back to their ships and made for San Iago. The wind, however, was not favorable, and they did not reach their destination until the hour appointed to meet the Portuguese officials had passed. When they arrived near the shore they noticed that the soldiers on land were very active and had placed a number of cannon in an ambush from which they could destroy the Dutch ships as soon as they should have dropped anchor. This, of course, was a breach of good faith. So back they went to their first landing-place. They landed, filled all their water-tanks, took the corn stored in a small storehouse, killed several Portuguese, caught a large number of turtles for the sick people on board, and hoisted sail to cross the Atlantic Ocean.

And then the bad luck which was to follow this expedition began. The admiral of the fleet, Jacques Mahu, died suddenly of a fever and was buried at sea. Two weeks later so many men were desperately ill with the same fever that the ships were obliged to return upon their own track and establish a hospital upon one of the islands off the coast of Guinea. All this time the wind blew from the wrong direction. When at last they saw land, they found that they were near the coast of Lower Guinea. They sent a boat to the shore to discover some native tribe which owned cattle. But the natives, who feared all white men as possible slave-dealers, ran into the bushes and carefully took their possessions with them. Fortunately, after a few days another Dutch ship appeared upon the horizon, and the first mate of this vessel, a Frenchman by birth, knew the language of the negroes. Through him a message was sent to the king of a small tribe, and when it had been proved that the Hollanders were not slave-dealers, but honest merchants on their way to the Indies and willing to pay money for whatever they bought, their newly elected commander, Sebalt de Weert was received in state and invited to dine with his Majesty.

This dinner, much to the regret of the hungry guests, was a poor affair. The negro chieftain tried to be very civil to his guests. In their honor he had powdered himself white with the ashes of a wood fire, but the food was neither abundant nor very good. The Hollanders decided to invite his Majesty to one of their own dinners as a good example and a hint. From among the few supplies which were left on board they arranged so excellent a dinner that his royal Highness ate everything on the table and then fell fast asleep in his chair. But when the next day the Hollanders tried to buy the fresh provisions which they expected to get, they found that the domains of the king produced nothing but one single goat, a lean goat at that, and four puny chickens.

The coast of Guinea, sometimes called the "dry Gallows," gets its agreeable reputation from the fact that the malarial fevers of this swampy region usually kill all the white people who venture to settle there. The new commander of the expedition caught this malaria, and was sick in his bed for over two months. Sixteen of his sailors died, and finally the expedition was obliged to flee to the healthy islands, which of course belonged to the Portuguese. Early in December they sailed toward Annabon. Once again the Portuguese refused them both water and food. A troop of men were landed to take by force what they could not obtain through an appeal to Christian charity. The Portuguese did not await this attack, but surrendered their fortress and fled toward the mountains. From there they arranged sniping expeditions which killed many Hollanders. As a punishment, Admiral de Weert burned the white settlement and the church. He took all the provisions which were stored in the little town, and on the second of January of the year 1599 he tried once more to cross the Atlantic Ocean.

This time the wind was favorable. Soon the ships had passed out of the hot equatorial regions. The sailors who had suffered from scurvy and malaria began to feel better in the colder climate of the Argentinian coast. They recovered so fast and they had such a great appetite after their long-enforced fast that many of them threatened to die from over-feeding. And one poor fellow who was so hungry that he stole bread at night from the ship's pantry was publicly hanged to stop further theft of the meager supplies. When the ships were near the coast of South America things went wrong once more. First of all the sailors were frightened by the sudden appearance of what they supposed to be blood upon the surface of the ocean. As far as the eye could reach, the water was of a dark-red color. This phenomenon, however, proved to be caused by billions of little plants. They made the water look quite horrible, but they were entirely harmless. A few days later one of the men, an Englishman, while at dinner suddenly uttered a dreadful scream and fell backward, dead. The next day another one of the sailors suddenly became insane and tried to scratch and bite everybody who came near him. After three days his condition improved somewhat, but he never recovered his reason. When he was put to bed at night he would not allow himself to be covered up. One very cold night both his feet were frozen and had to be amputated. That was the end of the poor fellow. He did not survive the operation.

It was a sad expedition which at last reached the Strait of Magellan on the sixth of April of the year 1599. Happily the weather near the strait was fine. There was plenty of fresh water on the shore. The men killed hundreds of birds, caught geese and ducks, and found a large supply of oysters. But when finally the day came on which they tried to enter the strait, the wind suddenly veered around, and during four months the ships were forced to stay in their little harbor. They had enough to eat and they had found wood to keep warm, but much valuable time was lost, and when the winter at last came upon them with sudden violence they were entirely unprepared for it. The reports of the expeditions of Magellan and Drake and Cavendish had shown that an expedition around the world was apt to suffer from too much heat, but rarely from too much cold. Except for the few miles of the Strait of Magellan, the ships sailed in tropical or semi-tropical regions all the time. Therefore the Dutch ships had not brought any heavy clothes or furs, which would have taken up a lot of room, and the food which had been put up for them in Holland had been prepared with the idea of supporting men who did their work under a blazing sun. When they were obliged to live for a long time in a raw, cold climate and work hard, hunting and fishing and gathering wood amid snow and icy winds, the sailors did not get sufficient nourishment. From sheer misery and exposure one hundred and twenty men died within less than four months. Among them was the captain of the _Trouwe_. He was the second officer to perish before his ship had reached the Pacific Ocean.

But illness was not the only enemy of this expedition. The natives of the south coast joined the terrible climate in its attack upon the Hollanders. They murdered Dutch sailors when these had gone on shore to look for fire-wood or to examine their traps. They killed several men and they wounded more. Being wounded was almost as bad as being killed outright, for the spears of the natives were made with nasty barbs which caused very bad wounds. When they once had penetrated into a man's arm or hand, the only way to get them out successfully was by pushing them through until they came out again at the other side, or cut away all the flesh, in both cases a very painful operation.

At last, on the twentieth of August, the wind turned, and the ships were able to enter the strait. The joy of the men did not last very long. The next day there was no wind at all, and once more the fleet anchored. To keep his few remaining men busy, the commander arranged an expedition on shore. It was the first time that a Dutch fleet had been in this part of the world, and the event must be properly celebrated. A high pole was planted in a conspicuous spot on shore, and the adventures of the expedition and the names of the leaders were carved on the pole. Near this pole a small cemetery was made where two sailors who had died the night before were buried. In the evening all went back to their ships. When they returned the next morning, they found that the natives had hacked the monument to pieces and the corpses of the dead Hollanders had been dug out of the earth and had been cut into little bits and were spread all over the shore. This humiliating experience was the last one which they suffered in the strait. The wind at last turned to their advantage and on the third of September the ships reached the Pacific Ocean.

The good weather lasted just seven days. A week later, in the night of the tenth of September, a severe storm attacked the little fleet, and the next morning the ships had lost sight of one another. They came together after a short search, but during the next night there was another gale, and in the morning three of the five ships had disappeared. Only the _Trouwe_ and the _Geloof_ were apparently saved. During three weeks these two ships floated aimlessly about, driven hither and thither upon the angry waves of the Pacific Ocean. They had few supplies left, and they could not repair the damage that was done to their masts because both ships had sent their carpenters to one of the other vessels which had been in need of a general overhauling and which was now lost. A month went by, and then they discovered that they had been driven back into the strait. The admiral discussed the situation with his chief officers. Did they advise going back to Holland without having accomplished anything, or would they keep on? The sailors all wanted to return to Holland. They did not have any faith left in the results of this unhappy voyage. Many of them were ill. Others pretended that they were too weak to work. Others murmured about a lack of provisions. There was ground for this talk. The supply-room was getting emptier and emptier in a very mysterious way. At last the admiral decided to investigate this strange case. He discovered that an unknown member of the crew possessed a key to the bread-boxes and stuffed himself every night while his comrades were kept on short rations. It was a gross breach of discipline. Apparently the expedition was going from bad to worse. On the afternoon of the tenth of December Admiral de Weert paid a call to the _Trouwe_ to talk over the situation. The next morning the _Trouwe_ had disappeared. De Weert never saw her again. He was all alone, and his safe return depended upon his own unaided efforts. His first duty was to get enough food. On a certain Sunday afternoon the few men of his ship who could still walk were on shore looking for things to eat when they had an encounter with a large number of natives who had just arrived in three canoes. The natives fled, and hid themselves among the cliffs. One woman and two small babies could not get away and were brought back to the ship. The woman was kept a prisoner for forty-eight hours while the Hollanders studied the habits and customs of the wild people of Tierra del Fuego. The subject of their study refused to eat cooked food, but dead birds which were thrown to her she ate as if she had been a wild animal. The children did the same thing, tearing at the feathers with their sharp teeth. After two days the mother and one of the children were sent back to the shore with a number of presents. The other child was kept on board and was taken back to Holland, where it died immediately after arrival. On the sixteenth of December a last attempt was made to find the _Trouwe_. A blank cartridge was fired, and a few minutes later a distant answer was heard. Soon a ship came sailing around a nearby cape. It was not the _Trouwe_, but the ship of Oliver van Noort, who at the head of his expedition had just entered upon the last stretch of his voyage through the strait. Van Noort had a story to tell of a fairly successful voyage, plenty to eat, and little illness. The hungry men of De Weert looked with envy at the happy faces of Van Noort's sailors. The latter had just caught several thousand penguins on a little island not far away. The starving crew of the _Geloof_ asked that they be allowed to sail to this island and catch whatever Van Noort had left alive. De Weert, however, refused this request. Here was his last chance to get to the Indies in the company of the squadron of Van Noort, and he meant to take it. The next morning he joined the new ships on their westward course. But his sailors, weak and miserable after more than a year of illness, could not obey their captain's commands as fast as those who were on the other ships. Soon the _Geloof_ was left behind. The next morning, when Van Noort entered the Pacific, De Weert was helplessly blown back into the strait. It seemed impossible to do more than he had tried to accomplish against such great odds. He called all his remaining sailors together to hear what they wanted him to do. They all had just one wish, to get home as fast as possible by way of Brazil and Africa. The Pacific, so they argued, offered nothing but disappointment. De Weert promised to give his final decision on the next day, which was the first of January of the year 1600. When the morning came, he found himself once more in the company of other ships. Van Noort had reached the Pacific, but the Western storms had been too much for his strong ships. For the second time the Hollanders were all united in a cold little harbor inside the Strait of Magellan.

Van Noort now paid a personal visit to De Weert and asked what he could do to help him. De Weert was much obliged for this offer, and asked for bread enough to last him another four months. Unfortunately Van Noort could not do this. He had still a very long voyage before him, and did not dare to deprive his own men of their supplies. He advised De Weert to go to the island of the penguins and to fill his storeroom with the dried meat of these birds. Meanwhile, much to his regret, he must leave De Weert as soon as possible, for he was in a hurry.

The next day they said farewell to one another for the last time. De Weert took the precautions to leave instructions for the captain of the lost _Trouwe_. He wrote a letter which was placed inside a bottle, and this bottle was buried at the foot of a high tree. On the tree itself a board was hammered, and on this board a message was painted telling in Dutch where to look for an important document at the foot of the tree. Then the ship sailed to the penguin island, and the thirty men who could do any work at all hunted the fat and lazy birds until they had killed several thousand. It was easy work. The penguins obligingly waited on their nests until they were killed. But the trip to the island almost destroyed the entire expedition. There was only one boat left, and in this boat the men who were not sick had rowed to the shore. They had been careless in fastening her, and a sudden squall caught her and threw her on the rocks. She was badly damaged and could not be used without being repaired, but the men on shore had no tools with which to do any repairing, while those on the ship were so ill that they could not swim to the shore with the necessary hammers and saws. Two entire days were used to get that boat into order with the help of one ax and some pocket-knives, and during those two days the men lived out in the open on the cold shore and lived on raw penguin meat.

The island, among other things, contained material evidences of Van Noort's presence. A dead native, with his hands tied behind his back, was found stretched out upon the sand. In a little hollow in the rocks they discovered a woman who had been wounded by a gunshot. They took good care of the woman, bandaged her wounds, and gave her a pocket-knife. To show her gratitude, she told De Weert of another island where there were even more penguins. The next week was spent on this island, and now the men had plenty of food. But the ship was without a single anchor and had only one leaking lifeboat. With the certainty that he could not land anywhere unless boats were sent for him from shore De Weert decided to return to the coast of Guinea and try to reach home. On the eighteenth of January the _Geloof_ went back upon her track. Two months later the vessel reached the coast of Guinea. This trip back was not very eventful except for one small incident. One of the sailors who was a drunkard had broken into the storeroom and had stolen a lot of rice and several bottles of wine. Theft was one of the things which was punished most severely. Therefore, the man had been condemned to death and was to be hanged. But while he was sitting in the rigging and waiting for somebody to push him into eternity the other members of the crew felt sorry for him and asked their captain to spare his life. At first he refused, but finally he agreed to show clemency if the men would never bother him again with a similar request. The prisoner was allowed to come down from his high perch, and to show his gratitude he broke again into the storeroom that same night. He was a very bad example. As such he was hanged from the yardarm of the highest mast, and his body was dropped into the sea.

The crew, however, were so thoroughly demoralized by this time that even such drastic measures did no good. They continued to pillage the storeroom, and when at last four of them had been detected and had been found guilty, their comrades were so weak that nobody could be found to hang the prisoners properly and they had to be taken home.

In July of the year 1600 the _Geloof_ reached the English Channel, and on the thirteenth of that month she entered the mouth of the Maas. There, within sight of home, one more sailor died. He was number sixty-nine. Only thirty-six men came back to Rotterdam. They were ill and had a story to tell of constant hardships and of terrible disappointments. The great expedition of the two courageous merchants and all their investments were a complete loss. None of the other ships ever came back to Holland. But year after year stragglers from the other four ships reached home and told of the fate of the other three hundred sailors who had taken part in the unfortunate voyage. Some of these reports have come down to us, and we are able to give a short account of the adventures of each ship after that day early in the year 1600 when the Pacific storms had separated them from one another.

First of all there was the _Trouwe_, which had remained faithful to De Weert after the other three vessels had disappeared. The wind had blown the _Trouwe_ out of the strait into the Pacific Ocean. For many weeks her captain had lost all track of his whereabouts. Through sheer luck he had at last reached a coast which he supposed to be the continent of South America and after a search of a few days he had found some natives who were friendly. The natives told the Hollanders that this was not the American continent, but an island called Chiloe, situated a few miles off the Chilean coast. The Dutch ships had been made welcome. They were invited to stay in the harbor as long as they wished. Meanwhile the natives told their captain about a plan of their own which undoubtedly would please him. It seemed that the inhabitants of Chiloe had good reason to hate the Spaniards, who were mighty on the near-by continent and who recently had built a strong fort on the island, from which they exercised their tyrannical rule over all the natives and made them pay very heavy tribute. Perhaps, so the natives argued, the Hollanders could be induced to give their assistance in a campaign against the Spaniard. De Cordes, who commanded the _Trouwe_, was a Catholic, but he was quite ready to offer his services in so good a cause and was delighted to start a little private war of his own upon the Spaniards. He made ready to sail for that part of the coast where, according to his informants, the Spaniard had fortified himself. Meanwhile the natives were to proceed on shore toward the same Spanish fortress. An attack was to follow simultaneously from the land and the sea. On the way to the fortress all Spanish houses and plantations, storerooms and churches, were burned down and at last the fortress itself was reached. The commander of the fortress, however, had heard of the approach of this handful of Hollanders, and he sent them an insulting message telling them that he needed a new stable boy, anyway, and would bestow this high office upon the Dutch captain as soon as he could have the necessary arrangements made. But when the Dutch captain actually appeared upon the scene with a well-armed vessel and a band of native auxiliaries and informed the Spaniard that the new stable boy had come to take possession of his domain, the commander changed his mind and offered the Hollanders whatever they wished if they would only leave him alone. De Cordes, however, attacked the fort at once. He took it, and the garrison was locked up in the church as prisoners. Then the Chilean natives in their rage attacked the church and killed several of the Spaniards. This was not what De Cordes wanted to be done. He did not mind if a Hollander killed a Spaniard, but it did not look well for one white man to allow a native to kill another while he himself stood by. Therefore he returned their arms to the Spaniards and together they then drove the natives away. When the natives, however, told the Dutch sailors that the fort contained hidden treasures of which the Spaniards had made no mention, the former allies attacked each other for the second time, and the Spanish prisoners were sent on board the Dutch ship. The story which we possess of this episode of the voyage is not very clear. It was written many years later by one of the few sailors who came back to Holland. His account of these adventures was so badly printed and the spelling of the original pamphlet was so extraordinary that a second scribe was later hired to turn the booklet into more or less readable Dutch. The present translation has been made from this second version. Everything is a bit mixed, and it is not easy to find out what really happened. A common and ignorant sailor of the year 1600 was not very different from the same sort of fellow who at present is fighting in the European war. They both remember events in chunks, so to speak. They have very vivid impressions of a few occurrences, but they have forgotten other things of more importance because at the time these did not strike their unobservant brain as being of any special interest. But we have no other account of the adventures of the _Trouwe_. We must use this information such as it is.

The booty found in this small settlement had not been of great value. The expedition felt inclined to move toward a richer port. They did not have food enough for their prisoners, and fourteen of the nineteen Spaniards who were locked up in the hold were thrown overboard. This sounds very cruel, but it was the custom of the time that these two nations rarely gave each other quarter. Whosoever was made a prisoner was killed. The Spaniards started this practice in the middle of the sixteenth century because the Hollanders as heretics deserved no better fate. The Hollanders reciprocated. On this distant island of the Pacific both parties obeyed the unwritten law. The Hollanders drowned their prisoners. When Spanish reinforcements reached Chiloe and retook the fort, they killed the Dutch garrison, for such was the custom of the time.

The _Trouwe_ after this famous exploit was in a difficult position, all alone in the heart of the Pacific, with enemies on every side and a bad conscience. The idea of attacking some other Spanish harbor in Chile and Peru was given up as too dangerous. Near the harbor of Truxillo a Spanish ship loaded with grain and wine was captured, and provided with new supplies, De Cordes decided to risk the trip across the Pacific. On the third of January, 1601, he reached Ternate in the Indies, where Van Noort had been the year before, and where they found a Dutch settlement commanded by that same Van der Does whose account of Houtman's first trip to India we have given in the fourth chapter of this little book. Van der Does warned De Cordes not to visit the next island of Tidore. There were only twenty-four Hollanders left on board the _Trouwe_. It was too dangerous to visit an unfriendly Portuguese colony with a damaged ship and so small a crew. But De Cordes, who seems to have been a reckless sort of person, went to Tidore all the same. Much to his surprise he was very cordially received by the commander of the Portuguese garrison and the governor of the town. They both assured him that he might trade in their colony as much as he wished. If, however, he would let them know what he wished to buy, they would give orders that provisions and a cargo of spice should be got ready for their distinguished visitors. They invited him to come on shore the next morning. They wanted to make him a present of an ox for the benefit of his hungry crew and entertain him personally, and, then after a few more days further arrangements for the purpose of a mutually profitable trade might be made. The next morning the Dutch captain and six men went ashore to get their ox. The ship itself was left in the care of the first mate. Soon a Portuguese boat rowed out to the _Trouwe_ and asked the mate to come on shore, too, and have breakfast with his Portuguese colleagues. The mate was suspicious and refused the invitation. He suggested that the Portuguese officer come on board the _Trouwe_ and breakfast with him. But the officer said that he was too heavy a man to climb on board so high a ship, and he did not care to take this exercise so early in the morning. So the mate left the ship, together with the ship's carpenter, to see what a Portuguese kitchen served for breakfast. The moment the two men landed a loud outcry was heard from the _Trouwe_. The mate at once jumped into the sea and looked for his comrade. The carpenter was dead and his head, hacked from his body, was used as a football by the Portuguese. The mate swam out to the ship, but when he reached it he found that the Portuguese had jumped on board the moment he had left for his breakfast party. He swam back to the shore, was made a prisoner, and was locked up in the fortress. With six other men he escaped the general murder which had taken place as soon as he landed. De Cordes himself had been killed with a dagger. The six men who had accompanied him on shore had heard the noise of the attack upon the _Trouwe_ and had rowed away from shore in a boat, trying to get back to their vessel. But the _Trouwe_ was already in the hands of the Portuguese, and since the Hollanders had no arms, they surrendered after the Portuguese had given their oath not to hurt them and to spare their lives. They were taken on board a Portuguese ship. As soon as they were on deck they had been placed in a row, and a soldier had been ordered to take his sword and hack their heads off. He had killed four men when the other two managed to jump overboard. One of these was drowned. The other was fished out of the water and was sent to the fortress with the mate and five sailors who had put up such a desperate fight on board the _Trouwe_ that the Portuguese had promised to treat them with clemency if only they would surrender.

The six men were afterward taken to Goa. Gradually one after the other they had managed to escape and find their way back to Holland. Two of them returned to Rotterdam in the autumn of 1603. Another one we find mentioned in later years as commander of an Indian trader. As for the _Trouwe_, Van Neck on his second voyage to India found the vessel being used by the Portuguese as a man-of-war.

Of the other ships, the _Blyde Boodschap_ also had a very sad career and met with extraordinary adventures. This small vessel was commanded by a certain Dirck Gerritsz, a native of Enkhuizen, a fellow-citizen of Linschoten. As a matter of fact the two men had heard of each other many years before. While Linschoten was in Goa he was told of a Hollander who was a native of his own city and who had traveled not only in the Indies, but who also had visited Japan and China. We know very little of the man. Some information of his travels in Asia have been printed in a general hand-book on navigation of that time, though he did not follow Linschoten's example and print a full account of his adventures. When the city of Rotterdam sent this expedition to the Strait of Magellan, Dirck Gerritsz had been engaged as first mate of the _Blyde Boodschap_. When her captain died he had succeeded him. The ship of Gerritsz had suffered from the same storm which had driven the _Trouwe_ out of her course. An attempt had been made to reach the island of Santa Maria, but the maps on board proved to be faulty, and the little island could not be found. With only provisions enough for another week Gerritsz had finally reached the harbor of Valparaiso. Of his original crew of fifty-six men, twenty-three were left, and of these only nine were strong enough to sail the ship. Therefore he had been forced to surrender himself and his vessel to the Spaniards. The Dutch sailors were forced to take service in the Spanish navy. From that moment on we lose sight of all of them. A few reached home after many years of strange adventure. Others died in the Spanish service. Of the fate of the ship we know nothing. As for Dirck Gerritsz, rumor has it that he found his way back to Enkhuizen.

There were two other ships, the _Hoop_ and the _Liefde_. Of these the _Liefde_ had reached Santa Maria, and after leaving the island had landed at Punta Lapavia, where an attempt had been made to find fresh water. Unfortunately, the captain and twenty-three of his men had been murdered by natives who mistook them for Spaniards and had carried their heads in triumph to the Spanish town of Concepcion, where they were shown to the garrison as a promise of what was in store for them should the settlement ever fall into the hands of the enraged native population. The rest of the sailors had saved their ship by fleeing to Santa Maria, where they met the _Hoop_. The _Hoop_ had suffered a similar calamity. Her captain and twenty-seven of his men had been murdered on another island. Of the officers of both ships hardly a single one was still alive.

New officers were elected from among the men, and the ships continued their northward course apparently without a definite idea of what they intended to do. They could not go back through the strait, and they were obliged to cross the Pacific. They decided to avoid all Spanish and Portuguese settlements and to make for Japan, where they might be able to sell their cargo, and where a peaceful couple of ships might find it possible to do some honest trading without being attacked by wild natives or lying Spaniards. On the twenty-seventh of November the island of Santa Maria was left, and soon the ships passed the equator. They kept near the land, and lost eight more of their men when these had gone to the shore to get fresh water and were attacked by natives. On the twenty-third of February, during a gale, the ships were separated from each other. The _Liefde_ was obliged to make the voyage to Japan alone. On the twenty-fourth of March of the year 1600 the first Japanese island was reached.

The people of Japan were very kind-hearted and very obliging. The sick Hollanders were allowed to come on shore, and the others could trade as much as they liked. But Japan for many years had been a field of successful activities for Portuguese Jesuits. These Jesuits smiled pleasantly upon the Dutch visitors, but to the Japanese they hinted that the Hollanders were pirates and could not be trusted. Holland was not a country at all, and these men were all robbers and thieves. They advised the Japanese authorities to let these dangerous people starve or send them away from their island, which would mean the same thing. But the news of the arrival of some strange ships had reached the ears of the Emperor of Japan. He sent for some of the crew to come to his court. An Englishman among the sailors by the name of William Adams was chosen for this dangerous mission. He not only represented to his imperial Majesty the sad state of affairs among the shipwrecked Hollanders, but he made himself so useful at the imperial court that he was asked to remain behind and serve the Japanese state. He had a wife and children at home in England, but he liked this new country so well that he decided to stay. He lived happily for twenty years, married a Japanese woman, and when he died in 1620 divided his fortune equally among his Japanese and his English families.

Without the assistance of Adams, who seems to have been the leader of the remaining sailors on the _Liefde_, it was impossible to accomplish anything with the big ship. Of the twenty-four men who had reached Japan only eighteen were left. The ship, therefore, was deserted, and all the men went on shore. Except for two, the others all disappeared from view. They probably settled down in Japan. But in the year 1605, in the month of December, two Hollanders came to the Dutch settlement of Patani, on the Indian peninsula. They had made the voyage from Japan to India on a Japanese ship, and they brought to the Dutch company trading in that region an official invitation from the Emperor of Japan asking them to come and enter into honorable commerce with the Japanese islands. This invitation was accepted. In the year 1608 one of the two Dutch messengers returned to Japan with letters announcing the arrival of a Dutch fleet for the next summer. He continued to live in Japan until his death in 1634. The other sailor found a chance to go back to Holland on a Dutch ship, but near home he was killed in a quarrel with some Portuguese. The net result of this unfortunate voyage of the _Liefde_ was the establishment of a very useful trade relation with Japan--a relation which became more important after the Portuguese had been expelled, and which lasted for over two centuries.

Finally there was the ship called the _Hoop_, which had become separated from the _Liefde_ on the coast of South America in February of the year 1600. It went down to the bottom of the ocean with everybody on board.