Who wants to be stabbed to death?

[**The following takes place during the Batavia mutiny. A bit of context: In 1628, the Dutch Republic merchant vessel Batavia was shipwrecked on her maiden voyage, on a small group of barren and uninhabited Abrolhos Islands. Jeronimus Cornelisz, the ship’s under-merchant, had been planning a bloody mutiny during the voyage and, after the shipwreck and subsequent departure of much of the ship’s leadership to seek rescue, he set about following through with his mutiny. He planned to gather a large enough following amongst the nearly 200 survivors to overwhelm any rescue vessel, to commandeer said vessel, and to take the Batavia’s treasure, turning to a short life of piracy in the Indies before retiring to a life of luxury. Here, Cornelisz hard ordered so many murders on the islands, that both he and his men had started showing signs of becoming almost literally addicted to murdering.**] >Hungry, thirsty, ill, they lived in constant terror of their lives. Now that a good deal of the killing had been done, the mutineers’ existence on the island was increasingly routine, and they began to look for fresh diversions; attracting the attention of any of Cornelisz’s henchmen was unwise, and a few mutineers, perhaps unstable to begin with, became deranged. >The most extreme case was that of Jan Pelgrom, the cabin boy, whose “gruesome life” is vividly sketched in the ship’s journals. “Mocking at God, cursing and swearing, also conducting himself more like a beast than a human being,” Pelgrom lacked any self-control, “which made him at last a terror to all the people, who feared him more than any of the other principal murderers or evil-doers.” The boy’s sudden elevation – he had been one of the lowliest of the *Batavia*’s crew, and now found himself among the most powerful – practically unhinged him, and he took to racing around the island “like a man possessed,” spewing out challenges and blasphemies to anyone who would listen. “[He] has daily on the island run,” the journals observe, “calling out, ‘Come now, devils with all the sacraments, where are you? I wish that I now saw a devil. And who wants to be stabbed to death? I can do that very beautifully.’” ____________________________ **Source:** Dash, Mike. “Who Wants to Be Stabbed to Death?” *Batavia's Graveyard*. Three Rivers Press, 2003. 220-21. Print. ____________________________ **Further Reading:** [Jeronimus Cornelisz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeronimus_Cornelisz) Batavia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batavia_(ship)