Mere entertainment.

[**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.**] >From that day on, the captain-general killed to kill. A handful of Jeronimus’s later murders were intended to settle scores or punish dissent, but increasingly they were ordered out of boredom or to defuse tension among the mutineers. There was no real need for further bloodshed; the number of survivors on the island had been satisfactorily reduced, rains continued to fall, and by now enough fish and birds were being caught to provide everyone with food. But life had become so worthless on Batavia’s Graveyard that a dispensation to kill became simply another way for Cornelisz to reward his followers. In the end he and his men were slaughtering for mere entertainment. >[…] >On 6 August, for example, Cornelisz found himself dissatisfied with the work done by one of his carpenters: >*”Jan Hendricxsz was called by Jeronimus in the morning when he was standing in the tent of Zevanck, and he gave him a dagger which he carried in his own pocket, with the words, ‘Go and stab Stoffel Stoffelsz, that lazy dog who stands there working as if his back is broken, through the heart.’ Which Jan Hendricxsz did with two stabs so that he was killed immediately.”* ________________________________ **Source:** Dash, Mike. “Who Wants to Be Stabbed to Death?” *Batavia's Graveyard*. Three Rivers Press, 2003. 222. Print. ________________________________ **Further Reading:** [Jeronimus Cornelisz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeronimus_Cornelisz) Batavia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batavia_(ship)