The ''Concordia'' was a Dutch sailing ship of the

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock c ...

( nl, Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, commonly abbreviated to VOC) that left

Batavia Batavia may refer to: Historical places * Batavia (region), a land inhabited by the Batavian people during the Roman Empire, today part of the Netherlands * Batavia, Dutch East Indies, present-day Jakarta, the former capital of the Dutch East In ...

on 15 January 1708 with two other vessels, and . ''Concordia'' had 130 people on board and was bound for the

Cape of Good Hope The Cape of Good Hope ( af, Kaap die Goeie Hoop ) ;''Kaap'' in isolation: pt, Cabo da Boa Esperança is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa. A common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is ...

and then the Netherlands. She was last sighted by ''Mercurius'' in open seas to the south of the

Sunda Strait The Sunda Strait ( id, Selat Sunda) is the strait between the Indonesian islands of Java and Sumatra. It connects the Java Sea with the Indian Ocean. Etymology The strait takes its name from the Sunda Kingdom, which ruled the western portion ...

on 5 February 1708, in bad weather.

History

Built in 1696, ''Concordia'' was a large ship for her day, being approximately 900 tons. On 15 January 1708, under the command of Joris Vis, the ''Concordia'' set out from Batavia on a return trip to the Netherlands with two other VOC ships; ''Zuiderberg'' and ''Mercurius''.Instituut voor Nederlandse Geschiedenis (2008)
Details of voyage 6183.3 from Batavia
Retrieved on 10 June 2008. Of the 130 passengers and crew on board, there were several women returning home and some

Balinese Balinese may refer to: *Bali, an Indonesian island * Balinese art *Balinese dance *Balinese people *Balinese language ** Balinese script **Balinese (Unicode block) * Balinese mythology *Balinese cat, a cat breed *Balinese Gamelan, local music *Bal ...

being deported from the Dutch East Indies to the Cape of Good Hope, due to bad conduct. Only the ''Mercurius'' reached the Cape of Good Hope. The Captain of ''Mercurius'' reported that ''Concordia'' and ''Zuiderburg'' had last been sighted together in open seas to the south of Sunda Strait on 5 February 1708, in bad weather. On 22 February, the crew of ''Mercurius'' found floating debris. They saw several goods in the water, some firewood, a chest of tea, a Chintz piece of cotton, a carpenters boor, white candles, and the staves for barrels. The ''Concordia'' was officially listed as being lost somewhere near

Mauritius Mauritius ( ; french: Maurice, link=no ; mfe, label=Mauritian Creole, Moris ), officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean about off the southeast coast of the African continent, east of Madagascar. It incl ...

in 1708. One known passenger aboard the ''Concordia'' was Mr Constantijn van Baerle, a VOC official.

Leeds Mercury hoax

In 1832, a covert English expedition to inland Australia commanded by a Lieutenant Nixon reportedly discovered a group of white Dutch people (300 people) living in a desert

oasis In ecology, an oasis (; ) is a fertile area of a desert or semi-desert environmentPalm Valley in the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory shares its borders with Western Au ...

. The existence was first reported in February 1834 in the English newspaper ''

Leeds Mercury The ''Leeds Mercury'' was a newspaper published in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It was published from 1718 to 1755 and again from 1767. Initially it consisted of 12 pages and cost three halfpennies. In 1794 it had a circulation of about 3,00 ...

''. There were other articles in a Dutch scientific journal, and the ''

Perth Gazette ''The West Australian'' is the only locally edited daily newspaper published in Perth, Western Australia. It is owned by Seven West Media (SWM), as is the state's other major newspaper, ''The Sunday Times''. It is the second-oldest continuously ...

'' of 1837. The newspaper story claimed that Nixon had spoken to the settlers in a broken form of old Dutch, and the leader or chief of the group was a descendant of an officer whose name was "van Baerle". The party remained with the group for eight days. Nixon stated: Despite extensive research, no trace or direct evidence of the settlers has ever been found. Historians now believe the original 1834 ''Leeds Mercury'' story was a

hoax A hoax is a widely publicized falsehood so fashioned as to invite reflexive, unthinking acceptance by the greatest number of people of the most varied social identities and of the highest possible social pretensions to gull its victims into pu ...

References

{{reflist , refs= {{cite episode , first=Les , last=Hiddins , network=Australian Broadcasting Corporation , series=Bush Tucker Man , title=The Dutch Settlement , season=3 , number=5 , date=1996-07-06 {{cite news , title=Bush Tucker Man Les Hiddins' great Dutch adventure , first=Hedley , last=Thomas , date=2016-07-16 , work=The Australian , url=https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/inquirer/bush-tucker-man-les-hiddins-great-dutch-adventure/news-story/b122ba9491e73aa7d4d2f8e0c8866b9b , access-date=2021-03-28 {{cite web , title=Leeds Mercury Article , date=2020 , website=Western Australia Now and Then , url=http://www.wanowandthen.com/Leeds-Mercury-Article.html , access-date=2021-03-28 1690s ships Journalistic hoaxes Lost sailing vessels Maritime incidents in 1708 Ships lost with all hands Ships of the Dutch East India Company

History

Leeds Mercury hoax

See also

References