Francisco Pelsart

…He's Mel Gibson. He's very much a Mel Gibson type in this story. So let's get a little recap on Upper Merchant Pelsart, who, if you'll remember, was the man in charge of the entire journey and basically the only guy above Captain Jacobs. He was the captain's supervisor. Yeah. See, upper merchant Pelsart had done some good turns for the VOC during his career…

…Now, Pelsart's job was to place the cargo and profits of the company above all else. When the Batavia launched, Pelsart was one of the VOC's most valued upper merchants. He'd been hired at the lowest merchant rank, but had worked his way up because he had a knack for languages and was particularly skilled at negotiation. This guy, I mean, he's just some dud…