So that when this is not written in good order and clarity there are two good reasons; firstly, I had not the time, for the Ships are ready to sail for the Fatherland; secondly, we have just come out of such sorrow that the mind is still a little confused, for I had not in mind to write so much . . .The Predikant, in a letter he wrote home to his family from Batavia, detailing much of what had happened in the AbrolhosIf there is an irony in the whole saga of the Batavia, it is that of all the myriad people involved, the one who came out of it smiling was Torrentius, whose ideas had infected Jeronimus in the first place and caused such devastating results.Though initially sentenced to 22 years of prison, he had the colossal good fortune that one of his greatest admirers, the English King Charles I, heard of his plight and intervened with the Dutch authorities on the painter’s behalf. In a move that seemed to confirm there could not possibly be a just God, in the space of less than a fortnight Torrentius went from the lowest of all low dungeons in Amsterdam to living in luxury in nothing less than Windsor Castle, just outside of London, where he was installed as one of the official court painters to the English throne.
