True, Detailed, and Thorough Report

Noble, honorable, highly learned, dear and special friend, we have no doubt that the news will have reached you of the fortunate progress which God the Lord has graciously granted to the West India Company in its first beginning. However, so that you might have learned the most certain truth regarding the manifold reports that have presumably been spread abroad, we have seen fit to inform you of the course of these matters, as the superiors and the assembly have told us. Namely, that Admiral Jacob Wilckens sailed on the past 21st of January, together with 9 other ships, sub elevatione poliverlus septentrionem auff 17 1/2 gradus at a polar elevation of 17 1/2 degrees toward the north. Also that same evening, he caught sight of the west side of the Salt Island of Saint Anthony. At that time, he had with him the ship named Hollandia, on which the Governor and Colonel Johan von Dort traveled. This ship, however, went astray from him that same night and fell upon the African border and into the Sierra Leone islands. But the Admiral, along with the other ships, arrived on the following 28th of January at the first location and in the harbor of the island of Saint Vincent. There they not only waited for other ships but also spent time preparing their dispatch boats until the 26th of March. They still hoped at all times that the stray ship of their Colonel would find them again. Yet finally, after holding council, the Admiral sailed from the island of Saint Vincent on the 26th of March with 24 ships and 7 dispatch boats. On the 21st of April, he reached 6 degrees south of the Linia aequinoctiali Equator. On that same day, he deliberated in the assembled council upon the commission entrusted to him, opening the secret instructions. From these, they saw that according to the contents, they were to sail with all their power to the harbor called In Todolos sanctos All Saints' Bay.