AustLit

'This story of the Dying Dutchman is, in all essentials, a true story, and has a certain interest for Australia, because the incidents which it describes were enacted in our own tropical waters, and bear a definite relation to our position in the naval and military geography of the Empire. It would have been possible to adorn the story, as such, by the addition of imaginary romantic or dramatic elements; but since, as an approximate record of fact, it is not without historical interest, it has seemed better to present it in its simple form, without even the flutter of a skirt to brighten its horizon.'