CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARIES 
 
 ITHACA, N. Y. 14853 
 
 John M. Echols 
 
 Collection on Southeast Asia 
 
 JOHN M. OLIN LIBRARY 
 
Cornell University Library 
 G 246.D16R96 
 
 William Dampier. 
 
 3 1924 011 237 041 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924011237041 
 
ensim Mm df Action 
 
 WILLIAM DAMPIER 
 
WILLIAM DAMPIER 
 
WILLIAM DAMPIER 
 
 BY 
 
 W. CLAEK RUSSELL 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 AND NEW YORK 
 1889 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Buooanbees — Navigation in the Seventeenth 
 Centukt — Fbatubes of the Vocational Life of 
 the Early Makinee, 1 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Dampier's Early Life — CAMPECHi; — He joins the 
 
 Buccaneers, 1652-1681 15 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 Dampier's First Voyage round the World, 1681-1691 44 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 The Voyage of the "Roebuck," 1699-li'Ol ... 85 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 The Voyage of the "St. George," 1702-1706-7 . . 107 
 
VI CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Voyage with Woodes Eogeks, 1708-1711 . . 138 
 
 CHAPTEE VII 
 Conclusion 183 
 
CHAPTEE I 
 
 THE BUCCANEERS — NAVIGATION IN THE SEVENTEENTH 
 CENTURY — FEATURES OF THE VOCATIONAL LIFE OF 
 THE EARLY MARINER 
 
 In or about the middle of the seventeenth century the 
 island of San Domingo, or Hispaniola as it was then 
 called, was haunted and overrun by a singular com- 
 munity of savage, surly, fierce, and filthy men. They 
 were chiefly composed of French colonists, whose ranks 
 had from time to time been enlarged by liberal contri- 
 butions from the slums and alleys of more than one 
 European city and town. These people went dressed 
 in shirts and pantaloons of coarse linen cloth, which 
 they steeped in the blood of the animals they slaughtered. 
 They wore round caps, boots of hogskin drawn over 
 their naked feet, and belts of raw hide, in which they 
 stuck their sabres and knives. They also armed them- 
 selves with firelocks which threw a couple of balls, each 
 weighing two ounces. The places where they dried 
 and salted their meat were called boucans, and from this 
 term they came to be styled bucaniers, or buccaneers, as 
 we spell it. They were hunters by trade, and savages 
 IE B 
 
WILLIAM DAMPIER 
 
 in their habits. They chased and slaughtered horned 
 cattle and traflBcked with the flesh, and their favourite 
 food was raw marrow from the bones of the beasts which 
 they shot. They ate and slept on the ground, their 
 table was a stone, their bolster the trunk of a tree, and 
 their roof the hot and sparkling heavens of the Antilles. 
 But wild as they were they were at least peaceful. 
 It is not clear that at this stage, at all events, they were 
 in any way associated with the freebooters or rovers who 
 were now worrying the Spaniards in those seas. Their 
 traffic was entirely innocent, and it was assuredly the policy 
 of the Don to suffer them to continue shooting the wild 
 cattle without molestation. Unfortunately for themselves, 
 the Spaniards grew jealous of them. They regarded 
 the West Indies and the continent of South America 
 as their own, and the presence of the foreigner was 
 intolerable. They made war against the buccaneers, 
 vowing expulsion or extermination. Both sides fought 
 fiercely. The Spaniard had discipline and training ; on 
 the other hand, the buccaneer had the art of levelling as 
 deadly a piece as the Transvaal Boer of to-day. The 
 struggle was long and cruel ; the Spaniards eventually 
 conquered, and the hunters, quitting San Domingo, 
 sought refuge in the adjacent islands. In spite of their 
 defeat, troops of the buccaneers contrived from time to 
 time to pass over into San Domingo from their head- 
 quarters in Tortuga, where they hunted as before, and 
 brought away with them as much cattle as suflSced them 
 to trade with. The Spaniards lay in ambush, and shot 
 the stragglers as they swept past in chase ; but this sort 
 of warfare proving of no avail, it was finally resolved to 
 slaughter the whole of the cattle throughout the island. 
 
THE BUCCANEERS 
 
 that the buccaneers should be starved into leaving once 
 and for good. No act could have been rasher and more 
 impolitic. The hunters finding their occupation gone, 
 went over to the freebooters, and as pirates, as their 
 history shows, in a short time abundantly avenged their 
 indisputable wrongs. 
 
 Novelists and poets have found something fascinating 
 in the story of the buccaneers. The light of romance 
 colours their exploits, and even upon the maturest 
 gaze there will linger something of the radiance with 
 which the ardent imagination of boyhood gilds the 
 actions and persons of those fierce sea-warriors. It is 
 unhappily true, nevertheless, that the buccaneers were a 
 race of treacherous, cruel, and profligate miscreants. 
 Their name was at a later date given to, or appro- 
 priated by, such men as Clipperton, Cowley, Dampier, 
 Woodes Eogers, and Shelvocke, whose behaviour as 
 enemies, whose skill and heroism as seamen, and whose 
 discoveries as navigators, greatly lightened the blackness 
 of the old traditions. But the buccaneers of the Spanish 
 Main, — the men who are the principal figures in the 
 annals of the freebooters, the people whose lives are 
 contained in such narratives as those of Joseph Exque- 
 meling, De Lussan, De Montauban, Captain Charles 
 Johnson, in Von Archenholtz's brief but excellent history, 
 and in other works, — were rogues and ruffians without 
 parallel in the history of villainy. They owned indeed 
 many extraordinary qualities, which, exerted in honest 
 fields of action, might have been deemed virtues of a 
 high kind. Their courage was great, their achievements 
 wonderful, their fortitude worthy of noble causes, their 
 capacity of endurance unrivalled in sea story. No skil- 
 
WILLIAM DAMPIER 
 
 fuller body of seamen were ever afloat. But their his- 
 tory is loathsome for the cruelties it relates. Olonois or 
 Lolonois, Braziliano, Morgan, Bat, Le Grand, and others 
 famous as pirates, were monsters whose like is nowhere 
 to be matched. The relation of their sailings and land- 
 ings and marchings, their assaults, pillagings, defeats, and 
 triumphs, is a sickening narrative of barbarities ; but 
 it must be admitted, coupled with extraordinary examples 
 of courage in some instances absolutely sublime, and of 
 unconquerable resolution. 
 
 It was inevitable that the successes of these pirates 
 should prove a temptation to English seafaring men. 
 Small vessels were fitted out in British ports or the 
 Colonies, and sailed for the West Indian Seas to pillage 
 the Spaniard wherever he might be found on land or 
 water. Often it happened, as Harris, the editor of a 
 voluminous collection of voyages, tells us, that crews 
 were embarked and pilots engaged without being apprised 
 of the object of the voyage, "and nothing was said 
 about the true design until they were at sea, where they 
 (the captains) were absolute masters."^ To this order 
 belongs that race of English buccaneers of whom Dampier 
 may be advanced as the most conspicuous example. 
 They possessed all the high-spirited qualities, the daring, 
 the courage, the endurance of the Morgans and Bats 
 and Brazilianos, but they were seldom or never wantonly 
 cruel ; they burned, they sacked, as freely as the others ; 
 they pillaged churches with as little compunction; 
 poverty and sickness pleaded to them in vain when 
 with firelocks in one hand and firebrands in the other, 
 they thundered through the deserted street and marked 
 ' Harris's GoUection, "Cowley's Voyage,'" vol. i. 1748. 
 
EARL y ATA VIGA TORS 
 
 their progress with flaming houses. But when human 
 life was in their power they respected it ; they fought 
 and behaved as though the king's flag flew over their 
 heads ; there was something of the sentiment of honour- 
 able naval warfare in their lawlessness; and to their 
 credit let this stand, that though they professed them- 
 selves as no more than privateersmen, their behaviour 
 will certainly bear comparison with the state-sanctioned 
 and instructed conduct of the oflB^cers and crews of 
 the expedition imder Commodore Anson. 
 
 But my business is with Captain WiUiam Dampier 
 only. Morgan and the cut-throats who preceded or fol- 
 lowed him have found apologists and admirers in plenty. 
 Happily Dampier's chief claims upon the attention of 
 posterity are based upon adventures of a very different 
 kind from those which rendered buccaneering one of the 
 most infamous pursuits that the wickedness or misery 
 of mankind ever invented. 
 
 It is impossible to appreciate the intrepid seamanship 
 of the early navigators without first taking a view of 
 the art of navigation as it was in their time, and under- 
 standing the shapes, bulk, and rigs of the vessels in 
 which they cruised in. search of plunder or started on 
 long voyages of discovery. In these days one is so used 
 to the facilities of science for traversing the deep with 
 swiftness and certainty, that it is necessary to bend the 
 mind with some severity of thought to compass the 
 difficulties of the old sailors and honour their triumphs 
 justly. In the first place, their ships were so unwieldy 
 that it was scarcely possible to get them to beat against 
 the wind, or, to use the old-fashioned term, to "ply." 
 An example of this will be found in Anson's Voyage. 
 
WILLIAM DAMPIER 
 
 It is there recorded that the Centurion's consort, the 
 Gloucester, was descried on June 21st from the island 
 of Juan Fernandez some eight or ten miles to lee- 
 ward, beating or reaching into the bay. The weather 
 thickened and she disappeared. Five days afterwards 
 she again hove in sight, and for a whole fortnight she 
 was stretching away first on one, then on the other 
 tack, in vain effort to reach the island; nor was it 
 until July 23rd that she was able to enter the bay, 
 and then only because the wind had shifted, and per- 
 mitted her to head for her destination with a flowing 
 sheet. Thus for above a month was this ship striving 
 to get to windward and traverse three leagues on a taut 
 bowline ! 
 
 The old vessels were cumbrously rigged. At the 
 head of their lower masts they carried huge round tops 
 as big as a ballroom. Forward their bowsprit was 
 encumbered with massive spritsail and sprit -topsail 
 yards. Their sides were loaded with great channels em- 
 bellished with enormous dead-eyes for setting up shrouds 
 as thick as hawsers. They seldom exposed canvas above 
 their topsails, though the topgallant-sail had long been 
 introduced, as we know by a passage in Sir Walter 
 Ealeigh's Remains.^ Their sterns were high and pink- 
 shaped — that is, broad at the water-line and narrow- 
 ing at the taffrail. They were built with deck upon 
 deck in the after-part, the topmost being called the 
 " topgallant-deck " by the English, and the " poop-royal " 
 by the French and Spaniards; with the consequence 
 that they were dangerously deep-waisted, though with 
 their extraordinary height of side aft they floated, to 
 
 ' A Discourse of the First Invention of Ships, p. 7. Ed. 1700. 
 
THEIR SHIPS 
 
 the eye, like castles. As if this were not enough, the 
 structure where it was loftiest was crowned with enor- 
 mous poop-lanthorns of a size to hold " wind enough to 
 last a Dutchman a week ! " 
 
 Structures thus shaped — the length rarely exceeding 
 three times- the beam — and propelled by low-seated 
 canvas, could do little or nothing against head- winds and 
 seas ; and as a result the old narrators are repeatedly 
 telling us that they were forced to hall, or try, — in other 
 words, to heave their ship to, often in breezes in which 
 a sailing vessel of to-day would expose a topgallant-sail 
 over a single-reefed topsail. A succession of favourable 
 gales would indeed put life into the clumsy waggons and 
 furnish them with some sort of despatch, but as a rule 
 the passage that is now made in sixty days was hardly 
 completed by the early navigators in a twelvemonth. 
 Their ships were unsheathed. It is true that Sebastian 
 Cabot caused the ships under the command of Sir Hugh 
 Willoughby to be protected with thin sheets of lead to 
 guard against the worm "which many times pearceth 
 and eateth through the strongest oake";^ but I cannot 
 discover that this example was continued, and it is at 
 least certain that the vessels commanded by Dampier 
 and his buccaneering companions breasted the surge 
 with no other coating on their bottoms than pitch and 
 tallow. Hence in all long voyages there was frequent 
 occasion to careen, practicable only by tedious deviation 
 
 * Hacklnyt, i. 243. There is also a reference to sheathing in 
 Sir Richard Hawkins's OhservaiioTis in Purchas, vol. iv. p. 1387. 
 In 1673 an order was issued by the Lord High Admiral to sheath 
 some of the ships of war with lead ; but on Sir John Narborough 
 a few years afterwards objecting to it, the practice was discon- 
 tiuued.— See Schomberg's Kaval Chronology, vol. i. 75. 
 
WILLIAM DAMPIER 
 
 in search of a convenient place, and by wearisome 
 detention, that the hull might be listed over and the 
 accumulation of shells and weed removed. Another 
 formidable difficulty lay in the scurvy. This is a dis- 
 temper still with us, but in those days it was incredibly 
 fateful. Few ships from Europe managed to pass the 
 Horn without the loss of half, and often two-thirds, of their 
 crews from this dreadful scourge. The " chirurgeons " 
 could do nothing. There was no remedy but to bring 
 up off some fruitful coast and send the men ashore. 
 Whenever practicable this was done; but often it 
 happened that the ship's company were dying in fives 
 and tens every day, with the vessel herself a thousand 
 miles out upon the ocean. The old navigators overdid 
 their pickling. The brine they soaked their meat in 
 made it harder and less nourishing than mahogany before 
 they were out of the English Channel. Of all the 
 wonders of the early voyages none surprises me so 
 much as the capacity of the people to subsist upon 
 the victuals shipped for them. 
 
 In Dampier's time navigation as an art had scarcely 
 made a stride since the days of Columbus and the 
 Portuguese discoverers. The instruments for measuring 
 the sun's altitude were the astrolabe, the cross or fore- 
 staff, and Davis's backstaff, — engines for mensuration 
 ludicrously' primitive, as will be supposed when viewed 
 side by side with the sextant of to-day. The mariner 
 made shift with these contrivances to determine his 
 latitude within a degree or two, but he had no means of 
 ascertaining his longitude. There were no chronometers, 
 there was no portable Greenwich time, no aids whatever 
 towards the solution of what was regarded down to the 
 
I THEIR SYSTEM OF NAVIGATION 9 
 
 days of Maskelyne and the Commissioners of Longitude 
 as the greatest marine problem that ever perplexed the 
 mind. Apparently the old practice was to run down 
 the parallels and then make direct easting or westing 
 for the desired destination. Or they took " a departure," 
 as it was called, from any point of land, and calculated 
 the meridians by the log. Or, as an alternative, the early 
 navigators employed dead-reckoning, as we still practise 
 it — that is, they found out a vessel's place on the chart 
 by putting down her rate of sailing as it was to be 
 ascertained at regular intervals by "heaving the log," 
 and by allowing for leeway and difference of courses. 
 In Captain Thomas James's Strange and Dangerous 
 Voyage in the years 1631-32^ there is included a list 
 of the instruments provided by him for his undertaking 
 to discover the north-west passage into the South Sea. 
 A few of the items will furnish the reader with a toler- 
 able idea of the primitive character of the nautical 
 implements with which the mariner in the days of 
 James, and later yet in the days of Dampier, embarked 
 on his voyages into the remotest parts of the world in 
 quest of new lands or in search of short cuts. James 
 begins the list with "a quadrant of old-seasoned pear- 
 tree wood, artificially made and with all care possible 
 divided with diagonals, even to minutes. It was a four- 
 foot at least (semi-diameter).'' Next: "An equilateral 
 triangle of light wood, whose radius was five -foot at 
 least, and divided out of Petiscus's table of tangents." 
 "A quadrant of two-foot semi-diameter of light wood 
 and with like care projected." Then : "Four staves for 
 
 1 Preserved in Ckurchill's Collections of Voyages and Travels, 
 1704, vol ii. 
 
WILLIAM DAMPIER 
 
 taking altitudes and distances in the heavens." The 
 captain also took with him " a staff of seven-feet long, 
 whose transom was four-foot divided into equal parts by 
 way of diagonals that all the figures in a radius of 
 10,000 might be taken out actually.'' "Another of six- 
 foot near as convenient and in that manner to be used. 
 Mr. Grunter's cross-staff, three Jacob's staves projected 
 after a new manner and truly divided after the table of 
 tangents, two of Mr. Davis's backstaves with like care 
 made and divided." These were the captain's instru- 
 ments for measuring the height of the sun. Other items 
 comprised " six meridian compasses ingeniously made ; 
 four needles in square boxes ; four special needles (which 
 my good friends Mr. Allen and Mr. Marre gave me) of 
 six inches diameter, and toucht curiously with the best 
 loadstone in England; a loadstone to refresh any of 
 these if occasion were, whose poles were marked for fear 
 of mistaking." Further, Captain James carried a watch- 
 clock, "a table every-day calculated, correspondent to 
 the latitude according to Mr. Gunter's directions in his 
 book, the better to keep our time and our compass to 
 judge of our course." A chestful of mathematical books, 
 the Collections of Purchas and Hackluyt, and " two pair 
 of curious globes.'' 
 
 Such was the scientific equipment of a man bound 
 on a Polar voyage in the year 1632. It is not to be 
 supposed that such mariners as Dampier and his 
 buccaneering associates went half as well furnished. 
 Indeed their poverty in this direction was so great that 
 one may read here and there of their employing their 
 leisure on shipboard in making quadrants to replace 
 those which were lost or worn out. Their Norie, Eaper, 
 
PRIMITIVE APPLIANCES 
 
 and Nautical Almanac in one was the crude Speculum 
 Navticum of Wagener, made English by Anthony Ashley 
 in 1588, and universally known by the seamen in those 
 days as Waggoner} Sir Thomas Browne, writing 
 in 1664 to his son Thomas, a naval officer, says, 
 " Waggoner you will not be without, which will teach 
 the particular coasts, depths of roades, and how the land 
 riseth upon the several points of the compass." It will 
 not be supposed that Waggoner's instructions were very 
 trustworthy. The art of surveying was scarcely un- 
 derstood ; charts even in Dampier's time were absurdly 
 ill-digested, and portions of the world are barely recog- 
 nisable in the grotesque tracings. Therefore it happened 
 that the early mariner was forced to depend upon his 
 own judgment and experience to a degree scarce realis- 
 able in these days of exact science and matured inven- 
 tions. He hardly understood what was signified by the 
 variation of the compass, and there was very little outside 
 the Pole Star that was not doubtful. But happily for 
 him there was no obligation of hurry. There was no 
 managing owner to worry him. Prompt despatch was 
 no condition of the charter-party. His was the day of 
 ambling, and he was happy if he could confirm with his 
 lead and log-line the reckonings he arrived at with his 
 fores taff. 
 
 It is proper to remember all these conditions of the 
 sea-vocation in reviewing the life of William Dampier. 
 The habit of self-reliance makes the character of the 
 
 > The buccaneei-s had "'Waggoners" of their own. One was 
 compiled by BasU Ringrose, who caUed it the Sotdh Sea Waggoner 
 {Hrca 1682). Another by Captain Hack, the author of a Kistory 
 cfthe Buccaneers, was published in or about 1690. 
 
WILLIAM DAMPIER 
 
 sea-worthies of his age admirable, and it qualified them 
 for their great undertakings and achievements. They 
 were helped with nothing from science that can be 
 mentioned with gravity. The ocean was to them as 
 blank as it looks to the landsman's eye, and it was their 
 business to find out the roads to the wonders and 
 mysteries which lay hidden leagues down behind its 
 familiar shining line. If a sailor nowadays is at fault 
 he can seek and find the hints and assurances he desires 
 in twenty directions. He has Admiralty charts of 
 incomparable accuracy. He has a deep-sea lead with 
 which he can feel the ground whilst his ship moves 
 through the water at fourteen knots an hour. He has 
 instruments for indicating the angle to which his vessel 
 rolls, and for showing him instantly her trim as she sits 
 upon the water. He has a dial that registers on deck, 
 under his eye, the number of miles his ship has made 
 since any hour he chooses to time her from. His 
 chronometer may be accepted as among the most perfect 
 examples of human skill. Dampier and such as he 
 wanted all these adjuncts to their calling. But it cannot 
 be disputed that they were the better sailors for the 
 very poverty of their equipment in this way. It forced 
 upon them faith in nothing but their own observation, 
 so that there never was a race of sailors who kept their 
 eyes wider open and examined more closely those points 
 which have long since slided into the dull prosaics of 
 the deep. No one can follow them without wonder and 
 admiration. We find them in crafts of forty, twenty, 
 even ten tons — boats half-decked and undecked — explor- 
 ing the frozen silence of the North Pole, beating to the 
 westward against the fierce surge of the Horn, seeking 
 
I THE TRADITIONS OF THE SEA 13 
 
 land amidst the vast desolation of the southern ocean, 
 and making new history for their country upon the coast 
 of North America and in the waters of the Mozambique. 
 Their lion-hearts carry them all over the world, and 
 they have nothing to help them but the lead-line over 
 the side and a quadrant big enough to serve as a 
 gaUows. Nor was the ocean quite as it is now. In 
 Dampier's time it was still gloomy with mysteries, and 
 there lingered many a dark and terrifying superstition, 
 whose origin was to be traced to those early Portuguese 
 and Spanish sailors who chanted a litany when they 
 saw St. Elmo's Fire glittering at the masthead, and 
 exorcised the demon of the waterspout by elevating 
 their swords in the form of crosses. The mermaid still 
 rose in the tranquil blue waters alongside, and with 
 impassioned eyes and white and wooing arms courted 
 the startled seaman to share her coral pavilion at the 
 bottom of the sea. The enchanted island, steeped in the 
 purple splendour of a radiance that owed nothing of 
 its glory to the heavens, was yet to be discovered by 
 seeking. The darkness of the storm was thronged with 
 gigantic shadowy shapes of fleeting spirits. Amid the 
 tranquiUity of the midnight calm, dim fiery figures of 
 undeterminable proportions floated in the black profound, 
 and voices as of human creatures could be heard out of 
 the hush on the deep syllabling the names of the listen- 
 ing and afirighted crew. It is true that the Jack of 
 Dampier's time was not so amazingly superstitious as 
 we find him in the pages of Purchas and Hackluyt. He 
 was not quite so young-eyed as the ancient mariner of 
 the Elizabethan and preceding ages. Nevertheless he 
 was still exceedingly credulous, and he never embarked 
 
14 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap, i 
 
 on a voyage into distant parts -without a mind prepared 
 for marvels of many sorts. Also let us remember the 
 shadowiness of the globe whose oceans he was to navigate, 
 the vagueness of countries now as well known to us as 
 our own island home. Australia was rising upon the 
 gaze of the world like a new moon, the greater part of 
 whose disk lies in black shadow. Islands which now 
 have their newspapers and their hotels were uncharted, 
 were less real than the white shoulders of clouds dipping 
 upon the sea-line. Of countries whose coast had been 
 sighted, but whose interiors were unknown, wild guesses 
 at the wonders within resulted in hair-stirring imagina- 
 tions. These and more than there is room to name are 
 conditions of the early mariner's vocational life, which 
 we must take care to bear in mind as we accompany 
 him in his adventures, or certainly we shall fail to com- 
 pass the full significance of his magnificent resolution, 
 his incomparable spirit, and his admirable intrepidity. 
 
CHAPTEE II 
 
 1652-1681 
 
 DAMPIER'S early life — CAMPECHE — HE JOINS THE 
 BUCCANEERS 
 
 There is an account of Dampier's early life written by 
 himself in the second volume of his Travels. I do not 
 know that anything is to be added to what he there tells 
 us. A man should be accepted as an authority on his 
 own career when it comes to a question of dates and 
 adventures. The interest of this sailor's life really begins 
 with his own account of his first voyage round the world ; 
 and though he is a very conspicuous figure in English 
 maritime history, the position he occupies scarcely de- 
 mands the curious and minute inquiry into those parts 
 of his career on which he is silent that we should 
 bestow on the life of a great genius. 
 
 AYilliam Dampier was born at East Coker in the year 
 1652. His parents intended him for a commercial life, 
 but the idea of shopkeeping was little likely to suit the 
 genius of a lad who was a rover in heart whilst he was 
 still in petticoats ; and on the death of his father and 
 mother his friends, finding him bent upon an ocean life, 
 bound him apprentice to the master of a ship belonging 
 to Weymouth. This was in or about the year 1669. 
 
1 6 WILLIAM D AMPLER chap. 
 
 With this captain he made a short voyage to France, 
 and afterwards proceeded to Newfoundland in the same 
 ship, being then, as he tells us, about eighteen years of 
 age. The bitter cold of Newfoundland proved too much 
 for his seafaring resolutions, and, procuring the cancella- 
 tion of his indentures, he went home to his friends. But 
 the old instinct was not to be curbed. Being in London 
 some time after his return from the Newfoundland voyage, 
 he heard of an outward-bound East Indiaman named the 
 John and, Martha, the master of which was one Earning. 
 The idea of what he calls a " warm voyage " suited him. 
 He offered himself as a foremast hand and was accepted. 
 The voyage was to Bantam, and he was away rather 
 longer than a year, during which time he says he kept 
 no journal, though he enlarged his knowledge of naviga- 
 tion. The outbreak of the Dutch war seems to have 
 determined him to stay at home, and he spent the 
 summer of the year 1672 at his brother's house in 
 Somersetshire. He soon grew weary of the shore, and 
 enlisted on board the Royal Prince, commanded by the 
 famous Sir Edward Spragge,-' under whom he served dur- 
 ing a part of the year 1673. He fought in two engage- 
 ments, and then falling sick a day or two before the action 
 in which Sir Edward lost his life (August 11th), he was 
 sent on board the hospital ship, whence he was removed 
 to Harwich. Here he lingered for a great while in suffer- 
 ing, and at last, to recover his health, went to his brother's 
 house. As he gained strength so did his longing for the 
 sea increase upon him. His inclination was soon to be 
 humoured, for there lived near his brother one Colonel 
 Hellier, who, taking a fancy to Dampier, offered him the 
 ' Dampier calls him Spragg, others Sprague. 
 
EARLY LIFE 17 
 
 management of a plantation of his in Jamaica under a 
 person named Whalley; for which place he started in 
 the Content of London, Captain Kent master, he being 
 then twenty-two years old. Lest he should be kidnapped 
 and sold as a servant on his arrival, he agreed with 
 Captain Kent to work his passage out as a seaman. 
 They sailed in the beginning of the year 1674, but the 
 date of their arrival at Jamaica is not given. 
 
 His life on that island is not of much interest. He 
 lived with Whalley for about six months, and then agreed 
 with one Captain Heming to manage his plantation on 
 the north side of the island ; but repenting his resolution, 
 he took passage on board a sloop bound to Port Eoyal. 
 He made several coasting voyages in this way, by which 
 he tells us he became intimately acquainted with all the 
 ports and bays of Jamaica, the products and manufac- 
 tures of the island, and the like. In this sort of life he 
 spent six or seven months, and then shipped himself 
 aboard one Captain Hudsel, who was bound to the Bay of 
 Campech6 to load logwood. They sailed from Port Eoyal 
 in August 1 675 ; their cargo to purchase logwood was rum 
 and sugar. There were about two hundred and fifty men 
 engaged in cutting the wood, and these fellows gladly 
 exchanged the timber for drink. They were nearly all 
 Englishmen, and on the vessel dropping anchor, numbers 
 of them flocked aboard clamorous for liquor. " We were 
 but 6 Men and a Boy in the Ship," says Dampier, " and 
 all little enough to entertain them : for besides what Eum 
 we sold by the Gallon or Ferkin, we sold it made into 
 Punch, wherewith they grew Frolicksom." It was cus- 
 tomary in those times to shoot oflf guns when healths 
 were drunk, but in Dampier's craft there was nothing 
 
 C 
 
i8 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 but small-arms, " and therefore," he says, " the noise was 
 not very great at a distance, but on Board the Vessels 
 we were loud enough till all our Liquor was spent." 
 Dampier was well entertained by these fellows ashore. 
 They hospitably received him in their wretched huts, 
 and regaled him with pork and peas and beef and dough- 
 ■ boys. He thought this logwood-cutting business so pro- 
 fitable, and the life so free and pleasant, that he secretly 
 made up his mind to return to Campech6 after his arrival 
 at Jamaica. Having filled up with wood, they sailed in 
 the latter end of September, and not very long after- 
 wards narrowly escaped being wrecked on the Alacran 
 Reef, a number of low, sandy islands situated about 
 twenty -five leagues from the coast of Yucatan. The 
 vessel was a ketch, the weather very dirty. Dampier 
 was at the helm, or whipstaff as the tiller was called, and 
 describes the vessel as plunging and labouring heavily : 
 "Not going ahead," he says, "but tumbling like an egg- 
 shell in the sea." In spite of their being in the midst 
 of a dangerous navigation, the crew, finding the weather 
 improving, lay down upon the deck and fell asleep. The 
 stout build of the round-bowed craft saved her, otherwise 
 it is highly improbable that anything more would ever 
 have been heard of "William Dampier. 
 
 Young as he was, his powers of observation, the accu- 
 racy of his memory, and what I may call the sagacity of his 
 inquisitiveness, are forcibly illustrated in this passage of 
 his account of his early life. Even while his little ship is 
 bumping ashore, and all hands are running about thinking 
 their last moment arrived, Dampier is taking a careful 
 view of the sandy islands, observing the several depths of 
 water, remarking the various channels, and mentally 
 
n HARDSHIPS 19 
 
 noting the best places in which to drop anchor. He has 
 a hundred things to tell us about the rats and sea-fowl 
 he saw there, of the devotion of the booby to its young, 
 of the sharks, sword-fish, and "nurses," of the seals, and 
 the Spaniard's way of making oil of their fat. In this 
 little voyage Dampier and his mates suffered a very 
 great deal of hardship. They ran short of provi- 
 sions, and must have starved but for two barrels 
 of beef which had formed a portion of their cargo 
 for purposes of trucking, but which proved so rotten 
 that nobody would buy them. Of this beef they boiled 
 every day two pieces; their peas were consumed and 
 their flour almost gone, and in order to swallow the beef 
 they were forced to cut it into small bits after it was 
 cooked, and then to boil it afresh in water thickened with 
 a little flour. This savoury broth they ate with spoons. 
 Speaking of this trip Dampier says : "I think never any 
 Vessel before nor since made such traverses in coming 
 out of the Bay as we did ; having first blundered over 
 the Alcrany Riff, and then visited those islands ; from 
 thence fell in among the Colm-ado Shoals, afterwards 
 made a trip to Ch'and Oayrmnes ; and lastly visited Fines, 
 tho' to no purpose. In all these Rambles we got as 
 much experience as if we had been sent out on a 
 design." 
 
 They were thirteen weeks on their way, and eventually 
 anchored at Mgril. Here occurred an incident curiously 
 illustrative of the customs and habits of nautical men in 
 the good old times. Their vessel was visited by Captain 
 Eawlings, commander of a small New England craft, and 
 one Mr. John Hooker, a logwood- cutter. These men 
 were invited into the cabin, and a great bowl of punch 
 
WILLIAM DAMPIER 
 
 was brewed to regale them as well as their entertainers. 
 Dampier says there might be six quarts in it. Mr. 
 Hooker, being drunk to by Captain Eawlings, lifted the 
 bowl to his lips, and pausing a moment to say that he 
 was under an oath to drink but three draughts of strong 
 liquor a day, he swallowed the whole without a breath : 
 "And so," adds Dampier, "making himself drunk, dis- 
 appointed us of our expectations till we made another 
 bowl." Six quarts equal twenty-four glasses. Probably 
 no bigger drink than this is on record ! But those 
 were days when men mixed gtinpowder with brandy, 
 and honestly believed themselves the stouter-hearted for 
 the dose. 
 
 On the vessel's arrival at Port Eoyal the crew were 
 discharged. Dampier, whose hankering was after the 
 logwood trade, embarked as passenger on board a vessel 
 bound to Campech^, and sailed about the middle of 
 February 1776. He went fully provided for the toil- 
 some work — that is to say, with hatchets, axes, a kind of 
 long knives which he calls "macheats," saws, wedges, 
 materials for a house, or, as he terms it, a pavilion to sleep 
 in, a gun, ammunition, and so forth. His account of the 
 origin and growth of the business he had now entered 
 upon is interesting. The Spaniards had long known 
 the value of the logwood, and used to cut it down near 
 a river about thirty miles from Campech6, whence they 
 loaded their ships with it. The English, after possessing 
 themselves of Jamaica, whilst cruising about in the Gulf, 
 frequently encountered many vessels freighted with this 
 wood ; but being ignorant of the value of such cargoes, 
 they either burnt or sent the ships adrift, preserving only 
 the nails and iron-work. At last one Captain James, 
 
LOGWOOD-CUTTING 
 
 having captured a big vessel full of wood, navigated her 
 to England with the intention of fitting her out as a 
 privateer. He valued his prize's cargo so lightly that 
 on the way home he consumed a portion of it as fuel. 
 On his arrival he, to his great surprise, was offered a large 
 sum for the remainder. This being noised about started 
 the trade amongst the English. Of course the Spaniards 
 opposed the cutting down of the trees, and sent soldiers 
 to protect their property ; but the English speedily learnt 
 to recognise the timber as it grew, and, hunting for it 
 elsewhere, met with large forests, and so without regard 
 to the Spaniards they settled down to the trade and did 
 pretty well at it. The work previous to the arrival of 
 Dampier employed nearly three hundred men who had 
 originally been privateersmen and gained a living by 
 plundering the Spaniards, but who, on peace being made 
 with Spain, lost their occupation and were driven to 
 logwood -cutting by hunger. But their tastes as pirates 
 remained tenacious, and perhaps by way of keeping their 
 hand in, they formed into little troops, attacked and 
 plundered the adjacent Indian towns, brought away the 
 women and sent the men to Jamaica to be sold as slaves. 
 Dampier further informs us that these privateersmen had 
 not " forgot their old drinking bouts," but would " still 
 spend thirty or forty pounds at a sitting on board the 
 ships that came hither from Jamaica, carousing and 
 firing off guns three and four days together. " Eventually 
 their evil habits led to their ruin, for the Spaniards find- 
 ing them nearly continually drunk, fell upon them one 
 by one, seizing them chiefly in their huts, where they 
 lay stupefied with liquor, and carried them to prison or to a 
 servitude harder than slavery. Logwood was then worth 
 
WILLIAM DAMPLER 
 
 fourteen or fifteen pounds a ton. The toil must have 
 been great, for some of the trees were upwards of six feet 
 round, and the labourer had to cut them into logs small 
 enough to enable a man to carry a bundle of them. 
 Dampier speaks also of the bloodwood which fetched 
 thirty pounds a ton, but he does not tell us that he dealt 
 with it. He speedily found employment amongst the 
 logwood-cutters. On his arrival he met with six men who 
 had one hundred tons of the wood ready cut, but not yet 
 removed to the creek side. These fellows offered Dam- 
 pier pay at the rate of a ton of the wood per month to 
 help them to transport what they had cut to the 
 water. The work was laborious. They had not only to 
 transport the heavy timber, but to make a road to 
 enable them to convey it to the place of shipment. They 
 devoted iive days a week to this work, and on Saturdays 
 employed themselves in killing cattle for food. During 
 one of these hunting excursions Dampier came very near 
 to perishing through losing his way. He started out alone 
 with a musket on his shoulder, intending to kill a bullock 
 on his own account, and wandered so far into the woods 
 that he lost himself. After much roaming he sat down 
 to wait till the sun should decline, that he might know 
 by the course it took how to direct his steps. The wild 
 pines appeased his craving for drink, otherwise he must 
 have perished of thirst. At sunset he started afresh, 
 but the night, coming down dark, forced him to stop. 
 He lay on the grass at some distance from the woods, in 
 the hope that the breeze of wind that was blowing would 
 keep the mosquitoes from him; "but in vain," says he, 
 "for in less than an Hour's time I was so persecuted, 
 that though I endeavoured to keep them off by fanning 
 
II A GREAT STORM 23 
 
 myself with boughs and shifting my Quarters 3 or 4 
 times ; yet still they haunted me so that I could get no 
 Sleep." At daybreak he struck onwards, and after 
 walking a considerable distance, to his great joy saw a 
 pole with a hat upon it, and a little farther on another. 
 These were to let him know that his companions under- 
 stood that he was lost, and that at sunrise they would 
 be out seeking him. So he sat down to wait for them ; 
 for though by water the distance to the settlement was 
 only nine miles, the road by land was impracticable by 
 reason of the dense growths coming down to the very 
 side of the creek where Dampier sat waiting. Within 
 half an hour after his arrival at the poles with the 
 hats upon them, "his Consorts came," he says, "bringing 
 every Man his Bottle of "Water, and his Gun, both to 
 hunt for Game and to give me notice by Firing that I 
 might hear them ; but I have known several Men lost 
 in the like manner and never heard of afterwards." At 
 the expiration of the month's agreement he received his 
 ton of logwood, and was made free of the little colony 
 of cutters. Some of the men, quitting the timber-cutting, 
 went over to Beef Island to kill bullocks for their hides, 
 but Dampier remained behind with a few others to cut 
 more logwood. He worked laboriously, but his career 
 in this line of business was ended not long afterwards 
 by the most violent storm " that," he says,' " was ever 
 known in those Parts." He has described this storm in 
 his Discourse of Winds. He there says: "The Flood 
 still increased and ran faster up the Creek than ever I 
 saw it do in the greatest Spring Tide, which was some- 
 what strange, because the wind was at South, which is 
 right off the Shore on this Coast. Neither did the Rain 
 
24 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 anything abate, and by 1 a Clock in the Morning the Banks 
 of the Creeks were all overflowing. About 1 2 at Noon we 
 brought our Canao to the side of our Hut and fastened 
 it to the Stump of a Tree that stood by it ; that being 
 the only refuge that we could now expect ; for the Land 
 a little way within the Banks of the Creek is much lower 
 than where we were : so that there was no walking 
 through the Woods because of the Water. Besides the 
 Trees were torn up by the Eoots and tumbled so strangely 
 a-cross each other that it was almost impossible to pass 
 through them." Their huts were demolished, their pro- 
 visions ruined. It was in vain to stay, so the four men 
 who formed Dampier's party embarked in their canoe 
 and rowed over to One-Bush-Key, about sixteen miles 
 from the creek. There had been four ships riding off 
 that key when the storm began, but only one remained, 
 and from her they could obtain no refreshment of any 
 kind, though they were liberal in their oflfers of money. 
 So they steered away for Beef Island, and on approach- 
 ing it observed a ship blown ashore amongst the trees 
 with her flag flying over the branches. Her people were 
 in her, and Dampier and his companions were kindly 
 received by them. Whilst on Beef Island he was 
 nearly devoured by an alligator. He and his comrades 
 started to kill a bullock. In passing through a small 
 savannah they detected the presence of an alligator by 
 the strong, peculiar scent which the huge reptile throws 
 upon the air, and on a sudden Dampier stumbled against 
 the beast and fell over it. He shouted for help, but his 
 comrades took to their heels. He succeeded in regain- 
 ing his legs, then stumbled and fell over the animal a 
 second time; "and a third time also," he says, "expect- 
 
KEENNESS OF OBSERVATION 25 
 
 ing still when I fell down to be devoured." He contrived 
 to escape at last, but lie was so terrified that he tells us 
 he never cared for going through the water again so long 
 as he was in the Bay. 
 
 Much of his narrative here is devoted to accurate 
 and well-written descriptions of the character of the 
 country, and of its animals, reptiles, and the like. 
 There is an amusing quaintness in some of his little 
 pictures, as, for instance : " The Squash is a four-footed 
 Beast, bigger than a Cat : Its Head is much like a Foxes; 
 with short Ears and a long Nose. It has pretty short 
 Legs and sharp Claws ; by which it will run up trees like 
 a Cat. The skin is covered with short, fine Yellowish 
 Hair. The flesh is good, sweet, wholesome Meat. We 
 commonly skin and roast it; and then we call it pig; 
 and I think it eats as well. It feeds on nothing but 
 good Fruit; therefore we find them most among the 
 Sapadillo-Trees. This Creature never rambles very far : 
 and being taken young, will become as tame as a Dog ; 
 and be as roguish as a Monkey." 
 
 The minuteness of his observation is exhibited in a 
 high degree in his account of the beasts, birds, and fish 
 of Campech6 and the district. He uses no learned 
 terms. A child might get to know more from him 
 about the thing he describes than from a dozen pages of 
 modem writing on the subject supplemented even by 
 illustrations. It was wonderland to him, as it had been 
 to other plain and sagacious sailors before him. His 
 accounts remind us again and again of the exquisitely 
 naive but admirably faithful descriptions of beasts and 
 fish by the navigators whose voyages are found in the 
 collections of Hackluyt and Purchas. 
 
26 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 It is not very long after he had quitted Campech6 that 
 we find him associating with privateers, and becoming 
 one of their number. He writes of this in a half- 
 apologetic manner, complaining of failure through a 
 violent storm and of a futile cruise lasting for several 
 months, and talks of having been driven at last to seek 
 subsistence by turning pirate. There is no hint in his 
 previous narrative of any leanings this way. Probably 
 thoughts of the golden chances of the rover might have 
 been put into his head by chats with the logwood- 
 cutters. The Spaniard had long been the freebooter's 
 quarry. His carracks and galleons, laden almost to 
 their ways with the treasure of New Spain, had hand- 
 somely lined the pockets of the marauding rogues, and 
 such was the value of the booty that scores of them 
 might have set up as fine gentlemen in their own 
 country on their shares but for their trick of squander- 
 ing in a night what they had taken months to gain at 
 the hazard of their lives. The temptation was too much 
 for Dampier ; besides, he was already seasoned to hard- 
 ships of even a severer kind than was promised by a 
 life of piracy. For, as we have seen, he had out- 
 weathered the bitter cold of Newfoundland, he had 
 worked as a common sailor before the mast, he had 
 served against the Dutch, he had knocked about in 
 Mexican waters in a vessel as commodious and sea- 
 worthy as a Thames barge, and he was now fresh 
 from the severe discipline of the logwood trade. His 
 associates consisted of sixty men, who were divided 
 between two vessels. Their first step was to attack 
 the fort of Alvarado, in which enterprise they lost ten 
 or eleven of their company. The inhabitants, who had 
 
II JOINS THE BUCCANEERS 27 
 
 plenty of boats and canoes, carried away their money 
 and effects before the fort yielded, and as it was too 
 dark to pursue them, the buccaneers were satisfied to 
 rest quietly during the night. Next morning they were 
 surprised by the sight of seven ships which had been 
 sent from Vera Cruz. They got under -weigh and 
 cleared for action. But they had no heart to fight; 
 which is intelligible enough when we learn that the 
 Spanish admiral's ship mounted ten guns and carried 
 a hundred men ; that another had four guns and eighty 
 men ; the rest sixty or seventy men apiece, well armed, 
 whilst the bulwarks of the ships were protected with 
 bulls' hides breast-high. Fortunately for them, the 
 Spaniards had no mind to fight either. Some shots 
 were exchanged, and presently the Spanish squadron 
 edged away towards the shore, " and we," says Dampier, 
 "glad of the deliverance, went away to the eastward." 
 How long he remained with the pirates he does not say. 
 Apparently he could not find his account with them. 
 He left them to return to the logwood trade, at which 
 he continued for about twelve more months. He then 
 tells us that he resolved to pay a visit to England with 
 a design of returning again to wood-cutting, which no 
 doubt was proving profitable to him, and accordingly 
 set sail for Jamaica in April 1678. After remaining for 
 a short time at that island he embarked for England, 
 and arrived at the beginning of August. 
 
 He did not remain long at home. In the beginning 
 of the year 1679 he sailed for Jamaica in a vessel named 
 the Loyal Merchant. He shipped as a passenger, intend- 
 ing when he arrived at Jamaica to proceed to the Bay of 
 Campech6, and there pursue the employment of log- 
 
28 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 wood-cutting. But on his arrival at Port Royal in 
 Jamaica in April 1679, after a good deal of considera- 
 tion, he made up his mind to delay or abandon his 
 Tvood-cutting scheme, for he tells us that he remained 
 in that island for the rest of the year in expectation of 
 some other business. Whatever his hopes were they 
 could not have been greatly disappointed, for we read of 
 him as having, whilst in Jamaica, purchased a small 
 estate in Dorsetshire from a person whose title to it he 
 was well assured of. He was then, it now being about 
 Christmas, 1679, about to sail again for England, when 
 a Mr. Hobby persuaded him to venture on a short 
 trading voyage to what was then termed the country of 
 the Mosquitoes, a little nation which he describes as 
 composed of not more than a hundred men inhabiting the 
 mainland between Honduras and Nicaragua. Dampier 
 consented ; he and Mr. Hobby set out, and presently 
 dropped anchor in a bay at the west end of Jamaica, 
 where they found a number of privateersmen, including 
 Captains Coxon, Sawkins, and Sharp. These men were 
 maturing the scheme of an expedition of so tempting a 
 character that the whole of Mr. Hobby's men quitted 
 him and went over to the pirates. Dampier stayed with 
 his companion for three or four days, and then joined 
 the pirates also. What became of Mr. Hobby he does 
 not say. There is here a shamefacedness in his avowal 
 not hard to distinguish. Perhaps as he sits writing 
 this narrative he wonders at the irresolution he ex- 
 hibited, and his curious caprices of decisioa He starts 
 for Jamaica to cut logwood at Campech6 ; on his arrival 
 he changes his mind and prepares for his return ; he is 
 then diverted from his intention by Mr. Hobby, with 
 
THE START FOR DARIEN 29 
 
 whom he embarks on a well-considered adventure, which 
 he relinquishes to become pirate before his associate's 
 ship has fairly got away from Jamaica ! It is these sud- 
 den changes of front, however, and the unexpected turns 
 of fortune which they produced, which keeps Dampier's 
 narrative sweet with fresh and ever-flowing interest. 
 
 His adventures from the date of his leaving Mr. 
 Hobby down to the month of April 1681 he dismisses 
 in a couple of pages. Ringrose, however, has written 
 very fully of the expedition in which Dampier apparently 
 served as a foremast hand, and to the pages of his work 
 it is necessary to turn to obtain the information which 
 Dampier omits.^ The fleet of the privateers consisted 
 of nine vessels; the largest of them, commanded by 
 Captain Harris, was of the burden of one hundred and 
 fifty tons, mounted twenty-five guns, and carried one 
 hundred and seven men ; whilst the smallest, commanded 
 by Captain Macket, was of foiirteen tons, her crew con- 
 sisting of twenty men. They sailed on March 23rd, 1679, 
 for the province of Darien, their designs being, as Ring- 
 rose candidly admits, to pillage and plunder in those 
 parts. But they do not appear to have arrived off the 
 coast until April 1680, this being the date given by Eing- 
 rose, who says that there they landed three hundred and 
 thirty-one men, leaving a party of sailors behind them 
 to guard their ships. They marched in companies ; 
 Captain Bartholomew Sharp's (in whose troop, I take it, 
 
 ^ Ringrose's account will be found in The History of fhe Bv/Miiiers 
 of America, 2 vols., 4tli edition, 1741, under tlie section entitled 
 "The dangerous Voyage and bold Adventures of Captain Sharp, 
 Watling, Sawkins, Coxon, and others in the South Sea." It is 
 proper I should state here that the editions of the books I name are 
 those from which I quote. 
 
30 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 was Dampier) carried a red flag, witli a bunch of white 
 and green ribands ; Captain Eichard Sawkins's company 
 exhibited a red flag striped with yellow ; the third and 
 fourth, commanded by Captain Peter Harris, bore two 
 cream-coloured flags ; the fifth and sixth a red flag each ; 
 and the seventh a red colour with yellow stripes, and a 
 hand and sword thereon by way of a device. " All or 
 most of them," adds Eingrose, " were armed with Fuzee, 
 Pistol, and Hanger." This is a description that brings 
 the picture before us. We see these troops of sailors 
 carrying banners, dressed as merchant seamen always 
 were, and still are, in twenty dififerent costumes, lurch- 
 ing along under the broiling equatorial sun, through 
 forests, rivers, and bogs, trusting to luck for a drink 
 of water, and with no better victuals than cakes of bread 
 (four to a man), called by Eingrose " dough -boys,'' a 
 name that survives to this day, animated to the support 
 of the most extraordinary fatigues, the most venomous 
 country, and the deadliest climate in the world, by 
 dreams of more gold than they would be able to carry 
 away with them. 
 
 But the whole undertaking was a failure. They 
 attacked and took the town of Santa Maria, and found 
 the place to consist of a few houses built of cane, with 
 not so much as the value of a single ducat anywhere to 
 be met with. Their disappointment was rendered the 
 keener by the news that three days before their arrival 
 several hundred-weight of gold had been sent away to 
 Panama in one of those ships which were commonly 
 despatched two or three times a year from that city to 
 convey the treasure brought to Santa Maria from the 
 mountains. Their ill-luck, however, hardened them in 
 
11 RINGROSE'S MISADVENTURE 31 
 
 their resolution to attack Panama. The city was a sort 
 of New Jerusalem to the imaginations of these men, who 
 thought of it as half -formed of storehouses filled to 
 their roofs with plate, jewels, and gold. They stayed 
 two days at Santa Maria, and then on April 17th, 1680, 
 embarked in thirty-five canoes and a periagua, and rowed 
 down the river in quest of the South Sea, upon which, as 
 Eingrose puts it, Panama is seated. Their adventures 
 were many; their hardships and distresses such as 
 rendered their energy and fortitude phenomenal even 
 amongst a community who were incomparably gifted 
 with these qualities. Eingrose, whose narrative I follow, 
 was wrecked in the river by the oversetting of his canoe, 
 and came very near to perishing along with a number of 
 his comrades. He fell into the hands of some Spaniards, 
 with whom, as they understood neither English nor 
 French, whilst he was equally ignorant of their tongue, 
 he was obliged to converse in Latin! — a language in 
 which, I suspect, not many mariners of to-day could 
 communicate their distresses. He and his shipmates 
 narrowly escaped torture and a miserable death, and 
 eventually recovering their canoe, they started afresh 
 on their voyage, and were fortunate enough next morn- 
 ing to fall in with the rest of the buccaneers, who had 
 anchored during the night in a deep bay. 
 
 Trifling as these incidents are, it is proper to relate 
 them as examples of the life and experiences of Dampier 
 during this period of his career. Unfortunately, until 
 one opens his own books one does not know where to 
 look for him. In whose troop he marched, in whose 
 canoe he sat, in what special adventures he was con- 
 cerned, whether he was favoured for his intelligence 
 
32 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 above the others by the commanders of the expedition, 
 cannot be ascertained. When Kingrose wrote, Dampier 
 was still a mere privateersman, a foremast hand, a man 
 without individuality enough to arrest the attention of 
 the sturdy, plain, and honest historian of the voyage in 
 which they both took part. Indeed, there is no reason 
 to suppose that Dampier at this time was regarded by 
 his fellows as better than the humblest of the shaggy, 
 sun-blackened men who, with fuzees on their shoulders 
 and pistols in their girdles, tramped in little troops 
 through the swamps and creeks and over the swelling 
 lands of the Isthmus, or who in their deep and narrow 
 canoes floated silent and grim upon the hot and creeping 
 river in search of the unexpectant Don and his almost 
 fabulous wealth. 
 
 Dampier introduces a curious story in connection with 
 Panama and the South Seas in his first volume. He says 
 that when he was on board Captain Coxon's ship, there 
 being three or four privateers in company, they captured 
 a despatch boat bound to Cartagena from Porto Bello. 
 They opened many of the letters, and were struck by 
 observing that several of the merchants who wrote from 
 Old Spain exhorted their correspondents at Panama to 
 bear in mind a certain prophecy that had been current 
 in Madrid and other centres for some months past, the 
 tenor of which was — That there would be English privateers 
 'that year in the West Indies, who would make such great 
 discoveries as to open a door into the South Seas. This door, 
 Dampier says, was the passage overland to Darien 
 through the country of the Indians, a people who had 
 quarrelled with the Spaniards and professed a friendship 
 for the English, At all events, these Indians had been 
 
STORY OF JOHN GRET 33 
 
 for some time inviting the privateers to march across 
 their territory and fall upon the Spaniards in the South 
 Seas. Hence when the letters came into their hands 
 they grew disposed to entertain the Indians' proposal in 
 good earnest, and finally made those attempts to which 
 I have referred in quoting from the pages of Eingrose. 
 The cause of the friendship between the English buc- 
 caneers and the Darien Indians is a story of some interest. 
 About fifteen years before Dampier crossed the Isthmus 
 a certain Captain AVright, who was cruising, in those 
 waters, met with a young Indian lad paddling about in 
 a canoe. He took him aboard his ship, clothed him, and, 
 with the idea of making an Englishman of him, gave him 
 the name of John Gret Some Mosquito Indians, how- 
 ever, begged the boy from Captain Wright, who gave 
 him to them. They carried him into their own country, 
 and by and by he married a wife from among them. 
 Through the agency of this John Gret, who always pre- 
 served an affection for the English, a friendship was 
 established between the buccaneers and the Indians. Pre- 
 sents were made on each side, and a certain secret signal 
 was concerted whereby the Indians might recognise 
 their English friends. It happened that there was a 
 Frenchman among one of the buccaneering captain's crew. 
 He was artful enough to commit this signal, whatever it 
 was, to memory, and on his arrival at Petit Guavres he 
 communicated what he knew to his countrymen there, 
 and represented the facility with which the South Seas 
 might be entered now that he had the secret of winning 
 over the Indians to help him. On this one hundred and 
 twenty Frenchmen formed themselves into a troop, -vrith 
 the buccaneer, whom Dampier calls IVIr. la Sound, as their 
 
34 WILLIAM DAMPIER oiiAP, 
 
 captain, and marched against Cheapo, an attempt that 
 proved unsuccessful, though the simple Indians, believing 
 them to be English, gave them all the assistance that was 
 in their power. "From such small beginnings," adds 
 Dampier, " arose those great stirs that have been since 
 made in the South Seas, viz. : from the Letters we took 
 and from the Friendship contracted with these Indians by 
 means of John Gret. Yet this Friendship had like to have 
 been stifled in its Infancy ; for within few months after an 
 English trading Sloop came on this Coast from Jamaica, 
 and John Gret, who by this time had advanced himself 
 as a Grandee amongst these Indians, together with 5 or 
 6 more of that quality, went off to the Sloop in their 
 long Gowns, as the custom is for such to wear among 
 them. Being received aboard, they expected to find 
 everything friendly, and John Gret talkt to them in 
 English ; but these English Men having no knowledge at 
 all of what had happened, endeavoured to make them 
 Slaves (as is commonly done), for upon carrying them 
 to Jamaica they could have sold them for 10 or 12 
 Pound apiece. But John Gret and the rest perceiving 
 this, leapt all overboard, and were by the others killed 
 every one of them in the Water. The Indians on Shoar 
 never came to the knowledge of it ; if they had it would 
 have endangered our Correspondence." 
 
 On April 23rd the buccaneers entered the Bay of 
 Panama, and the city, offering a fair and lovely prospect, 
 as Dampier afterwards tells us, lay full in their view. 
 The old town that had been sacked and burnt by Henry 
 Morgan in 1670 lay four miles to the eastward of the 
 now city ; but amongst those now suburban ruins the 
 cathedral rose stately and splendid, and Eingrose, en- 
 
ffALF-HEARTED MEASURES 35 
 
 raptured by the sight, vows that the building viewed from 
 the sea might compare in majesty with St. Paul's. The 
 Panama at which Dampier gazed was almost new, built of 
 brick and stone, with eight churches amongst the houses, 
 most of them unfinished. Many of the edifices were three 
 stories high. A strong wall circled the place, crowned 
 with seaward-pointing cannon, and these defences were 
 backed by a garrison of three hundred of the king's sol- 
 diers, whilst the city itself supplemented that force by a 
 contribution of eleven hundred militiamen. Such was 
 the Panama of which our handful of audacious bucca- 
 neers were coolly proposing the sacking, and doubt- 
 less the burning. It seems, however, that when they 
 arrived most of the soldiers were absent, and Kingrose 
 tells us that had they attempted the town at once instead 
 of attacking the ships in the bay, they must have made 
 an easy conquest. The desperate energy, the hot and 
 furious courage, of an earlier race of pirates were wanting 
 in them. They lingered long enough to enable the city 
 to render its capture impracticable, and then, feigning a 
 sentimental interest in the condition of the Indians, they 
 despatched word to the Governor that if he would suffer 
 the natives to enjoy their own "power and liberty," and 
 send to the buccaneers five hundred pieces of eight for 
 each man, and one thousand pieces of eight for each com- 
 mander, they would desist from further hostilities. A 
 civil message was returned, and they were also asked 
 from whom they received their commission; to which 
 Captain Sawkins responded in a style which he may 
 have borrowed from the tragedies of Nathaniel Lee : 
 "That as yet all his company were not come together; 
 but that when they were come up, we would come and 
 
36 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 visit him at Panama, and bring our commissions on the 
 muzzles of our guns, at which time he should read them 
 as plain as the flame of gunpowder could make them." 
 All this was mere windy, hectoring talk, and nothing 
 followed it. The buccaneers were growing mutinous 
 with famine, and as it was clear there was nothing to 
 be done with Panama, Captain Sawkins, who was chief 
 in command, gave orders to weigh anchor, and the 
 pirates sailed away without a ducat's worth of satisfaction 
 for the prodigious hardships they had endured. 
 
 Whilst they lay at anchor before Caboa the two chief 
 commanders, Sawkins and Sharp, went ashore with 
 sixty or seventy men to attack Puebla Nueva. Eingrose 
 dates this attempt May 22nd, 1680. The inhabitants 
 were prepared, and the only issue of a sharp engagement 
 was the death of Captain Sawkins and the loss of several 
 of his people. This defeat led to a mutiny among the 
 buccaneers. Eventually Captain Sharp, who was now 
 chief in command, called the men together and proposed 
 to them to remain in the South Sea and then go home by 
 way of the Horn, adding that he would guarantee that 
 every man who stayed with him should be worth a 
 thousand pounds by the time he arrived in England. 
 This scheme of cruising in the South Sea against the 
 Spaniards had been Sawkins's fixed project, and he was 
 so great a favourite that had he lived it is probable 
 the whole of the crew would have accompanied him; 
 but Sharp did not enjoy the general confidence of his 
 people, and a number of the men sullenly and obstinately 
 refused to linger any longer in these waters. Eingrose 
 was amongst those who were weary of the hazardous 
 and unremunerative adventures of the buccaneers, and 
 
n TAKING OF HILO 37 
 
 would have been glad to leave the ship. Had he done 
 so there would have been no record of this voyage of 
 Dampier ; but he was wise enough to fear the Indians 
 and to dread the sufferings of an overland journey in 
 the rainy season. He therefore resolved to remain with 
 Captain Sharp, amongst whose adherents was William 
 Dampier. Sixty-three of the men left them, and then 
 on Sunday, June 6th, 1680, Captain Sharp and his people 
 steered away to the southward with the intention of 
 plundering Arica. 
 
 On approaching the coast they found the bay guarded 
 by numerous parties of horsemen, whilst the tops of the 
 hills were also lined with men. They withdrew without 
 firing a gun. Better luck, however, befell them on 
 October 29th at Hilo. This place they took without diffi- 
 culty, and found it stored with quantities of pitch, tar, 
 wine, oil, and flour. The sacking of Hilo was a sort of 
 holiday jaunt for the freebooters, who feasted delightfully 
 on olives, lemons, and limes ; on cakes, on flagons of cool 
 wines, on great strawberries, and sweetmeats and other 
 delicacies. As they marched up the valley the Spaniards 
 accompanied their progress upon the hill-tops, and rolled 
 great stones down upon them, but no man was hurt; 
 whilst to the explosion of a single musket every visible 
 Spanish head was instantly ducked out of sight. Much 
 that strikes one as marvellous in the achievements of 
 the buccaneers in the South Sea vanishes when one thinks 
 of the abject cowardice of the American Spaniards. Had 
 their troops been composed of priests and old women, 
 they could not have fled with livelier hysterical nimble- 
 ness from the sight of the English colours. The picture 
 is humiliating, though it is not wanting in the ridiculous. 
 
38 WILLIAM D AMPLER. CHAl-. 
 
 All through the buccaneering annals, as in Anson's and 
 the voyages of others, one is incessantly meeting with 
 this sort of thing : — A boat filled with armed privateers- 
 men approaches the beach. A numerous party of horse- 
 men, bristling with sabres, lances, and muskets, stand as 
 in a posture to dispute their landing. But as the boat 
 draws near the horsemen retreat, and in no very good 
 order, back to behind the town as the seamen spring 
 ashore. They are finally seen on the summit of a hill 
 in company with several troops of foot soldiers, who, 
 whilst their bands play and their banners proudly flutter, 
 gaze downwards at the twenty or thirty sailors who are 
 firing the houses of their town and lurching seawards 
 with sacks of silver on their backs. 
 
 Eingrose calls a halt at the "Isle of Plate," as he 
 writes it, to tell us a little story : " This Island received 
 its Name from Sir Francis Brake, and his famous 
 Actions. For it is reported that he here made the 
 Dividend of that vast quantity of Plate which he 
 took in the Armada of this sea, distributing it to 
 each Man of his Company by whole Bowls full. The 
 Spaniards affirm to this Day that he took at that Time 
 twelvescore Tons of Plate, and sixteen bowls of coined 
 Money a Man ; his number being then forty-five Men in 
 all ; insomuch that they were forced to heave much of 
 it overboard, because his ship could not carry it all. 
 Hence this Island was called by the Spaniards the Isle 
 of Plate, from this great Dividend, and by us Drake's 
 Isle." 
 
 Traditions of this kind were very nicely calculated to 
 keep the buccaneering heart high. Our genial freebooter 
 has also another yarn to spin in connection with this 
 
LA SERENA ATTACKED 
 
 39 
 
 coast. He says that in the time of Oliver Cromwell the 
 merchants of Lima fitted out a ship armed with seventy 
 brass guns, with a treasure in her hold of no less than 
 thirty millions of dollars, " all which vast sum of money,'' 
 he says, " was given by the merchants of Lima, and sent 
 as a present to our Gracious King (or rather his father) 
 who now reigneth, to supply him in his exile and dis- 
 tress, but tliat this great and rich ship was lost by keeping 
 along the shore in the Bay of Manta above mentioned or 
 thereabouts. The truth whereof is much to be ques- 
 tioned." Be his stories true or false, however, it is 
 pleasant to sail in the company of an old seaman who 
 has an anecdote to fit every bay or headland of the coast 
 along which he jogs. Unhappily Eingrose, who begins 
 very well, drifts fast into the unsuggestrve trick of 
 "loggings,'' telling us in twenty pages at a stretch that 
 on Monday the sun rose at. such and such an hour, that 
 on Tuesday it blew a fresh gale, that on "Wednesday 
 there was a ring round the moon, that on Thursday they 
 had made thirty leagues in twenty-four hours, and so 
 forth. It is by comparing the best of the early mariners' 
 narratives with Dampier's that one remarks his eminent 
 superiority as a writer, observer, and describer. 
 
 As they saUed down the American seaboard they 
 captured a few small vessels, but their booty was incon- 
 siderable. On December 3rd, 1 680, they attacked the city 
 of La Serena. They routed the Spaniards, who, in flying, 
 carried away the best of their goods and jewels. An offer 
 of ransom was made, and the price fixed was ninety-five 
 thousand pieces of eight. It was soon rendered plain, 
 however, that the enemy had no intention of paying, 
 whereupon the buccaneers fired every house in the town 
 
40 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 to the end that the whole place might be reduced to ashes. 
 Before the ship sailed she was very nearly burnt by a 
 curious Spanish stratagem. A horse's hide was blown 
 out with wind to the condition of a bladder. A man got 
 upon it and silently paddled himself under the stern of 
 the privateer, between whose rudder and sternpost he 
 crammed a mass of oakum, brimstone, and other com- 
 bustible matter. This done, he softly fired it with a 
 match and sneaked away ashore. The buccaneers 
 observing the dark mass on the water, concluded it to 
 be a dead horse, and gave it no particular heed. On a 
 sudden the alarm of fire was raised ; the rudder M'as 
 seen to be burning and the ship was full of smoke. 
 After some trouble the flames were extinguished, and 
 then suspecting some stratagem in the object they had 
 previously lightly glanced at, they sent the boat ashore, 
 where the puffed-out hide was found with a match burning 
 at both ends of it. 
 
 By Christmas Day they were at anchor off the Island 
 of Juan Fernandez. It is noteworthy that Eingrose, 
 in his journal under date of January 3rd, says that 
 their pilot told them that many years ago a ship was 
 cast away upon this island and only one man saved, 
 who lived alone upon it for over five years before any 
 vessel came that way to carry him off. It is curious 
 that none of the biographers of Defoe should refer to 
 this statement in dealing with the inspirations of the 
 great writer's masterpiece. Whilst lying at this island 
 there was trouble amongst the men, which resulted in 
 Captain Sharp being deposed. A number of the crew 
 wanted to go home at once ; others were for remaining 
 in those seas until they had got more money. A man 
 
ir WATLING'S CHARACTER 41 
 
 named John "Watling, an old privateer and a seaman of 
 experience, was chosen in the room of Sharp. It was 
 shortly after this that the buccaneers were alarmed by 
 the unexpected apparition of three men-of-war. They 
 instantly slipped their cables and stood out to sea, leaving 
 behind them in their hurry that famous Mosquito Indian, 
 of whom it is uncertain whether it was to his or to Sel- 
 kirk's adventures that Defoe owed the idea of Robinson 
 Crusoe. The vessels which surprised them were large 
 and heavily armed, one of them being eight hundred and 
 another six hundred tons. They hoisted the " bloody 
 flag," as it was called, meaning that no quarter would be 
 given. The buccaneers did the same, but they were in 
 truth very unwilling to fight. Watling, indeed, either 
 could not or would not dissemble his fears. Fortunately 
 the Spaniards proved thorough cowards. Despite the 
 bluster of their no-quarter signal flying at the masthead, 
 they never ofiered to approach the privateer, which, 
 glad enough to escape, next day stood away north-east 
 for Arica. 
 
 I will not charge Watling with cowardice, but he 
 exhibits a quality of timidity sufficiently accentuated to 
 account for a very cruel disposition. Of this man, who 
 had manifested many signs of alarm at sight of the 
 Spanish ships-of-war, a black act of wickedness is 
 recorded a few days later. Amongst the prisoners on 
 board was an old white-haired Spaniard. Watling 
 questioned him about Arica, and believing that he 
 lied in his answers ordered him to be shot. The 
 former commander, Captain Sharp, vehemently opposed 
 the execution of this cruel sentence, but finding his 
 appeal disregarded he plunged his hands in water and, 
 
42 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 washing them, exclaimed, "Gentlemen, I am clear of 
 the blood of this old man, and I will warrant you a hot 
 day for this piece of cruelty whenever we come to 
 fight at Arica." The prophecy was fulfilled. On Janu- 
 ary 13th, 1680, the buccaneers were off that town, and 
 ninety-two men going ashore attacked the place with in- 
 credible fury. We read of them filling every street in 
 the city with dead bodies. In a short time Captain 
 Watling was shot through the heart, whilst there were 
 slain besides two quartermasters and so many of the 
 men that further efforts were rendered hopeless. The 
 survivors appealed to Captain Sharp to lead them out 
 of their difficulties and get them back to the ship. The 
 enemy surrounded them, they were in great disorder, 
 and there was no one to command them. Sharp, bitterly 
 resenting their behaviour to him, which had led to his 
 being supplanted by Watling, hesitated. "But," says 
 Eingrose, "at our earnest request and petition he 
 took up the command-in-chief again, and began to 
 distribute his orders for our safety.'' They succeeded 
 in fighting their way to the beach, and got on board at 
 ten o'clock at night, after a desperate battle that had 
 lasted the whole day. On putting to sea again there 
 was much mutinous growling, and when off the Island 
 of Plata, on April 17th, 1681, the quarrels rose to such 
 a pitch that there was nothing for it but separation. 
 The trouble lay in a number of the men, now that 
 Watling was dead, desiring the reappointment of Sharp. 
 This was warmly opposed by others. The matter was 
 put to the vote, and the Sharpites proving the more 
 numerous, the dissentients agreed to leave them — the 
 arrangement being that the majority should keep the 
 
II HE LEA VES SHARP 43 
 
 ship, whilst the others should take the long-boat and 
 canoes and return by way of the Isthmus, or seek their 
 fortunes as they chose in other directions. The out- 
 voted party numbered forty-seven men, one of whom 
 was William Dampier. 
 
CHAPTEE III 
 
 1681-1691 
 
 dampier's first voyage round the world 1 
 
 "April 17, 1681," writes Dampier, "about Ten a Clock 
 in the morning being 12 leagues N.-W. from the Island 
 Plata, we left Captain Sharp and those who were willing 
 to go with him in the Ship, and imbarqued into our 
 Launch and Canoas, designing for the Eiver of Santa 
 Maria in the Gulf of St. Michael, which is about 200 
 leagues from the Isle of Plata.'' The boats which carried 
 them were a launch and two canoes ; and their provi- 
 sions consisted of a quantity of flour mixed with twenty 
 or thirty pounds of powdered chocolate. That no man 
 should venture the crossing of the Isthmus on foot who, 
 by health or feebleness of will, might prove unequal to 
 
 ' "A New Voyage Round the World, describing particularly 
 the Isthmus of America ; several Coasts and Islands in the West 
 Indies ; the Isles of Cape Verd ; the Passage by Teri'a del Fuego ; 
 the South Sea coasts of Chili, Pern, and Mexico ; the Isle of Guam, 
 one of the Ladrones, Mindanao, and other Philippine and East India 
 Islands, near Cambodia, China, Formosa, Laconia, Celebes, etc. ; 
 New Holland, Sumatra, Nicobar Isles ; the Cape of Good Hope, 
 and Santa Hellena. Their Soil, Rivers, Harbours, Plants, Fruits, 
 Animals, and Inhabitants. Their Customs, Religion, Government, 
 Trade, etc." By Captain William Dampier. Fourth Edition, 
 1699. This is vol. i. of the Travels. 
 
CHAP. Ill FIRST VOYAGE SOUND THE WORLD 45 
 
 the march, it was settled at the start that any one who 
 faltered on the journey overland should be at once shot 
 to death: "For," says Dampier, "we knew that the 
 Spaniards would soon be after us, and one man falling 
 into their hands might be the ruin of us all by giving 
 an account of our strength and condition ; yet this 
 would not deter 'em from going with us." When 
 abreast of Cape Passao they captured a small vessel and 
 sailed to Cape St. Lorenzo, where they disembarked, 
 after removing their provisions and clothes and scuttling 
 their little ship. It was now May 1st, 1681. 
 
 The march of Dampier and his companions across the 
 Isthmus of Panama is a feat that ranks amongst the most 
 memorable of the traditions of travel and adventure. 
 The qualities of the climate of that part of the world 
 have found emphasis in our time in published accounts 
 of the mortality among the people employed out there 
 on the great French engineer's scheme of a canal. The 
 land is watered by numbers of rivers filled with alligators; 
 it is darkened and often rendered impenetrable by dense 
 growths of tropical vegetation crowded with snakes ; and 
 in many places it is blocked by barriers of hills and 
 mountains belted with miasmatic vapours. Our little 
 company of buccaneers crossed the Isthmus in twenty- 
 three days, in which time, according to Dampier's account, 
 they travelled one hundred and ten miles. Their adven- 
 tures were few, but the hardships constant and severe. 
 For the most part they slept all night in the open, and 
 repeatedly arose in the morning from their beds of mire 
 with clothes saturated by storms of rain. Their surgeon, 
 Lionel Wafer, was badly hurt in the knee by the explosion 
 of a parcel of gunpowder, — an accident that gave his com- 
 
46 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 panions much anxiety, "being lyable ourselves every 
 moment to misfortune,'' says Dampier, "and none to 
 look after us but him.'' On several occasions many of 
 them were nearly drowned whilst fording rivers swollen 
 with rains. The difficulties in the road of their progress 
 may be gathered from a single incident. They had arrived 
 at the banks of a river which they were obliged to cross. 
 The water was deep and the current ran swiftly. It 
 was proposed that those who could swim should assist 
 those who were helpless in this way to the opposite 
 bank; but then, how were they to transport the guns, 
 provisions, and other articles that they carried? They 
 decided to send a man over with a line, who, by means 
 of it, would be able to haul the goods across, and then 
 drag those ashore who could not swim. A fellow named 
 Gayny secured the end of the line around his neck and 
 plunged into the river, but the current kinked and 
 entangled the rope in some way and threw the swimmer 
 on his back. He had slung a bag containing three hun- 
 dred dollars over his shoulder, and this weight, helped 
 by the drag of the line, drew the unfortunate man under, 
 and he was seen no more. They finally succeeded in 
 crossing by felling a tall tree, which happily spanned 
 the river and served them as a bridge. Their food con- 
 sisted of fish and such animals as they could contrive to 
 shoot, particularly monkeys, whose flesh they ate with 
 relish. It was not until May 23rd that they came in 
 sight of the Atlantic, which it was then the custom 
 to speak of as the North Sea, and the next day they 
 went on board a French privateer commanded by a 
 Captain Tristian. Some of their comrades had died by 
 the way, and some had been left behind. Amongst the 
 
Ill PRIVATEERSMEN IN FORCE 47 
 
 latter was "\A'afer, the surgeon, who a few weeks after- 
 wards was met by Dampier while cruising in the neigh- 
 bourhood of La Sound's Key. Some Indians came 
 aboard, and brought with them the surgeon and survivors 
 of the others who had been left on the Isthmus. " ]\Ir. 
 Wafer," says Dampier, "wore a clout about him, and 
 was painted like an Indian ; and he was some time 
 aboard before I knew him."^ 
 
 Captain Tristian, having Dampier and his comrades 
 in the ship, set sail, and arrived in two days at Springer's 
 Quay, where they found eight privateers lying at anchor. 
 Four of them were Enghsh ; two of ten guns each, and 
 both carrying one hundred men ; a third of four guns 
 and forty men. The others were less formidable. The 
 Dutch vessel mounted four guns and carried sixty men, 
 and was commanded by one Captain Yanky. The 
 Frenchmen were respectively of eight guns and forty 
 men, and six guns and seventy men. Here, by guessing 
 at the crews of the smaller ships, we arrive at a body of 
 pirates numbering between five and six hundred fearless, 
 determined, ferocious ruffians ! It is conceivable that the 
 Spaniards in those waters should have lived in a state 
 of terror. The wonder is that the swarms of miscreants 
 who preyed upon them should have left them a house 
 to dwell in or a,.ducat to conceal 
 
 ^ "Wafer afterwards published au account of his adventures in 
 " A New Voyage and Description of the Isthmus of Avwrica ; giving 
 an account of the author's abode there ; the form and make of the 
 Country, Coasts, Hills, Kivers, etc. Woods, Soil, "Weather, etc. 
 Trees, Fruit, Beasts, Birds, Fish, etc. The Indian Inhabitants, 
 their Features, Complexions, etc. ; their Manners, Customs, Em- 
 ployments, Marriages, Feasts, Hunting, Computation, Language, 
 etc. "With remarkable Occurrences in the South Sea and else- 
 where." It is a tedious book. 
 
48 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 After many debates it was agreed amongst the 
 masters and crews of these vessels to attack a town the 
 name of which Dampier says he has forgotten. The 
 vessel into which our hero found himself drafted was 
 a French craft of eight guns and forty men, commanded 
 by a man named Archemboe. The fleet weighed, but 
 during the night they were scattered by a hard gale, 
 and when day broke Archemboe's ship was alone. 
 Dampier, with others of his comrades who were with 
 Archemboe, speedily learnt to hate their French associates. 
 The sailors were utterly worthless in bad, and lazy, 
 lounging loafers in fine, weather : " The saddest creatures 
 that I was ever among," writes Dampier, "but though 
 we had bad weather that required many hands aloft, 
 yet the biggest part of them never stirred out of their 
 hammocks but to eat." Later on they fell in with 
 Captain Wright, who belonged to the fleet, and Dampier's 
 English shipmates induced this man to fit out a prize 
 of his for them; Dampier himself joining Wright, 
 whose vessel, a iarm longo, mounted four guns and 
 carried fifty men. Shortly after this Wright, in company 
 with the Dutchman, Captain Yanky, started on a cruise 
 along the coast of Cartagena. 
 
 Dampier's narrative here is a very close, curious, and 
 interesting description of the islands of this part of the 
 sea and of the shores of the mainland. He also prints 
 pages of notes about the birds common to those parts, 
 the pearl-fishery, and other matters of a like kind. The 
 charm of a sailor-like simplicity is in everything he says. 
 "I have not been curious," he writes in his preface to a 
 New Voyage Bound the World, "as to the spelling of the 
 Names of Places, Plants, Fruits, Animals, etc., which in 
 
ARRIVED A T VIRGINIA 49 
 
 many of the remoter parts are given at the pleasure 
 of Travellers, and vary according to their different 
 Humours : Neither have I confined myself to such 
 names as are given by Learned Authors, or so much as 
 enquired after them. I write for my Countrymen, and 
 have therefore for the most part used such names as 
 are familiar to our English Seamen and those of our 
 Colonies abroad, yet without neglecting others that 
 occur'd." 
 
 Let Dampier's literary defects be what they may, 
 assuredly unintelligibility is not one of them. 
 
 The cruise, in a buccaneering sense, was not a profit- 
 able one. They captured a few small vessels, but their 
 prizes yielded them little more than some tons of, sugar, 
 marmalade, cocoa, hides, and earthenware They then 
 resolved to separate, and after dividing the plunder they 
 parted company, having enough vessels in the shape of 
 prizes to carry them wherever they might choose to go. 
 Twenty of them, amongst whom was Dampier, putting 
 their share of the booty into a small bark, set sail for 
 Virginia and arrived there after an uneventful passage 
 in July, 1682. In this country Dampier lived for 
 thirteen months, but of his life he tells nothing, merely 
 hinting that a great many troubles befell him. 
 
 Amongst the crew of the vessel commanded by the 
 Dutchman, Captain Yanky — one of the piratical com- 
 manders with whom Dampier was associated after 
 crossing the Isthmus — there had been a quartermaster 
 named John Cooke, a Creole. On Yanky capturing a 
 Spanish prize, Cooke, by virtue of his position according 
 to the practice of the buccaneers, claimed and obtained 
 command of her, But the privateersmen were of mixed 
 
 E 
 
50 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 nationalities, and the French, growing jealous of the 
 Englishmen, plundered and stripped the men who had 
 been their shipmates and companions - in - arms, and 
 turned them naked ashore. Captain Tristian, however, 
 whose ship, it will be remembered, Dampier and his 
 comrades boarded on the Darien coast, took pity upon 
 the English, and carried ten of them, one of whom was 
 Cooke, to the Island of Tortuga. Whilst they lay there 
 at anchor the English rose, seized Tristian's vessel, and 
 sailing away with her made two captures of importance, 
 one of which they navigated to Virginia, where they 
 arrived in April, 1683. Having sold the cargo of this 
 prize they fitted her out as a privateer, mounting her, 
 Captain Cowley says in his Voyage, with eight guns, 
 though Dampier makes the number eighteen. They 
 called her the Revenge. Dampier with many others 
 volunteered to sign articles for her, and when she set 
 sail her crew, according to Cowley, consisted of fifty- 
 two, but according to. Dampier of seventy men. 
 
 The voyage of the Revenge was written by Cowley as 
 well as by Dampier — that is to say, a large portion of 
 this voyage is included in Dampier's first volume of his 
 Travels. Cowley's account is very_ full, wanting indeed 
 the flavour of Dampier's style, and the vitality and arch- 
 ness of his descriptive powers ; but in one sense Cowley 
 is more interesting than the other — I mean, that as a 
 freebooter he writes with far more candour than Dampier, 
 whose narratives everywhere repeat by implication the 
 direct apology he makes in the preface to his first volume : 
 
 "As for the Actions of the Company, among whom 
 I made the greatest part of this voyage, a Thread of 
 which I have carried on thro' it, 'tis not to divert the 
 
m COOKE'S DESIG.V 51 
 
 Reader with them that I mention them, much less that 
 I take any pleasure in relating them : but for method's 
 sake and for the Reader's satisfaction ; who could not so 
 well acquiesce in my Description of Places, etc., without 
 knowing the particular Traverses I made among them : 
 nor in these, Avithout an Account of the Concomitant 
 Circumstances. Besides that, I would not prejudice the 
 truth and sincerity of my Relation, the' by omissions 
 only. And as for the Traverses themselves, they make 
 for the Reader's advantage; however little for mine, 
 since thereby I have been the better inabled to gratify 
 his Curiosity ; as one who rambles about a Country can 
 give usually a better account of it, than a Carrier who 
 jogs on to his Inn, without ever going out of his Road." 
 Cowley had not Dampier's sensitiveness ; indeed, he 
 might not have considered his conscience as a buccaneer 
 unduly burdened. It is manifest that as he wrote he 
 was still smarting under the trick that had been put 
 upon him, and to gratify his resentment he related baldly 
 all the truth he could recollect. He had been prevailed 
 upon by Cooke to sail as master in the privateer, which 
 was professedly bound to San Domingo, that her com- 
 mander might at that island obtain a commission to 
 let^alise his acts at sea j but in reality Cooke's first, real, 
 and only design was wholly one of piracy, and nothing 
 was said to Cowley about it until the ship was well clear 
 of the land, when, of course, he was forced to fall in with 
 the scheme. 1 This was in the year 1683. Dampier was 
 now thirty-one years of age, and fairly, but unconsciously, 
 
 » Cowley's Voyage: Harris's Collection of Voyages and Travels, 
 vol. i., 174i- Also CoTTley's Voyage, in Captain William Hack's 
 Collection of Original Voyages. 1698. 
 
52 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 started on the first of those voyages which were to make 
 him in his day and to succeeding times one of the most 
 distinguished of the circumnavigators of the globe. 
 
 The Revenge sailed from Achamack on August 23rd 
 in the year just named. Nothing for many weeks 
 broke the monotony of the passage save the incident 
 of a heavy gale of wind which the vessel encoun- 
 tered off the Cape Verd Islands. Cowley dwells 
 lightly upon this storm as if he would make little or 
 nothing of it, but Dampier insists upon its being the most 
 violent he had ever experienced in any part of the world. 
 Indeed he has preserved an account of it in those chapters 
 in the second volume of his Voyages, which he entitles, 
 "A Discourse of Winds, Breezes, Storms, Tides, and 
 Currents.'' The nautical reader will, I hope, thank me 
 for transcribing a passage that is more curiously illus- 
 trative of the seamanship and sea-technicalities of the 
 period of history to which this narrative belongs than any 
 like account by other hands that I can call to mind. 
 
 " If after the Mizan is hall'd up and furled, if then the 
 ship will not wear, we must do it with some Headsail, 
 which yet sometimes puts us to our shifts. As I was 
 once in a very violent storm sailing from Virginia, 
 mentioned in my Voyage Bound the World, we scudded 
 before the Wind and Sea some time, with only our bare 
 Poles ; and the ship, by the mistake of him that con'd, 
 broched too, and lay in the Trough of the Sea ; which 
 then went so high that every Wave threatn'd to over- 
 whelm us. And indeed if any one of them had broke 
 in on our Deck it might have foundered us. The 
 master,'' whoso fault this was, rav'd like a Mad Man and 
 ' Cowley. 
 
Ill AN OLD SEA-MAN(BUVRE 53 
 
 called for an Axe to cut the Mizan Shrouds, and turn 
 the Mizan mast overboard : which indeed might have 
 been an expedient to bring her to her course : The 
 Captain was also of his Mind. Now our Main-yard and 
 Fore-yard were lowered upon a Port-last, as we call it, 
 that is down pretty nigh the Deck, and the Wind blew 
 so fierce that we did not dare to shew any Head-Sail, for 
 they must have blown away if we had, neither could all 
 the men in the ship have furled them again ; therefore 
 we had no hopes of doing it that way. I was at this 
 time on the Deck ■with some others of our Men ; and 
 among the rest one Mr. John Smallbone, who was the 
 Main instrument at that time of saving us. Come ! said 
 he to me, let us go a little way up the Fore-shrouds, it 
 may be that that may make the Ship wear : for I have 
 been doing it before now. He never tarried for an 
 Answer, but run forward presently, and I followed him. 
 We went up the Shrouds Half-mast up, and there we 
 spread abroad the Flaps of our Coats, and presently the 
 Ship wore. I think we did not stay there above 3 
 Minutes before we gain'd our Point and came down 
 again ; but in this time the Wind was got into our 
 Mainsail, and had blown it loose; and tho' the Main- 
 yard was down a Port-last and our Men were got on 
 deck as many as could lye one by another, besides the 
 deck full of Men, and all striving to furl that Sail, yet 
 could we not do it, but were forced to cut it all along by 
 the Head-rope, and so let it fall down on the Deck." 
 
 A noticeable thing of their outward run is that they 
 took above five months to sail from the coast of Virginia 
 to abreast of Cape Horn. They got no sights after 
 making Staten Island until they had entered the South 
 
54 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 Sea, and were obliged to grope their way in their 
 square-built, round-bowed, and clumsy old craft past 
 the stormiest headland in the world, through weather 
 blind with snow and black with cloud, and over seas 
 running in mountains to the pressure of five hundred 
 leagues of gale. When to the westward of the Cape they 
 encountered one Captain Eaton in a privateer that had 
 been equipped and despatched from London to plunder 
 the Western American coast, and proceeded with him 
 to Juan Fernandez, where they arrived eight months 
 after leaving Achamack. Their first act was to send a 
 canoe ashore to obtain news of the Mosquito Indian 
 who had been left on the island three years before by 
 Captain Watling. This Indian, who proved to be alive, 
 is a figure in the history of romantic adventure scarce 
 less conspicuous in his way than Alexander Selkirk or 
 Peter Serrano. He was in the woods hunting for goats 
 when Captain Watling and his men, alarmed by the 
 apparition of three Spanish ships, slipped their cable 
 and sailed away, and all that he had with him at the 
 time consisted of a gun and a knife, a small horn of 
 powder, and a handful of shot. Afterwards, by notch- 
 ing his knife to the condition of a saw, he contrived to 
 cut the barrel of his gun into pieces, out of which he 
 manufactured harpoons, lances, hooks, and a long knife. 
 He was thus enabled to provide himself with food, such 
 as flesh of goats, fish, etc. He built himself a hut a 
 short distance from the sea, and lined it with goat-skins. 
 His apparel consisted of a skin wrapped about his waist. 
 There was another Mosquito Indian amongst the buc- 
 caneers, a man named Robin, who was the first to leap 
 ashore to greet his brother black. Dampier tells us 
 
SAILS FROM JUAN FERNANDEZ 55 
 
 that first Eobin threw himself flat on his face at the 
 feet of the other, who, helping him up and embracing 
 him, fell flat on the ground at Robin's feet, and was 
 by him taken up also. "We stood," he says, "with 
 pleasure to behold the surprise and tenderness and 
 solemnity of this Interview, which was exceedingly 
 affectionate on both Sides ; and when their ceremonies 
 of civility were over, we also, who stood gazing at them, 
 drew near, each of us embracing him we had found here, 
 who was overjoyed to see so many of his old friends 
 come hither, as he thought, purposely to fetch him.'' 
 
 They sailed from Juan Fernandez on April 8th, 
 still in company with Eaton's ship. During the month 
 of May they captured several vessels, in one of which, 
 besides a quantity of marmalade, they found a stately 
 and handsome mule designed as a gift for the President 
 of Panama, and an immense wooden image of the Virgin 
 Mary. They were, however, unfortunate enough to miss 
 what would have better pleased them than mules and 
 images ; for when this ship started from Lima she had 
 eight hundred thousand dollars on board, but on her 
 arrival at Guanchaco news of a privateersman then 
 hovering off the port of Valdivia came to the ears of 
 the merchants, who thereupon instantly removed every 
 stiver out of the vessel. 
 
 The recital, even in an abbreviated form, of the ad- 
 ventures of these buccaneers upon the "Western American 
 seaboard would make a book of nearly half the thickness 
 of Dampier's first volume. As a mere journal of exploits 
 perhaps the narrative grows after a while a little tedious. 
 One sea-fight is like another ; the assaults by land lead to 
 nothing ; the prizes captured at sea are insignificant. 
 
S6 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 Yet Dampier's page continues to charm us by the vivacity 
 of his descriptions of coasts, of storms, of the corposant, 
 of the turtle, and by a hundred unlaboured and uncon- 
 scious felicities of phrase. 
 
 When off Cape Blanco Captain Cooke died. He was 
 ill when at Juan Fernandez, and continued so till within 
 two or three leagues of the Cape, when he suddenly ex- 
 ])ired, though Dampier tells us he seemed that morning 
 to be as likely to live as he had been some weeks before ; 
 " But it is usual for sick Men coming from the Sea, where 
 they have nothing but the Sea-Air, to die off as soon as 
 over they come within view of the Land." 
 
 The command devolved upon Edward Davis, the 
 quartermaster of the ship. Cooke's body was taken 
 ashore, and whilst some of the crew were burying it 
 three Indians approached, believing the men to be 
 Spaniards, and were made prisoners, though one of them 
 shortly after escaped. The others told the buccaneers 
 of a farm where there was plenty of cattle to be had ; 
 and the attempt to steal the bullocks is marked by one 
 of those incidents which convey a fuller idea of the re- 
 solved and desperate character of the freebooters, their 
 perils, expedients, and astonishing escapes, than could 
 be communicated by volumes of descriptions of their 
 battles by sea and attacks by land. Twelve men slept 
 ashore, intending when the morning came to drive the 
 bulls and cows which were feeding in the savannas down 
 to the beach ; but when the afternoon of the next day 
 arrived they were still ashore, and their shipmates aboard 
 the vessel growing uneasy, ten men were sent in a boat 
 to see what had become of them. On entering the bay 
 they observed the twelve fellows on a small rock half a 
 
A PERILOUS SITUATION 57 
 
 mile from the shore standing in water to above their 
 waists. It seems that, having slept through the night, 
 they had risen betimes to catch the cattle, when they 
 were suddenly surprised by forty or fifty armed Spaniards. 
 The privateersmen drew together in a body, and retreated 
 without disorder or confusion to the beach, but on arriv- 
 ing there they found their boat, which they had dragged 
 out of the water, in flames. The Spaniards now made 
 sure of them, and being numerous, ventured upon several 
 sneers and scoffs before attacking them, asking them, for 
 instance, if they would be so good as to do them the 
 honour to walk to their plantation and steal their cattle 
 and take whatever else they had a mind to, and so forth ; 
 to all which menacing and savagely deriding flouts the 
 buccaneers answered never a word. The tide was at 
 half-ebb; a privateersman catching sight of a rock a good 
 distance from the shore, just then showing its head above 
 water, whispered to the others that it would be as good 
 as a castle to them if they could get there. Meanwhile 
 the Spaniards were beginning to whistle a shot amongst 
 them now and then. One of the tallest of the buccaneers 
 waded into the water to try if the distance to the rock 
 could be forded. The depth proved nowhere great ; so 
 the twelve marched over to the Httle distant stronghold, 
 and there remained till their shipmates came for them. 
 They stood about seven hours in all, and must have 
 perished had the boat not then arrived, for the water 
 was flowing, and the tide thereabouts rose to eight feet. 
 The enemy watched them from the shore, but always 
 from behind the bushes, where they had first planted 
 themselves. "The Spaniards," sajs Dampier contemptu- 
 ously, "in these parts are very expert in heaving or 
 
S8 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 darting the Lance ; with which upon occasion they will 
 do great Feats, especially in Ambuscades : And by their 
 good Will they care not for fighting otherwise, but con- 
 tent themselves with standing a loof, threatning and 
 calling Names, at which they are as expert as the other ; 
 so that if their Tongues be quiet we always take it for 
 granted they have laid some Ambush." 
 
 Not very long after this Captain Davis and Captain 
 Eaton separated, bringing the date to the second day of 
 September 1684, and on the 24:th Dampier's ship arrived 
 at La Plata and anchored. Whilst lying at this island 
 the privateers were joined by Captain Swan in a vessel 
 named the Cygnet. This ship had been freighted by 
 certain London merchants for honourable traffic with 
 the Spaniards in the South Seas, but when she was at 
 Nicoya there arrived a troop of privateersmen from 
 overland, and Swan's men, bringing the pirates aboard, 
 forced their captain to go a-buccaneering. That Swan 
 was as reluctant to oblige them as he afterwards repre- 
 sented himself to have been to Dampier, is possible ; it 
 is certain, however, that on meeting with Davis he 
 threw most of the goods he had been freighted to trade 
 with overboard, that his ship, by being " clear,'' as it is 
 called, might be the fitter to fight and chase. He seems 
 to have been a man of some foresight. Anticipating a 
 time when there might happen such a scarcity of provi- 
 sions as to force them out of those seas, he taught his 
 men not only to eat, but actually to relish the oily, salt, 
 and rancid flesh of penguins and boobys. " He would 
 commend it," says Dampier, "for extraordinary good 
 food, comparing the seal to a roasting pig, the boobys to 
 hens, and the penguins to ducks." 
 
ffIS PROJECT 59 
 
 The only land-attack of consequence was the attempt 
 on Guayaqml by Swan 3,nd Davis. It was badly con- 
 certed and half-heartedly undertaken. They landed at 
 about two miles from the town, and being unable to 
 push their way through the tangled growths by night, 
 sat down to wait for daylight. An Indian, who offered 
 to pilot them, was attached to one of Davis's men by a 
 string. The privateersman losing heart, secretly cut 
 the string, and, when the guide had gone some distance, 
 bawled out that the Indian was off and that somebody 
 had cut the cord ! What there was in this to terrify 
 the others is not easily seen, but it is true, nevertheless, 
 that their consternation was so great, not a man would 
 venture a step farther. It was not long before they 
 returned to their ship, and so ended their attempt on 
 Guayaquil. The only material issue of this cheap adven- 
 ture was their capture of -three vessels, on board of which 
 were no less than one thousand negroes, — "all lusty 
 young men and women," says Dampier, who laments 
 that they did not convey the whole of them to the 
 Isthmus of Panama, and employ them in digging for 
 gold in the mines at Santa Maria. His idea might 
 seem full of promise to him, but it takes another com- 
 plexion when examined by the light of the experience 
 of the twelve hundred men who embarked at Leith for 
 Darien on July 26th, 1698. 
 
 On December 23rd, 1684, they sailed for the Bay of 
 Panama, and nine days later, whilst proceeding from 
 Tomaco towards Gallo, one of their canoes captured a 
 pacquet-boat sailing from Panama to Lima. The 
 Spaniards buoyed the bag of letters and threw it over- 
 board, but it was picked up by the buccaneers, who 
 
6o WILLIAM DAMPtER chap. 
 
 gathered from the despatches that the President of 
 Panama had sent the mail-boat they had seized to 
 hasten the saihng of the Plate Fleet from Lima. 
 Dampier says that the privateersmen " were very joyful 
 of this news," which is intelligible enough when we 
 consider that the King of Spain's treasure alone on 
 board this fleet was commonly valued at twenty-four 
 millions of dollars, whilst the worth of the galleons was 
 still further increased by their carrying a vast amount 
 in what was termed merchants' money, besides rich 
 commodities of all sorts. It was at once settled that the 
 buccaneers should intercept this fleet. They were in 
 number now two vessels and three barks, and on 
 February 14th, 1685, having finished the business of 
 careening, cleaning, and watering their craft, they stood 
 away for the Bay of Panama. Whilst they lay off the 
 Island of Tabago they were nearly destroyed by a singu- 
 lar stratagem. A man feigning to be a merchant came 
 to them from Panama. He professed to act as by stealth, 
 in which the buccaneers found no cause for suspicion, 
 for it was common enough for Spanish merchants to 
 traffic privately with them, notwithstanding the pro- 
 hibition of the governors. It was arranged that this 
 merchant should fill his vessel with goods, and bring 
 her by night to the English, who were to shift their 
 berth to receive her. He came, but with a fire-ship 
 instead of a cargo-boat, and approaching the English 
 close, hailed them with the watchword that had been 
 settled upon. The privateers growing suspicious, ordered 
 the vessel to bring to, and on her not doing so, fired 
 into her. Her crew instantly jumped into their boats, 
 after firing the ship, which blew up and burnt close 
 
OFF TOBAGO 6i 
 
 alongside of the privateersmen, " so that,'' says Dampier, 
 "we were forced to cut our cables in all haste, and 
 scamper away as well as we could." Swan was also 
 imperilled by another Spanish device. His ship lay 
 about a mile distant, with a canoe made fast to his 
 anchor-buoy. Just as the fire-ship blew up. Swan 
 noticed something floating on the water close aboard of 
 him. He peered, and discerned a man upon it softly 
 paddling the contrivance towards his vessel. Probably 
 the fellow suspected he was discovered, for he suddenly 
 dived and disappeared. 
 
 Nothing particular happened till the 24th, when, being 
 again at anchor off the Island of Tobago, about eighteen 
 miles south of the city of Panama, they observed a number 
 of canoes filled with men. They kept still, watching them 
 the while; then lifting their anchors, approached and 
 hailed them. They proved to be English and French 
 privateers who had marched across the Isthmus; two 
 hundred French and eighty Englishmen distributed 
 amongst twenty -eight canoes under the command of 
 Captain Grognet and Captain Lequie. These men stated 
 that there still remained on the Isthmus at least one 
 hundred and eighty Englishmen, commanded by Captain 
 Townley, who when last heard of were busily employed 
 in the construction of canoes to convey them to the 
 South Sea. All the EngHsh of the party were immedi- 
 ately taken into the service of Captain Davis and 
 Captain Swan, whilst one of the prizes was given to the 
 Frenchmen. They were now a strong company of men. 
 First of all there was Captain Davis in his ship of thirty- 
 six guns, with a crew of one hundred and fifty-six deter- 
 mined rogues, chiefly English; Captain Swan, sixteen guns 
 
62 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 and one hundred and forty men, all English ; Captain 
 Townley, one hundred and ten men ; Captain Grognet, 
 three hundred and eight men, all French; Captain Harris, 
 one hundred men, chiefly English; Captain Branly, thirty- 
 six men ; besides three barks serving as tenders, and a 
 small bark for a fire-ship — in all, nine hundred and 
 sixty men. Formidable as this force looks, however, 
 on paper, there were but two of the vessels — namely, 
 Swan's and Davis's — which mounted guns. The rest 
 had only small arms. On the 28th the Spanish fleet 
 hove in sight : fourteen sail, besides periaguas rowing 
 twelve and fourteen oars apiece. The admiral's ship 
 carried forty-eight guns and four hundred and fifty 
 men; the vice-admiral, forty guns and four hundred 
 and fifty men ; the others were only a little less power- 
 fully armed and manned. Here we have the materials 
 of a terrible fight, and we look with confidence to the 
 buccaneers for a glorious victory. But never was failure 
 completer. Nothing was done till the afternoon had 
 darkened into evening, and then a few shots were 
 exchanged. When the night came down the Spaniards 
 anchored, and the buccaneers observed a light flaming 
 in the admiral's top. It remained stationary for half an 
 hour and was then extinguished. Soon afterwards it 
 was again exposed, and the buccaneers, believing it to be 
 still aboard the admiral, flattered themselves with having 
 the weather-gage. But when the morning broke they 
 found, to their disgust, that this light had been a strata- 
 gem, and that they were to leeward. The Spaniards 
 sighting them, immediately bore down under a press of 
 sail, and the buccaneers ran for it. "Thus," says Dampier, 
 " ended this day's work, and with it all that we had been 
 
Ill STARTS FOR GUAM 63 
 
 projecting for five or six months; when instead of 
 making ourselves masters of the Spanish fleet and 
 treasure, we were glad to escape them ; and owed that 
 too in a great measure to their want of courage to pursue 
 their advantage." He adds that the failure was largely 
 owing to the cowardice of Captain Grognet and his men, 
 whose only part in the manoeuvring was running away.^ 
 The buccaneers were now growing disheartened by 
 their ill-luck. On August 25th, 1685, Davis and Swan 
 separated, and Dampier, who had heretofore served 
 under Davis, joined Swan, not, as he assures us, from 
 any dislike of his old captain, but because he understood 
 that it was Swan's intention before long to go to the 
 East Indies, "which," he exclaims, "was a way very 
 agreeable to my inclination." It was not, however, 
 until March 1st, 1686, that they took leave of the Mexican 
 coast and started on that voyage which led to Dampier's 
 circumnavigation of the globe. They went in two ships, 
 one commanded by Swan, and the other by a man named 
 Teat. In number they were one hundred and fifty men 
 — one hundred aboard Swan, and fifty, exclusive of some 
 slaves, in the other vessel. Their start was for Guam, 
 one of the Ladrone Islands, and the vagueness and 
 uncertainty of the navigation of those days finds a sin- 
 
 ' Eavenau de Lussan, who was with Grognet in this action, gives 
 us a French version of the business: "About two the Spaniards 
 sent out a ship of eight and twenty guns to hinder Captain Grognet 
 from joining us, as understanding by some Spaniards who had 
 been our prisoners that he was the strongest in small arms of any 
 in our fleet, and that they were so much the more fearful of him, 
 when they came to know his crew consisted of Frenchmen ! " This 
 man calls Davis "David," and says he was a Fleming, and he 
 writes Swan's name "Sammes." His story is printed in The 
 Pucaniers of America already referred to. 
 
64 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 gular illustration in Dampier's surmise as to the actual 
 distance between Cape Corrientes and their destination. 
 He tells us that the Spaniards reckoned the distance about 
 two thousand three hundred and fifty leagues, whereas 
 the English calculations reduced it to less than two thou- 
 sand leagues. The truth being unknown to the crews, 
 they entered upon .the voyage with something of that 
 despondency and apprehension which the mariners of 
 Columbus felt after they had lost sight of land. The 
 hope of plunder heartened them somewhat, for Swan 
 talked to them of the Acapulco ship and of a profitable 
 cruise oflf the Philippines ; but in sober truth with but 
 little conscience -in his assurances and exhortations, for 
 the man had long since grown sick of privateering, and 
 his main object in sailing for the East Indies was the 
 desire to find an opportunity to escape from a calling 
 which he was honest enough to consider dishonourable. 
 They sighted Guam on May 20th, 1686, and it was 
 fortunate both for Swan and Dampier that the land 
 hove in sight when it did, for they had scarcely enough 
 provisions to last them another three days ; and Dampier 
 declares, "I was afterwards informed the Men had con- 
 trived first to kill Captain Swan and eat him when the 
 Victuals was gone, and after him all of us who were 
 accessary in promoting the undertaking of this Voyage. 
 This made Captain Swan say to me after our arrival at 
 Guam, All I Dampier, you. would have made them but a poor 
 Meal, for I was as Lean as the Captain was lusty and 
 fleshy." Dampier's chapters are now wholly made up 
 of description. He is copious in his accounts of the 
 natives, of the cocoa-nut, the lime-tree, and the bread- 
 fruit ; and then carrying us on to Mindanao, he fills many 
 
A MUTINY 65 
 
 pages with lively remarks on the trade of the Dutch, 
 the climate, winds, tornadoes, and rains. It is manifest 
 throughout that he is very unsettled, without any scheme 
 of life, without a ghost of an idea as regards his future. 
 He waits patiently but with a vigilant eye upon fortune, 
 and is ready to address himself to any adventure, no 
 matter how slender of promise. Just as he would have 
 carried the thousand negroes to Darien to dig gold for 
 himself and his associates, so whilst at the Philippines 
 would he have been glad to settle down among the 
 Mindanay ans. There were sawyers, he tells us, carpenters, 
 brickmakers, shoemakers, tailors, and the like, amongst the 
 men, who were also well provided with all sorts of tools. 
 They had a good ship, too, and he conceives that had 
 they established themselves in that island they might 
 have ended as a very flourishing and wealthy community. 
 But his schemes served no other purpose than to enable 
 him to digress in his narrative when he came to relate 
 his adventures. 
 
 The ship lay so long at Mindanao that the men grew 
 weary and mutinous ; some of them ran away into the 
 country, others purchased a canoe designing to proceed 
 to Borneo. Those of the ship's company who had money 
 lived ashore, but there were many (Dampier amongst 
 them) who were without a halfpenny, and who were 
 therefore obliged to remain on board and subsist on the 
 wretched stores of the vessel. These fellows became 
 very troublesome ; they stole iron out of the ship and 
 exchanged it for spirits and honey, of which they made 
 punch, so that there was a great deal of drunkenness and 
 ill-blood amongst them. Finding that Swan paid no 
 heed to their request that he would start on further 
 
 F 
 
66 WILLIAM DAMPIER chaf. 
 
 adventures, and discovering certain entries in the cap- 
 tain's journal which greatly incensed them, they resolved 
 to run away with the ship ; a threat there is every 
 reason to suppose Swan secretly wished them to carry 
 out. He knew that the crew were bent on piracy, and 
 that their next step must prove nothing but another 
 buccaneering cruise. He had previously told Dampier 
 that he was forced into this business by his people, and 
 that he only sought or awaited an opportunity to escape 
 from it, adding bitterly, " That there was no Prince on 
 Earth able to wipe oflf the stain of such Actions." ■ He was 
 apprised of his men's design, but does not appear to 
 have lifted a finger to hinder them. On January 14th, 
 1687, early in the morning, Dampier being on board, the 
 crew weighed anchor and fired a gun, being yet willing to 
 receive Captain Swan and others of their shipmates who 
 were on shore. No answer was returned, whereupon 
 without further ado they filled their topsails and started, 
 leaving the commander and thirty-six men behind them. 
 
 The subsequent fate of Swan and his men is worth a 
 brief reference. They remained for some considerable 
 time on the island, and then some of them managed to 
 obtain a passage to Batavia Captain Swan and his 
 surgeon, whilst rowing to a Dutch ship that was to 
 convey them to Europe, were overset in their canoe by 
 some natives, who stabbed them whilst they were 
 swimming for their lives. Others of the men who re- 
 mained at Mindanao were poisoned. 
 
 By this time Dampier was as heartily weary as ever 
 Swan had been of the voyage, if not of privateering, 
 and waited for a chance to give his comrades the slip. 
 Meanwhile the vessel, after cruising off Manila, where 
 
NEW HOLLAND 67 
 
 they took a couple of Spanish craft, proceeded from one 
 island to another, from one port to another, until, the 
 monsoon being close at hand, they decided to skirt the 
 Philippine Islands, and, heading southwards towards 
 what was then known as the Spice Islands, enter the 
 Indian Ocean by way of Timor. The object of all this 
 roundabout navigation is not very plain. Dampier 
 asserts that the crew were in great fear of meeting with 
 English or Dutch ships ; still it is difficult to understand 
 their motive in straying so wide afield from the common 
 maritime highways of that period. They were now on 
 the Australian parallels, in the shadow of a world lying 
 dark upon the face of the ocean. As privateersmen 
 they had little to hope or expect from pushing into 
 regions full of mystery and peril. Dampier says that 
 being clear of the islands they stood off south, intending 
 to touch at New Holland " to see what that country 
 would afford us." One would wish for his dignity as a 
 navigator that he had avowed, on his own part at least, 
 a higher motive for the exploration. It does not seem 
 to enter his head, at this point of his career at all 
 events, that the discovery of the true character and 
 area of the Terra Australis Incognita might bring to the 
 marine explorer of its rocky coasts honours scarcely less 
 glorious, renown certainly not less enduring, than were 
 won by the mightiest of the old navigators. It is 
 proper to remember, however, that Dampier was but a 
 common sailor in this ship that had been run away with, 
 and that his expectations, and perhaps his ambition, 
 scarcely rose above those of a privateersman ; though 
 how far he resembled his shipmates in other directions 
 we may gather from his narrative, which he builds 
 
68 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 wholly upon the journal he faithfully kept throughout ; 
 never remitting his strict practice of laborious observa- 
 tion whether in storm or in shine, whether amidst the 
 bustle and activity of a chase, or the languor and list- 
 lessness of a long spell of tropical calm. 
 
 "New Holland," he says, "is a very large tract of 
 land. It is not yet determined whether it is an island 
 or a main continent ; but I am certain that it joyns 
 neither to Africa, Asia, or America." Why he is 
 certain he does not tell us, but he is too sagacious to 
 err, though whilst he thus thinks, all that he sees of 
 the vast territory is "low land with sandy banks against 
 the sea." He devotes several pages to descriptions of 
 the natives, telling us that they have no houses, that 
 they go armed with a piece of wood shaped like a 
 cutlass, that their speech is guttural, that in consequence 
 of the flies which tease and sting their faces, they keep 
 their eyelids half closed ; and so forth. One extract 
 from several pages of most admirable, quaint description 
 will, I trust, be permitted. 
 
 "After we had been here a little while, the Men 
 began to be familiar, and we cloathed some of them, 
 designing to have had some service from them for it : 
 for we found some Wells of Water here, and intended 
 to carry 2 or 3 barrels of it aboard. But it being some- 
 what troublesome to carry to the Canaos, we thought to 
 have made these men to have carry'd it for us, and there- 
 fore we gave them some Cloathes ; to one an old pair of 
 Breeches, to another a ragged Shirt, to a third a Jacket 
 that was scarce worth owning ; which yet would have 
 been very accepitable at some places where we had been, 
 and so we thought they might have been with these 
 
Ill DEPARTURE FOR NICOBAR 69 
 
 People. We put them on, thinking that this finery- 
 would have brought them to work heartily for us ; and 
 our Water being filled in small long Barrels, about 6 
 gallons in each, which were made purposely to carry 
 Water in, we brought these our new Servants to the 
 Wells, and put a Barrel on each of their Shoulders for 
 them to carry to the Canao. But all the signs we could 
 make were to no purpose, for they stood like Statues, 
 without motion, but grinn'd like so many monkeys, 
 staring one upon another : For these poor Creatures 
 seem'd not accustomed to carry Burdens : and I believe 
 that one of our Ship Boys of 10 Years old, would carry 
 as much as one of them. So we were forced to carry 
 our Water ourselves ; and they very fairly put the 
 Cloaths off again, and laid them down, as if the 
 Cloaths were only to work in. I did not perceive that 
 they had any liking to them at first ; neither did they 
 seem to admire anything that we had." 
 
 To the part of New Holland these privateers touched 
 at they gave no name. Dampier speaks of the latitude 
 of it being 16° 50', but his reckonings are not to be 
 trusted. To judge by the tracings of the map of this 
 portion of the world in his first volume, the coast which 
 they first sighted was that of North Australia, and they 
 probably anchored off either Bathurst or Melville Island. 
 Be this as it may, they did not linger long. Dampier 
 endeavoured to persuade the men to sail to some English 
 factory, but in return for his advice they threatened to 
 leave him ashore on the sands of New Holland, " which," 
 says he, "made me desist." They soon «aw as much 
 of Terra Incognita as satisfied them, and on March 12th, 
 1688, they weighed with the wind at north north-west 
 
70 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 and steered their ship northwards. They arrived at 
 Nicobar on May 5th, and here Dampier resolved to 
 leave the vessel. Obtaining leave to go ashore, he 
 was landed on the sandy beach of a small bay where 
 stood two untenanted houses ; but he had not enjoyed 
 an hour of liberty when some armed men came from the 
 ship to fetch him aboard again. Resistance was as idle 
 as entreaties, and he was forced to return ; but on his 
 arrival he found the vessel in an uproar. Others, taking 
 courage by his example, had also determined to leave 
 the ship. Amongst them was the surgeon. This man 
 the captain flatly refused to part with, and the hubbub 
 was great. All this confusion and quarrelling seems to 
 have helped Dampier, for, after a deal of squabbling, we 
 find him and two others obtaining permission to quit 
 the ship. They were put ashore with their effects, and 
 entering one of the unoccupied houses, hung up their 
 hammocks to prepare for the night. Presently more 
 men arrived, and they were now numerous enough to 
 protect themselves against the natives. It was a fine 
 clear, moonlight night, and the little company of buc- 
 caneers walked down to the beach to wait until the ship 
 should weigh and be gone, fearing their liberty whilst 
 she stayed. At twelve o'clock they heard her getting 
 her anchor and making sail, and presently she was 
 gliding slowly and silently seawards, glistening white 
 against the ocean darkness to the rays of the high moon. 
 Next day Dampier and his associates purchased a 
 canoe, and passed over to the south end of the island, 
 where they victualled their little boat with fruit loaves, 
 cocoa-nuts, and fresh water, so that when the monsoon 
 came on to blow they might be in readiness to sail for 
 
Ill A BOAT-ADVENTURE -ji 
 
 Acheen. It is consistent that a man who had traversed 
 on foot the dangerous and poisonous Isthmus of Panama 
 should parallel that accomplishment by a remarkable 
 boat-voyage. The craft was a canoe of the size of a 
 London wherry, deeper but not so broad, sharp after 
 the whaling pattern at both ends, and so thin and light 
 that when empty four men could lift her. She carried 
 a mat-sail, and outriggers to prevent her from capsizing. 
 In this little ark Dampier and his shipmates embarked 
 — eight men, four of whom were Malays — and started 
 for Acheen on May 15th, 1688. The breezes were 
 light, the atmosphere sultry. Sometimes they rowed, 
 sometimes left the sail to do its work, but at the end of 
 two days, to their great mortification, they found the 
 Island of Nicobar still in sight a little over twenty miles 
 distant. On the 18th they remarked a great circle round 
 the sun, an appearance that caused Dampier to suppose 
 that bad weather was at hand. His foreboding was 
 true ; wind and sea rose, and but for the outriggers the 
 canoe must have been swamped. Still the gale freshened, 
 and there was nothing for it but to scud. There occurs 
 here a characteristic passage. It reads like an extract 
 from Robinson Crusoe, and nothing in all Dampier so 
 conclusively proves the source whence Defoe drew the 
 colours which he employed in the composition of his chief 
 and most engaging work. 
 
 "The Evening of this 18th day was very dismal. 
 The Sky looked very black, being covered with dark 
 Clouds, the Wind blew very hard, and the Seas ran 
 very high. The Sea was already roaring in a white 
 foam about us ; a dark night coming on and no Land 
 in sight to shelter us, and our little Ark in danger to 
 
72 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 be swallowed by every Wave; and what was worse 
 for us all, none of us thought ourselves prepared for 
 another World. The Reader may better guess, than I 
 can express, the Confusion that we were all in. I have 
 been in many eminent Dangers before now, some of 
 which I have already related, but the worst of them all 
 was but a Play-Game in comparison with this. I must 
 confess that I was in great Conflicts of Mind at this 
 time. Other Dangers came not upon me with such a 
 leisurely and dreadful Solemnity : A Sudden Skirmish 
 or Engagemgnt, or so, was nothing when one's Blood 
 was up, and push'd forward with eager expectations. 
 But here I had a lingering view of approaching Death, 
 and little or no hopes of escaping it ; and I must confess 
 that my Courage which I had hitherto kept up, failed 
 me here ; and I made very sad Reflections on my former 
 life ; and looked back with Horrour and Detestation on 
 actions which before I disliked, but now I trembled at 
 the remembrance of. I had long before this repented 
 me of that roving course of my life, of which kind, I 
 believe, few Men have met with the like. For all these 
 I returned Thanks in a peculiar manner, and this once 
 more desir'd God's assistance, and Composed my Mind 
 as well as I could, in the hopes of it, and as the Event 
 shew'd, I was not disappointed of my hopes.'' 
 
 But Dampier was a thoroughbred seamen. The 
 canoe was superbly handled, and after a terrible time of 
 violent storms the low land of Sumatra was descried 
 on the morning of the 20th. Fever-stricken by the 
 excessive hardships and fatigues they had endured, 
 insomuch that they were too weak to stand up in their 
 canoe, our adventurers drifted into a river, and were 
 
in SAILS FOR TONQUIN 73 
 
 supported by some natives to an adjacent village. Here 
 Dampier stayed for ten or twelve days in the hope of re- 
 covering his health, but finding that he did not improve, 
 he made his way to Acheen, where he was so dosed by 
 a Malay doctor that he came very near to expiring. On 
 regaining his health, he entered with Captain Weldon 
 of the ship Curtana for a voyage to Tonquin. The first 
 part of his second volume is devoted to a description of 
 his travels in Tonquin, Acheen, Malacca, and other 
 places.^ There is but little narrative, nevertheless the 
 work is singularly interesting, and as literally accurate 
 as a Chinese painting. 
 
 Dampier was very willing to accept Captain Weldon's 
 offer of this voyage, as the vessel carried a surgeon 
 whose advice he was in great need of. Moreover 
 Weldon promised to purchase a sloop at Tonquin and 
 make him master of her for a trading voyage to Cochin 
 China. Nothing noteworthy marked their passage. On 
 their arrival at the Bay of Tonquin they navigated the 
 ship about twenty miles up the river and anchored. 
 The chief markets and trade of the country were then 
 at Cachao, a city eighty miles distant from the highest 
 point at which the river is navigable by vessels of 
 burthen. Dampier, in company with the captains of 
 
 ^ The title runs thus: — "Voyages aiid BescriptioTis. Vol. ii. 
 In Three Parts, viz. 1. A Supplement of the Voyage round the 
 World, Describing the Countreys of Tonquin, Achin, Malacca, etc. : 
 their Product, Inhabitants, Manners, Trade, Policy, etc. 2. Two 
 Voyages to Campeachy ; with a Description of the Coasts, Product, 
 Inhabitants, Log-wood-Cutting Trade, etc., of Jucatan, Campeachy, 
 New Spain, etc. 3. A Discourse of Trade-Winds, Breezes, Storms, 
 Seasons of the Year, Tides and Currents of the Torrid Zone 
 throughout the World ; with an Account of Natal in Africk : its 
 Product, Negro's, etc. 1699." 
 
74 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 other ships, proceeded in large boats towards Cachao. 
 It was scarcely more than a jaunt for our hero, whose 
 main business in going the journey was to talk over the 
 proposed voyage to Cochin China with the chief of the 
 English factory. Dampier remained for a week with 
 the Englishmen at the factory, and then returned to his 
 own ship, " where," says he, " I lay on board for a great 
 while, and sickly for the most part ; yet not so but that 
 I took a boat and went ashoar one where or other almost 
 every day." The result of this intrepid observation is 
 a full and interesting account of Tonquin, the habits and 
 customs of the people, their attire, sports, punishments, 
 religion, and literature. His health hindered him from 
 several undertakings which he might have pursued with 
 advantage. For example, rice being dear at Cachao, 
 Weldon hired a vessel to procure that commodity at 
 adjacent places to supply the markets. It was a specu- 
 lation by which Dampier might have got money, but he 
 was too ill to bear a part in it. He lay five or six weeks 
 in a miserable condition, then flattered himself that he 
 was sufiiciently recovered to go on a walking tour 
 through the country. To this end he hired a native 
 guide, who charged him a dollar for his services, " which," 
 he says, " tho' but a small matter, was a great deal out 
 of my Pocket, who had not above 2 Dollars in all, which 
 I had gotten on board by teaching some of our young 
 Seamen Plain Sailing." He started about the end of 
 November 1688, and the proverbial heedlessness of the 
 seaman is not less suggested by his poverty than by his 
 resolution to attempt such a trip as this. He has but a 
 dollar in his pocket with which not only to bear his own 
 but his guide's charges, and yet he is fully aware that 
 
Ill INLAND RAMBLES 75 
 
 his weakness is bound to increase the cost of his travels 
 by obliging him to proceed by short stages. He says 
 he was weary of lying still and impatient to see some- 
 thing that might further gratify his curiosity. They 
 took the east side of the river, and trudged along mutely 
 enough, as we may suppose, since the guide could not 
 speak a word of English, whilst Dampier did not under- 
 stand a syllable of Tonquinese. At the villages they 
 arrived at they were sufficiently fortunate to procure 
 rooms to sleep in and a couch of split bamboos to lie on. 
 The people treated Dampier very civilly ; they cooked his 
 repasts of rice for him, and lent him whatever they had 
 that was serviceable to him. His practice was to ramble 
 about all day, and return to his lodging when it was too 
 dark to see anything more. His luggage was small — 
 limited to what he terms a "sea-gown," which his guide 
 carried, and which served him as a blanket at night, 
 whilst his pillow was often a log of wood. " But," he 
 says, " I slept very well, though the weakness of my 
 body did now require better accommodation." 
 
 On the afternoon of the third day of his travels he 
 arrived in view of a small wooden tower such as the 
 Tonquinese erect as funeral pyres to persons of distinc- 
 tion. He had never seen such a thing before, and as 
 his guide could not talk to him, he continued ignorant 
 of its meaning. There was a crowd of men and boys 
 near it, and he also noticed a number of stalls covered 
 with meat and fruit. He very naturally concluded that 
 it was a market-place, and entered the crowd partly with 
 the intention of inspecting the tower, and partly with 
 the idea of purchasing a dish of meat for his supper. 
 After satisfying his curiosity he approached the stalls 
 
75 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 and laid hold of a joint of meat, motioning to a person 
 whom he supposed was the salesman to cut off a piece 
 that should weigh two or three pounds. In an instant 
 the crowd fell upon him. They struck out at him right 
 and left, tore his clothes and ran away with his hat. 
 The guide, shrieking unintelligible protests and apologies, 
 dragged Dampier away, but they were followed for 
 some distance by a number of surly -looking fellows 
 whose cries and gesticulations were full of menace. It 
 was not until long afterwards that Dampier gathered 
 the meaning of all this ; when he was informed that 
 what he had taken to be a market was a funeral feast, 
 and that the tower was a tomb which was to be con- 
 sumed along with the body in it after the feast was 
 over. "This," says he, "was the only Funeral Feast 
 that ever I was at amongst them, and they gave me cause 
 to remember it : but this was the worst usage I received 
 from any of them all the time that I was in the Country." 
 Two days later he arrived at a town called Hean, 
 where he was received in a very friendly manner by a 
 priest attached to the French bishop; this place, it 
 seems, being the headquarters of the missionaries. After 
 some conversation the priest inquired if any of the 
 English ships would sell him some gunpowder. Dampier 
 answered that he believed none of them had powder to 
 spare. The father then inquired if he knew how gun- 
 powder was made. On Dampier answering in the 
 affirmative he begged him to try his hand. The priest 
 had all the ingredients with the necessary machinery 
 for mixing them, so after drinking a few glasses of wine 
 Dampier went to work. " The priest," he says, " brought 
 me Sulphur and Salt-Peter, and I weighed a portion of 
 
ni PROCEEDS TO CACHAO 77 
 
 each of these, and of Coals I gathered up in the Hearth 
 and beat to powder. While his man mixed these in a 
 little Engine, I made a small Sieve of Parchment, which 
 I pricked full of holes with a small Iron made hot, and 
 this was to corn it. When it was dry we proved it, and 
 it answered our expectation." There is something not 
 a little odd and impressive in this picture of the buc- 
 caneer manufacturing gunpowder at the request of a 
 holy father, who watches him with the utmost anxiety 
 as if he were sensible that the propagation of his faith 
 amongst the mustard-coloured masses of Tonquin must 
 depend a good deal upon the success of Dampier's 
 experiment. It was fish -day at the palace, but the 
 priest was so well pleased with Dampier and his gun- 
 powder and his conversation that he ordered a fowl to 
 be broiled for his dinner, and when the night came pro- 
 cured a lodging for him in a house kept by a Tonquinese 
 Christian hard by. 
 
 Next morning Dampier dismissed his guide and 
 started for Cachao by water. He describes the boat as 
 of the size of a Gravesend wherry, with a kind of awning 
 to shelter the passengers when it rained. The sailors 
 rowed all night, turn and turn about. At midnight 
 everybody went ashore to sup at some houses by the 
 river-side ; the owners of which waited for them with 
 lighted candles, arrack, and tea, dishes of meat and 
 other provisions ready cooked. Here they stayed an 
 hour, then entered the boat afresh and pushed onwards. 
 The passengers were a merry lot. They laughed inces- 
 santly and sang heartily, though Dampier says their 
 singing resembled the noise of people crying. Ignorant 
 of the language, he sat mute amongst these jolly travellers. 
 
78 WILLIAM DAMPISH chap. 
 
 Next morning he was put ashore a few miles short of 
 Cachao. There was a good path, and stepping out 
 briskly he entered the city by noon. He immediately 
 repaired to the house of an English merchant with whom 
 Captain Weldon lodged, and stayed with him a few days, 
 but he was so enfeebled by a wasting disorder which 
 had fastened upon him that he was scarcely able to 
 crawl about. His illness was exasperated by disappoint- 
 ment, for he now discovered that he had made his 
 walking journey only to learn that Weldon had aban- 
 doned his scheme to purchase a sloop to trade to Cochin 
 China. The moment he felt strong enough to travel he 
 returned to his ship, and Captain Weldon shortly after- 
 wards joining the vessel, they weighed anchor and sailed 
 from Tonquin. It was now February, 1689. Nothing 
 of moment happened during the passage to the Straits 
 of Malacca. The ship arrived at Acheen about the 
 beginning of March, where Dampier took leave of Weldon 
 and went ashore. He gives in this volume of his travels 
 a long and interesting account of Acheen, and in 
 describing the soil of the country prints the following 
 brief passage of recollection. "The Champion Land, 
 such as I have seen, is some black, some grey, some 
 reddish, and all of a deep mold. But to be very 
 particular in these things, especially in my Travels, is 
 more than I can pretend to, tho' it may be I took as 
 much notice of the difference of Soil as I met with it as 
 most Travellers have done, having been bred in my 
 youth in Somersetshire, at a place called East Coker, near 
 Yeovil or Evil : in which Parish there is a great variety 
 of Soil as I have ordinarily met with anywhere, viz. 
 black, red, yellow, sandy, stony, clay, morass, or swampy. 
 
Ill REBELLION AT ACHEEN 79 
 
 etc. I had the more reason to take notice of this, 
 because this Village in a great measure is Let out in 
 small Leases for Lives of 20, 30, 40 or 50 Pound ^cr 
 Ann., under Coll. Eelliar, the Lord of the Manner : and 
 most, if not all these Tenants, had their own Land 
 scattered in small pieces up and down several sorts of 
 Land in the Parish; so that every one had piece of 
 every sort of Land, his Black ground, his Sandy, Clay, 
 and some of 20, 30, or 40 Shillings an Acre. My Mother, 
 being possest of one of these Leases, and having all these 
 sorts of Land, I came acquainted with them all, and 
 knew what each sort would produce {viz.) Wheat, Barley, 
 Maslin, Eice, Beans, Peas, Oats, Fetches,' Flax, or Hemp : 
 in all which I had a more than useful knowledge for 
 one so young, taking a particular delight in observing 
 it." Vague as is this reference to his shore-going life, 
 it is the only passage of the kind that I have met in his 
 books, and for this reason therefore I reproduce it at 
 length. 
 
 Whilst he was at Acheen some of the people rebelled 
 against the choice that had been made of a queen. 
 Dampier, with others, hastened to take shelter in the 
 ships in the road, fearing that if the rebels obtained the 
 upper hand they would imprison him. He had indeed 
 good cause to dread the effects of a prison upon his 
 constitution, shaken and almost shattered as it was by 
 long illness. There were two vessels at anchor, one of 
 them fresh from England and short of provisions. He 
 in consequence boarded the other, whose stores were 
 tolerably plentiful, but she was so crowded with cargo 
 that he could not find space to swing his hammock in ; 
 and as repose was absolutely essential to him, he carried 
 
8o WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 his bed into the boat that had brought him off and lay in 
 her for three or four days, fed by the people ^of the ship. 
 He could obtain no rest. There happened a total ~ 
 eclipse of the moon, at which he gazed from the bottom 
 of his boat, but he says : " I was so little curious that I 
 remembred not so much as what Day of the Month it 
 was, and I kept no journal of this Voyage as I did of my 
 other ; but only kept an account of several particular 
 Eemarks and Observations as they occurred to me." 
 When the disturbance ashore was quieted he returned 
 to his lodging, and learning that the natives regarded 
 the water of their river as charged with medicinal virtues, 
 he determined to bathe in it, and after a few baths was 
 so much benefited that he was able to get about again. 
 In May, 1689, he took charge of a sloop that had been 
 purchased by one Captain Tyler ; but when the craft 
 was- loaded, the owner changed his mind and gave the 
 command to a man named Minchin, who offered Dampier 
 the post of mate. "I was forced to submit,'' he says 
 bitterly, " and accepted a Mate's employ under Captain 
 Minchin." They sailed in the middle of September for 
 Malacca, at which place some of the people left Minchin 
 to join another vessel that had been in company, so that 
 Dampier and the captain were the only two white sailors 
 on board. Shortly after starting they carried away 
 their foreyard and brought up off a small island owned 
 by the Dutch. Dampier called upon the governor to 
 request his permission to cut down a tree. Our hero, 
 as an old Campech6 man, was not likely to be at a 
 loss ; and leaving the tree ready to be carried to the 
 ship, he returned to the fort, dined with the gover- 
 nor, and then w€nt aboard. Shortly afterwards his 
 
Ill A TTACKED B Y MALA YS 8i 
 
 captain, together with a passenger and his wife, came 
 ashore. The fare of the fort was exceedingly meagre, 
 and the governor, to entertain his guests, sent a boat to 
 catch a dish of fish. The fish, on being cooked, was 
 served in dishes of solid silver, and eaten from plates of 
 the same metal ; whilst in the centre of the table was 
 placed a great silver bowl fall of punch. It was to 
 prove but little better than a Barmecide's feast. The 
 governor, his guests, and several officers attached to the 
 fort seated themselves, but as they were about to begin 
 a soldier outside roared, " The Malays !" The governor, 
 starting from his chair, leapt out of one of the windows, 
 the ofiicers followed, and all was consternation and up- 
 roar. " Every one of them/' says Dampier, " took the 
 nearest way, some out of the Windows, others out of 
 the Doors, leaving the three Guests by themselves, who 
 soon followed with all the haste they could make, with- 
 out knowing the meaning of this sudden consternation 
 of the Governor and his people." All being in the fort, 
 the door was bolted, and several volleys fired to let the 
 Malays know that the Dutch were in readiness for them. 
 The alarm was real enough. A large Malay canoe, 
 filled with men armed to the teeth, had been noticed 
 skulking under the island close to the shore. The 
 captain and the passengers hastened on board, the 
 vessel's guns were loaded and primed for service, and a 
 bright look-out kept all night. Dampier, however, was 
 not very much frightened. It rained heavily, and he 
 knew from experience that the Malays seldom or never 
 made any attack in wet weather. Next morning nothing 
 was to be seen of the enemy, and having rigged up the 
 foreyard, Dampier and his companions set sail for 
 
 G 
 
82 WILLIAM D AMPLER chap. 
 
 Acheen. Here he was seized with a fever, which confined 
 him to his bed for a fortnight. On regaining his health 
 he returned to the vessel with orders to take charge of 
 her, and on New Year's Day, 1690, sailed for Fort St. 
 George with a cargo of pepper and other produce. His 
 description of Madras as it then showed, now two 
 hundred years ago, is interesting. " I was much pleased," 
 he says, "with the beautiful prospect this Place makes 
 off at Sea. For it stands in a plain Sandy spot of 
 Ground, close by the shore, the Sea sometimes washing 
 its Walls ; which are of Stone and high, with Half-Moons 
 and Flankers and a great many Guns mounted on the 
 Battlements : so that what with the Walls and fine build- 
 ings within the Fort, the large town of Maderas without 
 it, the Pyramids of the English Tombs, Houses, and 
 Gardens adjacent, and the variety of fine Trees scatter'd 
 up and down, it makes as agreeable a Landskip as I have 
 anywhere seen." He tells us that he stayed at this place 
 for some months, where he met with a Mr. Moody, who 
 had purchased what Dampier calls a painted prince named 
 Jeoly. Then in July he sailed with a Captain Howel 
 for Sumatra. 
 
 He arrived at Acheen in April, 1689, and afterwards 
 obtained a berth as gunner at Bencoolen, then an English 
 factory. After some further adventures of no importance, 
 we find him again gunner of the fort at Bencoolen, at a 
 salary of twenty-four dollars a month. But it was not 
 long before he grew dissatisfied with the conduct of the 
 governor, and asked to be released. He was also eager 
 to return to England. First of all he had been a long 
 time absent from his native country, and next, he was 
 in possession of the painted prince whom Mr. Moody 
 
ni FIRST VOYAGE CONCLUDED 83 
 
 had purchased at Mindanao for sixty dollars, and he 
 expected on his return to England to make a good deal 
 of money by exhibiting this unhappy black, of ■whose 
 tatooings he gives a very minute account. It seems 
 strange that such a man as Dampier should have been 
 unable to hit upon a better way of gaining a livelihood 
 than by proposing to turn showman in his own country, 
 with nothing better to exhibit than a poor, miserable 
 black man, whose only wonder lay in having rings and 
 bracelets, crosses, and a variety of unmeaning flourishes 
 pricked into his skin. The governor was, however, by 
 no means willing to let him go, and Dampier at last 
 was obliged to obtain by a stratagem what was denied 
 him as a right. On January 2nd, 1691, a ship named 
 the Defence, bound for England, dropped anchor in 
 Bencoolen Road. Dampier made the acquaintance of 
 her master, a man named Heath, who readily complied 
 ■with his request to receive him on board. Jeoly was 
 first carefully shipped, and then one midnight Dampier 
 crept through a porthole of the fort and ran to the 
 beach, where he found a boat waiting to convey him to 
 the Defence. Nothing that is noteworthy happened 
 during the passage home. The ship entered the English 
 Channel in September, 1691, and on the 16th of the 
 same month "we luflft in," says Dampier, "for the 
 Downs, where we anchored." 
 
 Thus terminated "William Dampier's first voyage 
 round the world. Dating from Virginia, August 22nd, 
 1683, his circumnavigation had occupied eight years; 
 but his previous seafaring experiences, counting from the 
 period of his starting from England in the Loyal Merchant 
 in 1679, enlarged his absence to the long space of twelve 
 
WILLIAM DAMPIER 
 
 years. Beyond greatly extending his knowledge, his 
 travels had done nothing for him. He had started in 
 quest of Fortune, and had found her as phantasmal as the 
 St. Elmo's fire at which he had gazed with wonder at 
 the masthead. And all that he brought home in the 
 shape of property was the unhappy Prince Jeoly, whom 
 he sold after his arrival in the Thames, heing in want of 
 money — to such a pass had buccaneering and the cir- 
 cumnavigation of the globe brought him. 
 
CHAPTEE IV 
 
 1699-1701 
 
 THE VOYAGE OF THE " ROEBUCK." ^ 
 
 Dasipier tells US nothing of his private and home-going 
 life after he carries us to sea with him in the Loyal 
 Merchant, and so little is known of that side of his career 
 that there is no means of supplying his omissions except 
 by conjecture. It is pretty certain that he was very 
 needy when he returned from his first voyage round the 
 world. The value of his Dorsetshire estate cannot be 
 guessed, but even if he still retained it, his views and 
 endeavours are at this time those of a poor man. In the 
 first volume of his Travels, as we have seen, he treats of 
 New Holland as a privateersman would, — glances, to use 
 his own metaphor, at the fringe of the carpet without 
 desire to examine the texture or the body of it, and 
 quickly shares the disgust of his shipmates, whose dreams 
 are wholly of plunder. But on coming home and reflects 
 ing, whilst setting about the writing of his Travels, on 
 the land he had sighted in the distant southern ocean, 
 it is conceivable that ambitious thoughts should begin 
 slowly to fill his mind. The world at large at that time 
 
 1 A Voyage to New Holland, Jkc, in the Year 1699, by Captain 
 AA'iUiam Dampier. 1709. 
 
86 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 barely credited the existence of a continent south of the 
 East Indies. The draughts of Tasman, the relations of 
 De Quiros, Le Maire, and others, were regarded for the 
 most part as travellers' tales. Dampier might justly 
 hope in an age when the colonising instincts of the 
 English were never keener, that money and honour must 
 be the reward of the man who should be the first to 
 open out a country fabulous yet in the judgment of 
 mankind, and, by the light of discovery, resolve what 
 was still visionary and dark into a magnificent reality. 
 
 His next step, at all events, was to seek ministerial and 
 ofiicial help for a voyage of discovery to New Holland. 
 He lived in the days of Dryden and of the patron, and 
 his dedications exhibit him as possessed in a high degree 
 of the art of literary congeeing. This undesirable but 
 profitable capacity of cringing serviceably supplemented 
 the reputation he had made for himself as a traveller. He 
 found patrons in Charles Montague, afterwards Earl of 
 Halifax, President of the Eoyal Society, and one of the 
 Lord Commissioners of the Treasury ; in Edward, Earl 
 of Oxford, one of the principal Lords of the Admiralty ; 
 and in Thomas Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, who filled 
 the ofiice of Lord High Admiral. His representations 
 were successful, probably beyond his own expectations, 
 and in the beginning of the year 1699 he was appointed 
 to the command of His Majesty's ship Boebuch of twelve 
 guns, manned by a crew of fifty men and boys, and 
 victualled for a twenty months' cruise. Confidence, such 
 as this trust implies, in the character and qualifications 
 of a man whose rating even as a privateersman was but 
 that of an able seaman, handsomely testifies to the very 
 high opinion in which Dampier was held. 
 
HIS PROPOSALS 87 
 
 The nature of the soil, climate, and the general char- 
 acter of Terra Australis, Dampier could only conjecture. 
 The ideas he had formed of this unknown continent 
 were, that it was a vast tract of land situated in the 
 richest climates in the world, having in it especially all 
 the advantage of the torrid zone, so that in coasting it 
 the navigator might be sure of meeting with broad areas 
 productive of the rich fruits, the drugs and spices, and 
 perhaps the minerals discoverable in other parts in, as 
 he concluded, the same parallels of latitude. His scheme 
 was to narrowly survey all islands, shores, capes, bays, 
 creeks, and harbours, fit for shelter as well as defence, 
 to take careful soundings as he went, to note tides, 
 currents, and wind, and the character of the weather, 
 with a special view to the settling of the best districts. 
 He also proposed to closely observe the disposition and 
 commodities of the natives, though he candidly admits 
 that after his experience of their neighbours " he expected 
 no great matters from them." The course he originally 
 designed to take was to the westward by way of the 
 Straits of Magellan, so as to strike the eastern coast of 
 Australia; and there is very little doubt that had he 
 pursued his first intention he would have anticipated 
 nearly every discovery of importance in those waters 
 subsequently made by his celebrated successor James 
 Cook. Unhappily his judgment erred in one essential 
 direction. He was of opinion that the lands lying 
 nearest the equator would best repay the explorer. Nor 
 perhaps could he guess how far he would have to pene- 
 trate the high latitudes if he stood south ; and having 
 passed the greater portion of his seafaring life in Mexican, 
 Pacific, and Indian seas, his love of the sun, fortified by 
 
WILLIAM DAMPIER 
 
 recollection of the cold of the Horn and of the one 
 bitter voyage he took to Newfoundland, might suffice to 
 determine him on pinning his faith as an explorer and 
 on limiting his curiosity as a sailor to the summer regions 
 of the globe. Yet his great knowledge of the equatorial 
 climates should certainly have warned him against a 
 Northern Australian and New Guinea quest. Further, 
 there were the experiences of Tasman to help him, whose 
 relations are as finger-posts in the extracts of Dirk 
 Eembrantz. Had he steered westwards, the sighting of 
 the New Zealand coast to the south, or of the shining 
 islands of the Paumotu and other groups to the north, 
 would have borne in the truth upon his ready and 
 sagacious mind, corrected his fears of cold weather, given 
 him clear views as to the southernmost extension of the 
 Terra Incognita, and perhaps have antedated the civilisa- 
 tion of Australia by half a century. In an evil moment, 
 intimidated by thoughts of the ice of Tierra del Fuego, 
 and worried by the murmurs and half-heartedness of a 
 crew, the majority of whom were quite young seamen, 
 "only two in the ship ever having passed the Line, and 
 those two none of the oldest," he determined to prose- 
 cute his voyage to New Holland by way of the Cape of 
 Good Hope. 
 
 He sailed from the Downs on January 14th, 1699. 
 His intention was to proceed to Pernambuco, and thence 
 directly to the coast of New Guinea ; but scarcely had a 
 month elapsed when the crew began to give trouble, to 
 mutter their dislike of the proposed voyage, and even to 
 talk of obliging him to return to England. At Pernam- 
 buco, owing to the distance of the anchorage from the 
 town, the men would have found it easy to slip the 
 
STRANGE RECKONING 
 
 vessel's cables and run away with her ; and not choosing 
 to venture any risk of this kind, Dampier steered for 
 Bahia de Todos los Santos. This was a considerable 
 trading-port in his time, formed of about two thousand 
 houses. He found upwards of thirty large ships lying 
 in the bay, and speaks of a busy traffic in linen and 
 woollen goods, in hats and silk stockings, in biscuit, 
 wheat, flour, and port wine. His closeness of observa- 
 tion is once again exhibited in all that he has to say 
 about this place. Nothing escapes him. He gives you 
 a long catalogue of all the vegetables and fruits of the 
 district, of the birds, beasts of prey, dogs, monkeys, 
 hogs, and the like, and then comes to the sea, from which 
 he produces a list of twenty-three different kinds of 
 fish. He sailed on April 3rd, and made a fair course for 
 the coast of New Holland. The quality of the reckon- 
 ing of even an expert mariner in those days may be 
 gathered from his telling us that, seeing a large black 
 bird flying near the ship, he suspected that he was 
 much nearer the Cape of Good Hope than he had 
 imagined, since it was well understood that this sort 
 of bird is never to be met with farther than ninety 
 miles from land. By his own account, he was two hun- 
 dred and seventy miles from the Cape ; but next day, 
 meeting a vessel named the Antelope, bound to the East 
 Indies from Table Bay, he found that L'Agulhas bore 
 only twenty-five leagues distant. The inaccuracy of 
 the computations of those times must needs excite the 
 wonder of our own age of exact science. In Matthew 
 Norwood's System of Navigation, "teaching the whole 
 Art in a way more familiar, easie and practical than 
 hath been hitherto done," published in 1692, though 
 
go WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 from internal evidence I gather it to have been compiled 
 in 1683-84:, there is a catalogue of the longitudes and 
 latitudes "of the most principal places in the -world, 
 beginning from the meridian of the Lizard of England." 
 The latitude, as a rule, is tolerably approximate, but the 
 longitude is very much otherwise. For instance, the 
 Cape of Good Hope is said to be in 34° 24' S. latitude, 
 and in 25° 33' E. longitude. Cape Frio is put down as in 
 22° 55' S. latitude, and 33° 59' W. longitude. Cape Blanco 
 is entered as 47° 30' S. latitude, 62° 52' W. longitude ! i 
 These are representative of the whole of this singular table 
 of calculations. Yet Norwood was greatly esteemed as a 
 navigator, and his book was to be found in most ships' 
 cabins. It is amazing that the early mariners were not 
 perpetually blundering ashore. By what secret instincts 
 they were advised I know not; yet it is certain they 
 made as little of being a hundred miles out of their 
 course without knowing it, as we should in these days of 
 an error of the length of a ship's cable. 
 
 Dampier continued to sail to the eastwards, and on 
 July 25th signs unmistakable of the neighbourhood of 
 land were witnessed in the form of quantities of floating 
 seaweed and moss ; but it was apparently not until 
 August 2nd that the coast hove into view, on which 
 date Dampier says, "We stood in towards the land to 
 look for an harbour to refresh ourselves, after a voyage 
 of 114 degrees from Brazil." They coasted for a few 
 days in vain search of a secure anchorage, and then 
 observing an opening of the land they made for it, and 
 
 ^ It may spare the reader the trouhlo of referring to a map, to 
 say that the longitude of the Cape is 18° 29' E. ; Frio (Brazil) 41° 
 57' "W. ; Blanco (Peru) 81° 10' "W. 
 
IV DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY 9: 
 
 brought up in two fathoms and a half of water. This 
 opening Dampier called Shark's Bay, a name it has 
 ever since retained.^ He makes this hay to lie in 25° S. 
 latitude and 87° longitude E. from the Cape of Good 
 Hope, " which is less," he says, " by a hundred and ninety- 
 five leagues than is laid down in the common draughts." 
 He paints a pretty picture of his first view of this place, 
 telling us of sweet-scented trees, of shrubs gay as the 
 rainbow with blossoms and berries, of a many-coloured 
 vegetation, red, white, yellow, and blue, the last pre- 
 ponderating, and all the air round about very fragrant 
 and delicious with the perfumes of the soil. The men 
 caught sharks and devoured them with relish, — a hint 
 not only of very bad stores, but of provisions growing 
 scarce ; for disgusting as the salt-beef of the sea becomes 
 after a long course of it, he must have a singular stomach 
 and a stranger appetite who will choose shark in prefer- 
 ence. One of the fish they captured was eleven feet 
 long, and inside of it they found the head and bones of 
 a hippopotamus, the hairy Hps of which were still sound 
 " and not putrefied." The jaw was full of teeth, two of 
 them eight inches long and as big as a man's thumb ; 
 " The flesh of it was divided among my Men, and they 
 took care that no Waste should be made of it, but thought 
 it as things stood, good Entertainment." 
 
 They remained in Shark's Bay till the 10th, fruitlessly 
 searching for fresh water; then coasting north-east, 
 they fell in with a number of small rocky isles called 
 Dampier's Archipelago, in latitude south about 20° 30', 
 and about 116° 30' E. longitude. Here Dampier was so 
 
 1 It was hereabouts that Francis Pelsart was wrecked in the 
 Batavia in 1629. 
 
92 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 much, struck with the character of the tides that he 
 concluded there must be a passage to the south of New 
 Holland and New Guinea to the eastward into the 
 Great South Sea. His meaning is not clear, but then he 
 is in the situation of a man who fires at a mark in the 
 night; he misses, but the ball speeds in the right 
 direction. Their pressing want was fresh water. Gangs . 
 of men were repeatedly sent ashore to seek it, but 
 to no purpose. Their first sight of the natives was on 
 August 31st. All sorts of signs of peace and friend- 
 ship were made, but their gesticulations were probably 
 too violent, and might even have grown alarming as 
 contortions, and the wild men fled, menacing Dampier 
 and his people as they ran. The only sort of intercourse 
 they succeeded in establishing was a conflict. One of 
 the barbarians was shot dead and an English sailor 
 wounded. Dampier says, speaking of these natives, that 
 they had the most unpleasant looks and the worst 
 features of any people he ever saw, " though," says he, 
 " I have seen a great variety of Savages." He judges 
 that these New Hollanders were of the same race as the 
 people he had previously met with in his first voyage 
 round the globe, "for," he exclaims, "the Place I then 
 touched at was not above forty or fifty Leagues to the 
 N.E. of this, and these were much the same blinking 
 Creatures ; here being also abundance of the same kind 
 of Flesh-flies teasing them, and with the same black Skins 
 and Hair frizzled, tall, thin, etc., as these were ; but we 
 had not the Opportunity to see whether these, as the 
 former, wanted two of their fore Teeth." It seems to me 
 that he blackened his portraits of these uncomely people 
 for the same reason that we find him later on describing 
 
IV THE NATIVES OF NEW HOLLAND 93 
 
 the country sourly as though there had been little or 
 nothing to admire ; I mean with the wish to render the 
 failure of his voyage less disappointing to his patrons at 
 home. In short, he writes as if he would have people 
 suppose that New Holland is a savage and worthless 
 land, inhabited by loathsome monsters. One of the 
 native princes he describes as painted with a circle of 
 white pigment about his eyes, and a white streak down 
 his nose, from the forehead to the tip of it. The breast 
 and a portion of the arms were also whitened with the 
 same paint. If Dampier do not exaggerate, then these 
 embellishments which he portrays, supplementing the 
 natural hideousness of the savages, might well cause the 
 youthful Jack Tars who filled his forecastle to imagine 
 themselves upon one of those enchanted, demon-haunted 
 lands, from which the ancient mariner of the legends 
 was wont to sail away with trembling despatch, his hair 
 on end and his eyes half out of his head. 
 
 " If it were not," writes Dampier, " for that sort of 
 pleasure which results from the Discovery even of the 
 barrenest spot upon the Globe, this coast of New Holland 
 would not have charmed me much." There is little of 
 the enthusiasm of the explorer in this avowal ; all through 
 his career, in fact, Dampier exhibits himself as a man of 
 caprices easily diverted from his first intentions, quickly 
 sickened by failure, though never discomfited by the 
 harshest sufferings or by the most formidable difficulties, 
 so long as he can keep himself in spirits by the assurance 
 of some approach to good fortune attending the issue of 
 his adventure. Probably he was now willing to believe 
 of New Holland, despite the wise conjectures with which 
 he vitalised his early scheme, that all that remained to 
 
94 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 be seen was no better than what he was now viewing. 
 Or, the length of time his voyage had already occupied 
 had provided him with plenty of leisure for the con- 
 templation of his prospects, and he was beginning to 
 think that he had been misled by his original impulse, 
 and that there was neither dignity nor profit to be got 
 out of a toilsome survey of an obscure, remote, inhospit- 
 able coast. One sometimes likes to think of the return 
 amongst us of such a man as this. If one could summon 
 the dead from their sleep of centuries that they might 
 behold the issue of the labours of the generations 
 whose processions filled the time between their Then 
 and our Now, it would be such old navigators as Dampier 
 whom one would best like to arouse. Think of Cabot 
 and Cartier going a tour through the United States, 
 of Columbus taking ship by an ocean mail-steamer to 
 the West Indies, of Bartholomew Diaz listening to the 
 eloquence of South African legislators in the House of 
 Assembly at Cape Town, of Mark de Niza at San Fran- 
 cisco, of Tasman at Hobart Town ! As we watch Dampier 
 digging for water amid the sand-hills of the Western 
 Australian sea-board, the reality of the living present 
 becomes a wonder even to us who are familiar with it. 
 The shining cities, the flourishing towns, the radiant 
 congregation of ships flying the flags of twenty different 
 nationalities, every fruitful, every busy condition of 
 commerce, manufacture, science, art, literature, entering 
 into and stimulating the life of the highest form of 
 human civilisation, are as miracles and as dreams to us 
 standing in imagination by the side of the lean figure of 
 this buccaneer, quaintly apparelled in the boots, belt, 
 and broad hat of his old calling, and gazing with him 
 
IV COASTING NEW HOLLAND 95 
 
 upon a land whose silence is broken only by the cries of 
 unfamiliar creatures, by the murmur of the wind among 
 the leaves of a nameless vegetation, and by the solemn 
 wash of the ocean surge arching in thunder upon a shore 
 that, to the minds of hundreds and thousands away in 
 far-ofT Europe, is as unreal and illusive as the islands of 
 Plato and More. What heart would have come to our 
 stout navigator with but the briefest of all possible 
 prophetic glimpses into the future of that great continent 
 on whose western sands he searches for water, reluctant, 
 dubious, half-dismayed ! 
 
 There was much, however, it must be admitted, to 
 dishearten him. The behaviour of his crew was causing 
 him anxiety ; and about this time the- scurvy broke out 
 amongst the men. Moreover, though his people hunted 
 diligently for fresh water, their labours were unrewarded. 
 So Dampier determined to shape a course for Timor, if, 
 to use his own language, he "met with no refreshment 
 elsewhere." He had spent altogether about five weeks 
 in cruising off the coast, covering in all, as he calculates, 
 a range of 900 miles, but without making any sort of 
 discovery that was in the least degree satisfactory to 
 himself. He started afresh with the intention to steer 
 north-east, keeping the land aboard, as sailors say. His 
 chief and perhaps only desire at that time was to fill 
 his casks with fresh water. They once again then 
 lifted their anchor on December 5th, 1699, but had not 
 measured many miles when they discovered that the 
 numerous shoals along the coast would render an inshore 
 voyage impracticable. Dampier thereupon bore away 
 seawards and deepened his water from eleven to thirty- 
 two fathoms. Next day but the merest film of land was 
 
96 WILLIAM D AMPLER chap. 
 
 in sight, and on the 7th nothing of the coast was visible, 
 even from the masthead. By this time he was heartily 
 weary of New Holland. He confesses his disgust very 
 horifestly, and laments the weeks he has wasted on the 
 coast, which he believes he could have employed with 
 greater satisfaction to himself and with larger promise of 
 success had he pushed straight on to New Guinea. His 
 men were drooping ; the scurvy was being helped by the 
 brackish water they were obliged to drink, and he could 
 think of no better remedy than to shift his helm and 
 steer away for the Island of Timor. 
 
 He gives a very close and interesting description of 
 this island. He had certainly plenty of leisure for 
 inspection, for he did not get under weigh again until 
 December 12th, whence, though he does not date his 
 arrival at Timor, we may gather that he must have 
 stayed there for at least three months. He now headed 
 on a straight course for New Guinea — the coast of which 
 he discovered in the form of very high land on New 
 Year's Day, 1700. Islands studded the water on all 
 sides, from one of which some days afterwards they saw 
 smoke rising. At sight of this Dampier bore away for 
 it before a brisk gale, and anchored in thirty-five fathoms 
 of water at the distance of about two leagues from what 
 proved a large island. Thus they remained during the 
 night, whilst all through the hours of darkness they 
 observed many fires burning ashore. In the morning 
 they weighed again and sailed closer to the land, 
 anchoring within a mile of the beach; whereupon a 
 couple of canoes came off to within speaking distance of 
 the ship. The savages called to them, but their language 
 was as unintelligible as their gestures. Dampier invited 
 
IV FRIENDLY NATIVES 97 
 
 tbem by motions to step on board, but this they declined 
 to do, though they approached so close that they were 
 able to see the beads, knives, hatchets, and the like, 
 which were held up with the idea of tempting them to 
 enter the ship. Dampier then got into his pinnace and 
 rowed shorewards. He hailed the people there in the 
 Malay language, but they did not understand him. 
 Numbers of the wild men lurked in ambush behind the 
 bushes, but on Dampier throwing some knives and toys 
 ashore they ran out, and, wading to the boat, poured 
 water on to their heads as a sign of friendship. He 
 describes these people as a sort of tawny Indians with 
 long black hair, differing but slightly from the inhabitants 
 of Mindanao. He also noticed amongst them a number 
 of woolly -headed New Gruinea negroes, most of whom 
 he suspected were slaves to the others. The crew gave 
 them brandy, which they drank with relish, — a behaviour 
 that caused Dampier to suppose that, let their religion 
 be what it would, they were not Mahometans. It is 
 noteworthy that Tasman differs from Dampier to the 
 extent of describing these natives as resembling the 
 savages of New Zealand. He speaks of them as being 
 armed with slings, darts, and wooden swords, decorated 
 with bracelets and rings of pearl, with rings in their 
 noses. Schouten had long previously found them a very 
 ferocious and intractable people, who would have made 
 themselves masters of his vessel if he had not fired upon 
 them and put them to flight. But as in these so in 
 those days. The world was somewhat kaleiodoscopic, 
 and the combination of colours seen by the peering 
 traveller at one time was by no means the same assem- 
 blage of hues viewed by other eyes at another time. 
 
 H 
 
98 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 On February 4th the Roeluch was off the north-west 
 coast of New Guinea. Here Dampier found some very 
 pleasant islands richly wooded and full of wild pigeons, 
 and sweetened to the sight by vast spaces of white, 
 purple, and yellow flowers, which so perfumed the wind 
 that the fragrance could be tasted at a great distance 
 from the shore. On one of them he stood surrounded 
 by a portion of his crew, and after drinking the king's 
 health, christened the spot King William's Island. Cross- 
 ing the equator they proceeded to the eastward, and 
 then, partly with the idea of escaping the perils of a 
 navigation among shoals and islands, and partly with 
 the hope of being rewarded for their suiferings and 
 disappointments by some discovery of magnitude and 
 importance, they steered the ship for the mainland. 
 They were now within sight of a high and mountainous 
 country, green and beautiful with tropical vegetation, 
 and dark with forests and groves of tall and stately 
 trees. A number of canoes came out to them, but the 
 brief intercourse terminated in the usual way : the inten- 
 tions of the natives were misunderstood; a gun was 
 fired and several savages killed. Dampier's narrative at 
 this point deals for some pages chiefly with the natives 
 of New Guinea, though he shortly describes the islands 
 and the aspect of the mainland as he sails along. So 
 far his tone is one of disappointment, but nevertheless 
 he keeps a very steady, honest eye upon the object of 
 his voyage to these unknown waters. "I could have 
 wished," he says, "for some more favourable opportuni- 
 ties than had hitherto offered themselves as well for 
 penetrating into the heart of the New discovered country 
 as for opening a Trade with its inhabitants, both of which 
 
IV A RUDE GREETING 99 
 
 I very well knew, could they be brought about, must 
 prove extremely beneficial to Great Britain." Happily 
 the conduct of his oificers and men had improved, and 
 they seemed as willing as he to explore the new land ; 
 but he writes with knowledge of the issue, and it is 
 impossible to miss in this narrative of his the subdued 
 and faltering language of a discouraged heart. On 
 March 14th he was within view of what he terms a well- 
 cultivated country. He observed numbers of cocoa-trees, 
 plantations apparently well ordered, and many houses. 
 His method of opening communication with the natives 
 was by firing a shot over a fleet of canoes, which sent 
 them paddling away home as fast as their crews could 
 drive them. Presently three large boats put off, one of 
 which had about forty men in her. The Roehuclc lay 
 becalmed, and it looked as if the blacks meant to attack 
 the ship. A round shot was sent at the canoes, the 
 savages turned about, and a light breeze springing up, 
 the ship followed them into the bay. When close to 
 the shore Dampier noticed the eyes of innumerable 
 dusky-faced people peeping at the vessel from behind 
 the rocks. A shot was fired to scare them, but they 
 continued peeping nevertheless. Dampier seems sur- 
 prised after this that the natives were unwilling to 
 trade. The utmost they consented to do was to 
 climb the trees for cocoanuts, which they contemptu- 
 ously flung at the English with passionate signs to them 
 to be gone. 
 
 The crew were now finding plenty of fresh water, and 
 the ship's casks were soon filled. In spite of the defiant 
 posture of the savages, it was agreed, after a consultation 
 amongst the officers and men, to remain where they were 
 
WILLIAM DAMPIER 
 
 and attempt a better acquaintance with the people of the 
 coast. Next day whilst the boats were ashore, forty or 
 fifty men and women passed by ; they moved on quietly 
 without offering any violence. Says Dampier, speaking 
 of them : " I have observed among all the wild Nations 
 I have known that they make the Women carry the 
 burdens, while the Men walk before without carrying 
 any other load than their arms." Extremes meet, and 
 assuredly in some respects the most polished nation in 
 the world is within a very measurable distance of the 
 most savage. It does not appear that the obligation of 
 having occasionally to kill a few natives greatly inter- 
 fered with the friendly relations between them and 
 Dampier's men. The ship's company went ashore and 
 slaughtered and salted a good load of hogs, whilst the 
 savages peered at them from their houses. "None 
 offered to hinder our Boats landing,'' writes Dampier ; 
 " but, on the contrary, were so Amicable, that one man 
 brought ten or twelve Cocoanuts, left them on the Shore, 
 after he had shewed them to our Men, and went out of 
 sight. Our People, finding nothing but nets and images, 
 brought them away ; these two of my men brought in a 
 small Canoe ; and presently after, my Boats came off. 
 I ordered the Boatswain to take care of the nets, the 
 images I took into my own Custody.'' Thus they 
 requited the friendly disposition of these poor savages 
 by plundering them. Who can doubt that most of the 
 massacres of European crews by the inhabitants of 
 countries often as beautiful and radiant as earthly para- 
 dises, the glory and sweetness of which might easily be 
 deemed to have subdued the human beings found upon 
 them to the tenderness and lovableness of the inspira- 
 
IV A BURNING MOUNTAIN loi 
 
 tions of the soil, the fruit, the majestic forests, the 
 shining birds, should be the eifect of traditions whose 
 origin may be found in the barbarities practised by the 
 early mariner ? 
 
 Dampier describes the country hereabouts as mount- 
 ainous and wooded, full of rich valleys and pleasant 
 fresh-water brooks. He named it Port Montague, in 
 honour of the patron to whom he had dedicated his first 
 volume. The Boebuck sailed from this place on March 
 22nd, and two days afterwards, in the evening, Dampier, 
 who was indisposed and lying down in his cabin, was 
 hastily called on deck to behold what the crew regarded 
 as a miracle. The wonder was no more than a burning 
 mountain, but then those were days when enchanted 
 islands^ were to be met with at sea, and this great 
 flaming scene was at once a prodigy and a terror to the 
 sun-tanned mariners, who stared at it over the rail with 
 every superstitious instinct in them astir. Tasman had 
 viewed it, but the honest old Batavian did not wield 
 Dampier's pen. It was a grand sight indeed, — a large 
 pillar of fire crimsoning the north-west blackness, rearing 
 its blood-red blaze higher and higher for three or four 
 minutes at a time, then sinking till it seemed to have 
 died, then rising afresh flaming furiously. They got a 
 better view of this volcano a little later. "At every 
 explosion we heard a dreadful noise like thunder, and 
 saw a flame of fire after it the most terrifying that 
 ever I beheld." Streams of liquid light ran down to 
 
 ^ For instance, Eingrose (Dampier's companion in Sharp's voyage) 
 writes under date of January 9th, 1681 : "There was now a great 
 rippling sea, rising very high. It is reported there is an enchanted 
 island hereabouts, which some positively say they have sailed over." 
 
102 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 the foreshore and overflowed the beach with incandes- 
 cent lakes. The description of this burning mount- 
 ain is, I think, one of the finest passages in Dampier's 
 writings. 
 
 All this while he supposed that he was still off the 
 coast of New Guinea; but following the trend of the 
 shore, he arrived at those straits which still bear his 
 name, and then discovered that the little country whose 
 seaboard he had been exploring was an island. This 
 land he called Nova Britannia, or, as we now know it. 
 New Britain. Happy would it have been for the reputa- 
 tion of Dampier if, instead of steering east through his 
 straits, he had continued to skirt the New Guinea coast 
 to the south-east, for by so doing he must have rounded 
 into the Gulf of Papua, struck the channel called Torres 
 Straits, and, catching sight of Cape York, have been 
 encouraged to pursue his exploration of the coast of 
 New Holland on that side of the great continent whose 
 fruitfulness, beauty, and conveniency have courted the 
 civilisation of Europe. It is true that the Roebuck was 
 provisioned for twenty months only, but an ardent and 
 ambitious navigator would have made little or nothing 
 of such a condition of his voyage as this when close 
 aboard of him were lands filled with fruit, hogs, fowls, 
 and fresh water. But there is no question that Dampier 
 had long grown weary of this business. He could see 
 nothing but honour (and little enough of that, as things 
 went) to be got out of this journey, and as a poor man, 
 with the heart of a buccaneer in him besides, he would 
 appreciate the need of something more substantial than 
 fame. Be this as it may, he had now, it being April 
 26th, 1700, started on his return home, intending on 
 
A ROTTEN SHIP 103 
 
 the way to call at Batavia to careen and doctor his 
 crazy ship for the long voyage to England. When clear 
 of the straits a vessel hove in sight at dusk, and as 
 her manceuvrings were puzzling they loaded their guns, 
 lighted the matches, and made ready to fight her. She 
 sheered off, but was in sight at daybreak, and then 
 proved to be nothing more dangerous than a Chinese 
 junk laden with tea, porcelain, and other commodities, 
 and bound for Amboyna. The Eoebuck's progress was 
 very slow; she was coated with weeds and barnacles, 
 and in a sea-way her timbers worked like a basket. It 
 was not until June 23rd that they arrived at the Straits 
 of Sunda, and at the close of the month they dropped 
 anchor off Batavia. Here Dampier stayed for three 
 months whilst his ship was careened and repaired. Her 
 condition was such that one can only wonder that he 
 and his crew ventured to sail home in her. We might 
 scarcely credit that Dampier's patrons honestly felt 
 much faith in his representations, and in the hopes he 
 held out of vast and important discoveries, when we find 
 them putting him and his crew of boys into a ship 
 which time had made rotten probably some years before 
 she was equipped for this voyage, if it were not that 
 the later experiences of Anson exhibit the same profound 
 departmental indifference and neglect on an occasion 
 which we may assume was regarded as far more signi- 
 ficant than Dampier's expedition. Of all the wonder- 
 ful accomplishments of the English sailor, nothing to 
 my mind is so amazing as the triumphs with which he 
 crowns the cause of his country in defiance of the 
 miserable indifference of the British Admiralty to him 
 and to his labours. The best that Dampier could do 
 
104 WILLIAM DAMPIER CHAP. 
 
 with his ship was so to patch her up as to enable her 
 to carry her people home with the pumps going day 
 and night. They sailed from Batavia on October 17th, 
 arrived at the Cape of Good Hope on December 30th, 
 and brought up at the island of Ascension in a sinking 
 condition on February 21st, 1701. Even whilst Ascen- 
 sion was in sight the Roebuck had sprung a fresh leak, 
 and when she anchored both hand and chain pumps 
 were going. There was still a long stretch of ocean 
 for them to traverse, and a ship like a sieve to measure 
 it with. The tinkering of the carpenters apparently 
 increased the mischief, and whilst Dampier was waiting 
 below to receive the news of the leak being stopped, 
 the boatswain arrived with a long face to tell him that' 
 the vessel was sinking. " The plank was so rotten," 
 says Dampier, "it broke away like Dirt, and now it 
 was impossible to save the Ship ; for they could not 
 come at the Leak because the water in the run was got 
 above it. I worked myself to encourage my Men, who 
 were very diligent, but the Water still increased, and we 
 now thought of nothing but saving our lives : Where- 
 fore I hoisted out the boat that if the Ship should sink 
 we might be saved; and in the Morning we weighed 
 our anchor and Warped in nearer the shore, tho' we 
 did but little good." The men with their clothes and 
 bedding were sent ashore on rafts ; the sails were un- 
 bent and converted into tents for the use of Dampier 
 and his officers ; fresh water and rice had been landed 
 for the use of all, "but," writes the unfortunate com- 
 mander, "great part of it was stolen away before I 
 came ashore, and many of my books and papers lost.'' 
 Luckily there was no lack of turtle, but those who have 
 
IV WRECKED ON ASCENSION 105 
 
 visited Ascension will understand the distresses of a 
 numerous crew cast away upon an uninhabited island of 
 cinders and volcanic cones, with one green hill only far 
 away in the middle of the calcined heap for the eye to 
 find refreshment in. They were fortunate enough to 
 discover a spring of fresh water ; the men carried their 
 beds into the hollows of the rocks, and perhaps thought 
 themselves better off than in the wet, dark, half-drowned, 
 cockroach-laden forecastle of the Roehuch. Moreover, in 
 addition to turtle there were crabs, goats'-flesh, and sea- 
 birds for food ; and as the air of Ascension is about the 
 sweetest and most wholesome in the world, the castaways 
 kept their health and spirits, and managed on the whole 
 very well indeed. 
 
 Their imprisonment did not last long. On April 3rd 
 four vessels hove in sight, and in the course of the 
 day anchored off the island. Three of them proved 
 English men-of-war — the Anglesea, Hastings, and lAzard; 
 the fourth was an East Indiaman named the Canterbury. 
 Dampier went on board the Anglesea with thirty-five of 
 his crew, and the remainder were divided between the 
 other men-of-war. The ships proceeded to Barbadoes, 
 but Dampier, with a keen sense of his misfortunes, and 
 anxious to justify himself to his patrons, accepted an 
 offer to return to England in the Canterbury. "The 
 same earnest desire," he says, " to clear up Mistakes, to 
 do myself Justice in the opinion of the World, and to 
 set the Discoveries made in this unfortunate voyage in 
 their proper Light, that it may be of use to the World, 
 how unlucky soever it proved to me, is the reason that 
 induced me to publish it ; And I persuade myself that 
 such as are proper Judges of these sort of Performances 
 
io6 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap, iv 
 
 will allow that I have Delivered many things new in 
 themselves, capable of affording much Instruction to 
 such as meditate future Discoveries, and which in other 
 respects may be of great utility to the present age and 
 to posterity." 
 
CHAPTEE V 
 1702-1V06-7 
 
 THE VOYAGE OF THE "ST. GEORGE" 
 
 Dampier's circumnavigations brought him great fame. 
 It was deemed, and justly deemed, a remarkable feat to 
 sail round the world in those days. Very few men had 
 achieved it, and the names of those who had — the list 
 prior to Dampier is brief enough — were written among 
 the stars. Dampier had circled the globe twice, had 
 touched at all sorts of strange and wonderful places, had 
 held intercourse with all kinds of astonishing people, 
 had explored some of the secret recesses of the other 
 side of the earth, and was charged with experiences as 
 marvellous as those of the sailor who had doubled Cape 
 Fly-Away and dropped anchor in thick weather off No- 
 Man's Land. His reputation .stood high for this. On 
 the other hand, nothing was thought of his discoveries. 
 It is significant that the editor of the Collection of 
 Voyages and Travels, published by the Churchills in 1704, 
 in speaking in his " Introductory Discourse " of Dampier's 
 books, says : " The third volume is his Voyage to New 
 Holland, which has no great matter of new discovery.'' 
 This opinion probably expressed the judgment of the 
 public at large. There is indeed no great matter of 
 
io8 WILLIAM DAMPISH chap. 
 
 discovery. Harris allows the voyage but one merit, 
 namely, " That it has removed for ever those suspicions 
 that were entertained of the accounts formerly given of 
 those countries." " It has shown us," he says, " a new 
 Indies in which, whenever that spirit of industry shall 
 revive which first extended and then established our 
 commerce, we may be able to undertake settlements as 
 advantageous as any that have been hitherto made by 
 this or any other nation." ^ But in sober truth, Dampier 
 adds but little to the stock of knowledge that had been 
 already collected from the narratives of Tasman, Pelsart, 
 Schouten, and others who had touched at or been 
 wrecked upon the New Holland coast. It is probable 
 that his failure, coupled with the despondent tone that 
 characterises his narrative, went far to retard further 
 exploration in the Southern Ocean. It was no longer 
 disputed that a vast body of land stood in those waters ; 
 the testimony of previous navigators was confirmed; 
 but what was to be made of it 1 All that Dampier said 
 in its favour was theoretical ; all that he had to report 
 as an eye-witness, all that he could speak to as facts, was 
 extremely discouraging. He might even go further in 
 his conversation than in his written story in apologising 
 for his useless and disappointing cruise, and to his 
 patrons add to the assurance of his narrative such 
 persuasion of tongue as would convince them that there 
 was nothing to be gained by further researches in 
 Australian waters. Indeed, the depressing influence of 
 his recorded adventures I venture to consider manifested 
 
 ^ The statements of Harris, who may be claimed as a contem- 
 poraneous authority, are interesting on this account. He writes, 
 of course, without the prejudices of Dampier's sea-associates. 
 
V FIJiST ENTERPRISES 109 
 
 by the directions given to the later navigators. Byron 
 in 1764, Wallis and Mouat and Cartaret in 1766, were 
 despatched on voyages round the world to search the 
 South Seas for new lands ; but only one of them, Car- 
 taret, deviated into Dampier's track, confining his ex- 
 plorations in this way to a glance at New Guinea and 
 New Britain, to the discovery of New Ireland, lying ad- 
 jacent to the island Dampier had sailed round, and to 
 giving names to the islands of the Soloman and other 
 groups. The world had to wait for Cook to confirm the 
 theories of Dampier, whose influence and example were 
 by that time little more than traditionary. 
 
 His fame, however, as a navigator, despite the dis- 
 appointments of his voyage, was unimpaired, and since 
 employment was absolutely necessary to him as a means 
 of living, he wisely took care on his return to make the 
 most of his laurels whilst they were green. In 1702 he 
 was busy in looking about him for occupation. His 
 thirst for discovery was appeased, and he was now 
 viewing the profession of the sea with the old yearnings 
 of the buccaneer. Fortunately for him, the War of 
 Succession began. The Spaniards and the French were 
 once more the political enemies of Great Britain, but the 
 Don in particular was the cynosure of privateering eyes. 
 The heads of the merchants had been turned by the 
 triumphs of the freebooters. Wonderful tales had long 
 been current of the capture of treasure by little insignifi- 
 cant picaroons, and there were many private adventurers 
 who only needed the representations of a person of 
 Dampier's experience and credit to come willingly into 
 a freebooting scheme against the ships and possessions 
 of the Spaniard in the West Indies and the South Sea. 
 
no WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 Speculative men of substance were found and an ex- 
 pedition equipped, the ships being the St. George, Captain 
 William Dampier, and the Fa/me, Captain John Pulling. 
 The vessels were liberally armed and manned, and were 
 commissioned — spite of the venture being wholly one of 
 privateering — ^by Prince George of Denmark, Lord High 
 Admiral, to cruise against the French and the Spaniards. 
 The terms were, " No purchase, no pay ! " Dampier's 
 proposal, adopted by the promoters of the expedition, 
 was to proceed first to the river Plate as far as 
 Buenos Ayres, and seize two or three Spanish galleons, 
 which he said were sure to be found there. If the plunder 
 amounted to the value of six hundred thousand pounds 
 they were to return home. If, on the other hand, nothing 
 was done in the river Plate, they were to enter the South 
 Seas and cruise for the Valdivia ships which conveyed 
 gold to Lima. If this design failed, they were to attempt 
 such rich towns as Dampier should think proper. 
 Finally, they were to coast the Mexican shore to watch 
 for the great galleon which in those days and long 
 afterwards sailed annually filled with treasure and valu- 
 able commodities from Manila to Acapulco. 
 
 This was a broad programme, and Dampier's finger 
 may be found in every word of it. The Acapulco ship 
 was indeed peculiarly the dream of the buccaneer. In the 
 galleon captured by Drake, Lopez Vaz tells us there were 
 eight hundred and fifty thousand pieces of silver, besides 
 many chests of treasure omitted in what was then termed 
 the "bill of custom." Drake's men were employed six 
 days in removing the jewels, the cases of money, the tons 
 of uncoined silver, and the services of plate, which they 
 found in their prize. Candish's capture of the galleon 
 
A QUARREL 
 
 yielded him one hundred and twenty-two thousand pesoes 
 of gold; the lading further consisted of silks, satins, musk, 
 damasks, sweetmeats, and quantities of fine wines. The 
 value of the Manila ship that Dampier was to seek and 
 capture was appraised at nine millions of pieces of eight, 
 equal to about a million and a half of our money. 
 
 Our sailor was wise to provide himself with alterna- 
 tives which would also furnish his humour with oppor- 
 tunities for those sudden changes which his capricious 
 mind demanded as a stimulant to' further efforts. The 
 story of this voyage is related by William Funnell,^ who 
 went as mate in the ship with Dampier. It is noticeable 
 that, as we progress in Dampier's career, his individuality 
 grows less and less distinguishable. He is vague in 
 Funnell's narrative, he is vaguer still in Woodes Kogers's, 
 and then he disappears. 
 
 There was trouble at the very onset of this voyage. 
 Whilst in the Downs Dampier and Pulling quarrelled, 
 and the latter, apparently not troubling himself about 
 his agreement with his employers, made sail, and started 
 away on a cruise among the Canary Islands on his own 
 account. Dampier never saw him afterwards. On this 
 a galley named the Cinque Ports, memorable as Alex- 
 ander Selkirk's ship, commanded by one Charles Picker- 
 ing, was despatched to join the St. George in the room of 
 the Fame. She was a small vessel of some ninety tons 
 burthen, mounting sixteen guns and carrying a crew of 
 sixty-three men. It is declared that Pulling's defection 
 
 1 " Voyage Round the World, containing an account of Captain 
 Dampier's expedition into the South Seas, 1703-4, witH the Author's 
 Voyage from Amapalla on the West Coast of Mexico to East 
 India," 1707. 
 
WILLIAM DAMPIER 
 
 ruined the voyage; but this is an opinion scarcely 
 reasonable in the face of the achievements of the 
 buccaneers, who many of them, in vessels much smaller 
 than the Cin^m Ports, successfully engaged the forts and 
 castles of powerfully protected towns, and boarded and 
 carried galleons big enough to have stowed the conquerors' 
 craft in their holds. 
 
 Dampier sailed on April 30th, 1703, from the Downs, 
 and on being joined at Kinsale by the Cinque Ports, 
 proceeded with his Consort to Madeira. "By a good 
 observation," says Funnell, "I make this island to lie 
 in latitude of 32° 20' N., and longitude, by my account 
 from London, 18° 5' W." This is an illustration of the 
 value of good observations in those days ! Nothing of 
 moment happened until their arrival at an island upon 
 the Brazilian coast. Here Captain Pickering of the 
 Cinque Ports died, and Thomas Stradling, the lieutenant, 
 took command of the ship. There was also a quarrel 
 between Dampier, his chief officer, and eight of the 
 crew, which terminated in the nine men going ashore 
 with their baggage. Disappointmenthadsoured Dampier's 
 mind, and he was growing more obstinately fretful and 
 quarrelsome. Much of the anxiety caused him by the 
 behaviour of his ship's company was owing to his 
 petulance, and to his lacking most of the qualities which 
 command respect or enforce obedience. In truth, there 
 had been nothing in his training to qualify him as a 
 commander. He had passed the greater portion of his 
 seafaring life as a sailor before the mast, amongst a 
 community of bold and truculent ruflBans who obeyed 
 orders for the general good, but who virtually admitted 
 no superiority in the persons whom they suffered to lead 
 
OFF THE HORN 113 
 
 them. In a very short time, as we have seen, Dampier 
 had succeeded in disgusting his consort Pulling out of 
 an adventure, whose success might entirely depend upon 
 his active and cordial co-operation; and now we find 
 him abandoned by his first lieutenant and eight of the 
 crew for reasons, I fear, it would be idle to seek elsewhere 
 than in his own temper. Off the Horn in January, 1704, 
 the Cinque Forts disappeared in the midst of a heavy storm. 
 She was a smaU ship for the huge seas of those desperate 
 parallels, and the worst was feared. Dampier's men 
 were so disheartened . that little persuasion might have 
 been needed to determine them to abandon the voyage. 
 Of all miserable times passed by the early mariner, the 
 most miserable and insufferable were those which they 
 spent off Cape Horn. Under reduced sail their little 
 tubs showed like half-tide rocks in the troughs. The 
 decks were full of water, the seas thundered over them 
 in cataracts, the hatches, closed and battened down, kept 
 the atmosphere of the 'tween decks black and poisonous. 
 The crew were commonly so numerous as to be in one 
 another's way, and imagination can picture nothing more 
 unendurable than a dark and vermin-ridden forecastle 
 crowded with half-suffocated men ; the rigging and sails 
 frozen to the hardness of iron; spears of ice hanging 
 from the catheads and bowsprit, and from all other 
 points from which water could drain; the ship herself 
 rolling and tossing with sickening fury, and quivering to 
 the thunder-shock of seas smiting her from an altitude 
 of thirty feet. Moreover, by the time a vessel arrived off 
 Cape Horn, she was usually short of provisions and 
 water. She had already occupied months in making 
 the passage, and her stores were so bad as to be rejected 
 
 I 
 
1 14 WILLIAM DAMPIER ohap. 
 
 by the very rats, which, with the fearlessness and 
 ferocity of famine, crawled out of the blackness of the 
 hold and nibbled the feet of the sailors as they lay dozing 
 on their chests. Captain George Shelvocke, writing in 
 1726, has left us a gloomy picture, full of power, of the 
 Horn in winter. " I must own," he says, " the navigation 
 here is truly melancholy, and it was the more so to us 
 who were a single ship and by ourselves in this vast and 
 dreadful solitude ; whereas a companion would have 
 mixed some cheerfulness with the thoughts of being in 
 so distant a part of the world exposed to such dangers, 
 and, as it were, separated from the rest of mankind. 
 The very thoughts of the possibility of losing our masts 
 by the violence of such very stormy weather as we had 
 had were enough to cast a damp upon the clearest 
 spirits."-^ 
 
 It was not until February 7th that Juan Fernandez 
 showed above the horizon. Dampier concluded that 
 it was some other island, and stood away east, to 
 the grief and disappointment, as one may suppose, 
 of his starved and scorbutic crew, tantalised by the 
 spectacle of green hills and sparkling falls of fresh water. 
 On the 11th, having sailed a considerable distance 
 towards the American seaboard, he decided that the 
 land he had sighted was the island he sought, and there- 
 upon shifted his helm for it ; and on his arrival, passing 
 by the great bay, he saw, to his own and to the great 
 delight of his crew, the Ginqm Ports quietly lying at 
 
 ^ A Voyage Round the World hy the way of the Great South Sea, 
 by Captain George Shelvocke. Second Edition, ]757, p. 76. The 
 whole description of his passage of the Horn, with his sketch of 
 Staten Island, "covered with snow to the very wash of the sea," is 
 admii-able. 
 
V STRADLING'S MEN MUTINY 115 
 
 anchor, she having made the land three days before. 
 Both vessels were heeled and refitted, which, with the 
 watering of them, gave the crews plenty of employment; 
 but whilst this was doing another quarrel happened, 
 this time between Captain Stradhng and his men. We 
 may suspect Stradling's character from Alexander 
 Selkirk's hatred of him, though there is no doubt that 
 Selkirk himself was on the whole about as troublesome 
 a seaman to deal with as ever stepped a deck. Dampier, 
 it is true, afterwards told Captain Woodes Rogers that 
 he considered Selkirk, who in the expedition I am now 
 writing about was master of the Cinque Forts, to have 
 been the best man in that ship ; but then Dampier had 
 quarrelled with Stradling and abhorred his memory, and 
 so, I do not doubt, made the most of Selkirk to Rogers, 
 that he might suggest rather than boldly affirm his 
 former consort equal to so base and cruel a deed as the 
 marooning of a good and honest sailor; albeit Rogers 
 was perfectly well aware that Selkirk had gone ashore 
 of his own choice.^ The quarrel between Stradling and 
 his men rose to such a height that the <vrew absolutely 
 refused to go on board and serve under him. Dampier 
 was consulted, and after a deal of trouble succeeded in 
 persuading the fellows to return to their duty. It is to 
 be feared that this happy turn of what threatened to 
 prove a very grave difficulty owed little or nothing to 
 Dampier's address or to his popularity. It is a common 
 saying at sea amongst sailors who dislike their captain 
 that they will weather him out even if he were the devil 
 
 ^ I should add, however, that on Selkirk repenting his rash de- 
 cision, and requesting leave to return to his duty, Stradling refused 
 to receive him on board. 
 
ii6 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 himself; meaning that they will not suffer themselves 
 to be defrauded by his tyranny of their wages or such 
 good prospects as the voyage may promise. The sober- 
 headed amongst Stradling's crew would not take long 
 to see the folly of abandoning an adventure that had 
 brought them to the very threshold of their hopes, particu- 
 larly after having endured all the distress and misery of 
 the passage of the Horn in a vessel but a very little 
 bigger than a fishing-smack of to-day. It is more than 
 likely then that Dampier's counsel found most of them 
 sensible of their mistake and willing to resume work. 
 
 Whilst the people were ashore busy on various jobs 
 relating to the doctoring of their ships, the day being 
 February 29th, 1704, a sail was sighted, an alarm raised, 
 and a rush made on board. The two vessels instantly 
 slipped their cables and stood out to sea. The stranger, 
 on perceiving the canvas of the two crafts growing large 
 upon the background of the island, bouted ship and went 
 away under a press ; but Dampier clung to his wake, 
 and the Cinque Ports made all possible haste to follow. 
 The breeze blew briskly, and the St. George was thrashed 
 through it so fleetly that she towed her pinnace under 
 water and was forced to cut her loose. Captain Stradling's 
 boat, in which were a man and a dog, also went adrift, 
 but of her and her inmates we get news later on. It 
 was not until eleven o'clock at night that the St. George 
 came up with the chase, and Dampier wisely deferred 
 hostilities until the day dawned. The stranger proved 
 a Frenchman of four hundred tons and thirty guns, full 
 of men ; and at sunrise on March 1st the Cinque Ports and 
 the St. George attacked her. The galley, however, was of 
 little use, for after discharging a dozen guns she fell astern, 
 
OLD ORDNANCE 117 
 
 and left the game to be played out by Dampier. " We 
 fought her very close," says Funnell, "Broadside and 
 Broadside for seven Hours ; and then a small Gale 
 springing up she sheered off." Old conflicts of this kind 
 are quaint with the colours of an utterly extinct form of 
 marine life. The seamen fought with guns bearing 
 strange names. The heaviest marine-ordnance was the 
 demi-cannon, whose bore was six and three-quarter inches, 
 and the weight of the shot thirty pounds and a half. 
 There were also the cannon-petro, that threw a twenty- 
 four pound shot ; the basilisk, the weight of whose shot 
 was fifteen pounds ; the sacre or sacar, as Sir William 
 Monson spells it, a little piece of a bore of three inches 
 and a half that cast a shot weighing five pounds ; and 
 smaller guns yet called the minion, the falcon, the ser- 
 pentine, and the rabanet, the last carrying a shot of half 
 a pound. It is difficult to conjecture the calibre of such 
 ordnance as Dampier and his enemy were armed with. 
 Probably the cannon-petro was their biggest piece, and 
 they would also carry swivel-guns. It will be evident 
 at all events that such a vessel as the Cingue Ports, whose 
 tonnage is put down at ninety, and which is said to have 
 been armed with sixteen guns, must have mounted very 
 light metal if only to render her seaworthy. But besides 
 their falcons and sacars and minions, they engaged 
 with other strange engines, — arrows trimmed with wild- 
 fire, pikes flaming with the same stuff for piercing a 
 ship's side, shells called granados filled with powder and 
 thrown on to a vessel's deck with a fuze alight, powder- 
 pots formed of clay or thick glass, and stink-balls, for the 
 making of which old Norwood prescribes as follows : 
 "Take Powder 101., of Ship-pitch 61., of Tar 201., 
 
ii8 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 Salt Peter 81., Sulphur Calif onia 41. Melt these by a 
 soft heat together; and being well melted, put 21. of 
 cole-dust, of the filings of Horses-hoofs 61., Assa Foetita 
 31., Sagapenem 11., Spatula Foetida half a pound : In- 
 corporate them well together, and put into this matter 
 Linnen or WooUen-Cloathe, or Hemp or Toe as much as 
 will drink up all the matter : and of these make Globes 
 or Balls of what bigness you please. This Globe or 
 Ball may be made venomous or poysonous, if to the 
 Composition be added these things following : Mercury 
 Suplimate, Arsnick, Orpiment, Sinaber, etc."^ 
 
 This horrible contrivance, when thrown among the 
 surging crowd, threw out volumes of poisonous and 
 suffocating smoke. A sea-fight was a fierce business — 
 fiercer, perhaps, than we can realise when we contrast the 
 armaments of those days with the leviathan guns of the 
 ironclad. The devices for slaughtering were full of the 
 genius of murder. They had cohorns or small mortars 
 fixed on swivels ; caissons, called " powder - chests," 
 charged with old nails and rusty bits of iron for firing 
 from the close-quarters when boarded ; weapons named 
 " organs," formed of a number of musket-barrels fired at 
 once. Above all, they had what I fear is lost to us for 
 ever, — I mean the boarding -pike, the deadliest of all 
 weapons in the hands of the British sailor. The mere 
 naming of a yard-arm to yard-arm engagement lasting 
 seven hours is hint enough to the imagination of a man 
 conversant with the tactics, the brutal courage, the 
 remorseless resolution, the deadly if primitive fighting 
 machinery of the sea-braves of the old generations. The 
 castellated fabric rolling upon the seas, echoing in 
 ^ Norwood's Navigation, already referred to. 
 
V THE FRENCHMEN ROUTED 119 
 
 thunder to the blasts which roar from her ■wooden sides ; 
 the crowds of men swaying half-naked at the guns ; the 
 falling spars ; the riddled sails ; the great tops filled 
 with smoke -blackened sailors wildly cheering as they 
 fling their granados upon the decks of the enemy, or 
 sUent as death as they level their long and clumsy 
 muskets at forms distinguished as the leaders of the 
 fight by their attire, combine in a picture that rises in 
 crimson-tinctured outlines upon the dusky canvas of the 
 past, and, though two centuries old, startles and fascin- 
 ates as if it were a memory of yesterday. But the old 
 voyagers' references to such things are grimly brief. 
 They dismiss in a sentence as much as might fill a 
 volume ; yet what they have to say is suggestive enough, 
 and the fancy is feeble that cannot colour their black and 
 white outlines to the fiery complexion of a reality, and 
 vitalise them with the living hues of the time in which 
 the deeds were done. 
 
 The battle was ended by a small gale of wind coming 
 on to blow, and by the Frenchman running away. On 
 board Dampier were nine killed and several wounded. 
 Funnell says that the sailors were anxious to follow and 
 fight the Frenchman again, and sink or capture him, 
 fearing that if he escaped he would make their presence 
 known to the Spaniards. But Dampier objected, pro- 
 testing that even if the enemy should hear of them and 
 stop their merchantmen from leaving harbour, "he knew 
 where to go, and did not fear of failing to take to the 
 value of £500,000 any day in the year." This assurance 
 sufficiently satisfied the men to induce them to back 
 their topsail to wait for the Gmque Ports, and on her 
 coming up with the St. George, Dampier briefly conferred 
 
WILLIAM DAMPIER 
 
 with Stradling, who agreed with him that they should 
 let the Frenchman go. The privateers thereupon headed 
 on their return to Juan Fernandez to recover the anchors, 
 long-boats, casks of fresh water, and sea-lions' oil which 
 they had left there ; along with five of the crew of the 
 Ginqw Ports, who had been ashore on the west side of 
 the island when the ships hurriedly made sail after the 
 Frenchman. The wind was south, right oif the land, 
 and whilst they were struggling to fetch the bay two 
 ships unexpectedly hove in view. The Cinque Forts, 
 being near them, fired several shots, and then, having her 
 sweeps out, rowed to the St. Gecrrge to report that the 
 strangers were Frenchmen, each mounting about thirty- 
 six guns. It is conceivable that Dampier might not con- 
 sider his ship, fresh as she was from a tough conflict, in 
 a fit state to engage these two large, well-armed vessels ; 
 nor, after the part his consort had borne in the late 
 action, was he likely to place much faith in Stradling's 
 co-operation. He thereupon determined to stand away 
 for the coast of Peru, an unintelligible resolution when 
 it is remembered that they would not only be leaving 
 five of Stradling's men behind, but furniture and stores 
 absolutely essential to their security and to the execution 
 of their projects. They might surely have lingered long 
 enough in the neighbourhood of the island to persuade 
 the Frenchman that they were gone for good. A run 
 of fifteen or twenty miles would have put them out of 
 sight. And they might also have reckoned upon the 
 unwillingness of the enemy to fight ; for the French 
 equally with the Spanish seafarers in those days were 
 commonly very well satisfied with the negative victory 
 of the foe's retreat. 
 
THE FRENCHMEN ESCAPE 
 
 The two ships fell in with the coast of Peru on 
 March 11th. Funnell makes the latitude of the land 
 24° 53' S. Thence they coasted to the northwards, and 
 on the 14th passed the port of Copiapo, used by the 
 Spaniards for loading wine, money, and other goods for 
 Coquimbo. They would have been glad to go ashore for 
 refreshments, but were in the unhappy situation of 
 being without boats. On the 22nd, when off Lima, they 
 chased a couple of vessels which were steering for 
 that port. On coming up with the sternmost Dampier 
 found her to be the ship he had fought off the island of 
 Juan Fernandez. The crew were eager to engage her, 
 so as to prevent her from entering Lima, still dreading 
 the consequence of the Spaniards gaining intelligence of 
 English freebooters being in those waters. Moreover 
 Funnell asserts that not a man on board doubted the 
 possibility of taking her, because the crew were now in 
 good health, w^hereas when they had engaged her some 
 twenty or thirty of them were upon the sick-list. They 
 also wanted her guns, ammunition, and provisions, and 
 proposed that the St. George should fight her whilst 
 Stradling attacked the other ; but Dampier was not of 
 their mind, and whilst all hands were hotly debating the 
 matter, the Frenchmen, if indeed they were both French, 
 got into Lima. It would be absurd to accuse Dampier 
 of want of courage, but it is strange that, after chasing 
 the two strangers from no other motive that seems 
 intelligible than the design to fight and capture them, 
 he should draw off on discovering one of them to be his 
 enemy of Juan Fernandez. He was commissioned to 
 attack the vessels both of France and Spain, and as there 
 was much to be gained by the conquest of the ships, his 
 
WILLIAM DAMPIER 
 
 reluctance or refusal as the chief of a crew eager for the 
 fray is unaccountable. 
 
 Funnell writes with no kindness for Dampier ; but he 
 doubtless speaks the truth when he asserts that the men 
 were greatly incensed by their commander's refusal to 
 iight, insomuch that something like a mutiny might have 
 followed had they not been mollified by the capture, in 
 the space of a few days, of two prizes — one of one hun- 
 dred and fifty, the other of two hundred tons. Mean- 
 while Dampier was maturing a mighty project of landing 
 on the coast and plundering some rich city. Preparations 
 for this great event filled the ship with business. All 
 day long the carpenters were employed in fitting out 
 fabrics called Spanish long-boats to enable the sailors to 
 enter the surf with safety. In every launch were fixed 
 two patareros, swivel-guns of small calibre. Fortune so 
 far favoured them that, on April 11th, they met and 
 took a vessel of fifty tons, laden with plank and cordage, 
 " as if she had been sent on purpose for our service," 
 says Funnell. Carrying this useful prize with them, they 
 sailed to the island of Gallo, where they dropped anchor 
 and took in fresh water, and further prepared their ship 
 and the prize for the grand undertaking they were about 
 to enter upon. At the expiration of five days they were 
 ready ; but whilst they were in the act of getting under 
 weigh a ship was seen standing in. They were in a 
 proper posture to take her, and in a short while she was 
 theirs. The capture was unimportant, the craft being 
 only fifty tons; but it is noticeable for their finding 
 on board a Guernsey man, who had been taken by the 
 Spaniards two years before as he was cutting logwood in 
 the Bay of Campech^, and who must have continued a 
 
SANTA MARIA 
 
 123 
 
 prisoner for life if they had not released him. Dampier's 
 El Dorado was the town of Santa Maria. It was to the 
 mines lying adjacent to this place that he would have 
 been glad to convey the thousand slaves who had been 
 captured in an earlier voyage. It was his intention now 
 to attack it, for he had no doubt that it was full of 
 treasure. But his evil star was dominant. The enemy, 
 apprised of his being in the neighbourhood, met him at 
 all points with ambuscades, which, Funnell tells us, cut 
 off abundance of the men. He may have lacked the 
 power of organisation ; he may have been wanting in 
 the quality to swiftly decide, and in the power to unfalter- 
 ingly execute ; it is equally probable that his schemes 
 were perplexed and his hopes ruined by the insubordina- 
 tion of a crew whom he was not sufficiently master of his 
 temper to control. Be the reason of the failure what it 
 will, the men grew so weary of their fruitless attempts on 
 shore that they returned to their ship without regard to 
 the wishes of the commander. Then they were beset with 
 new troubles, chief amongst which was a great scarcity of 
 provisions. Fortunately at this critical juncture a ship 
 of one hundred and fifty tons, ignorant of their character, 
 dropped anchor within gunshot of them. Needless to 
 say that she was promptly captured, and, to the delight 
 of the hungry and hollow-cheeked survivors of Dampier's 
 mighty land-project, was found filled to the hatches with 
 flour, sugar, brandy, wine, thirty -two tons of marmalade, 
 a large stock of linen and woollen cloth, and, in a word, 
 such a store of food and goods as might have served to 
 victual and equip them for four or five years. Funnell 
 was put on board this prize on behalf of Captain Dam- 
 pier and the people of the St. George, whilst the master 
 
124 WILLIAM D AMPLER chap. 
 
 of the Cinque, Torts — Alexander Selkirk — was transferred 
 to her as representing the interests of Captain Stradling 
 and his ship's company. The vessels then proceeded to 
 the Bay of Panama, and anchored off the island of 
 Tobago. 
 
 They had not long arrived when Dampier and Strad- 
 ling fell out. The quarrel between the men was so hot 
 that there was nothing for it but to part company. One 
 is willing to hope that Stradling was to blame. He was a 
 man of a coarse mind, a person of violent temper, and of a 
 low habit of thought; and nothing, probably, but the cir- 
 cumstance of their being in separate ships and removed 
 from each other hindered the two captains from separat- 
 ing long before. Five of the St. George's men went over 
 to Stradling, and five of the Cinque Ports crew joined 
 Dampier. It was now that some prisoners who were in 
 the last prize that had been taken affirmed that there were 
 eighty thousand dollars secreted on board of her. The 
 money, they said, had been taken in very privately at 
 Lima, and it lay hidden in the bottom of the ship in the 
 part called the run. Dampier refused to credit this, and 
 would not even take the trouble to ascertain the truth 
 by setting the men to rummage the hold. His mind, 
 Funnell tells us, was so full of great designs that he 
 would not risk them by such delay as a brief search 
 might involve. It is unfortunate for his reputation that 
 a considerable portion of his sea-going career has to be 
 tracked through the relations of men with whom he 
 quarrelled, or who, by association with him during months 
 of the imprisonment of shipboard life, grew intimately 
 acquainted with the weaknesses of his character. 
 
 On May 19th the St. George parted company with 
 
V STRADLING PARTS COMPANY 125 
 
 the Cinque Ports, and steered northwards with the in- 
 tention of cruising off the Peruvian coast. The sub- 
 sequent recorded career of Stradling is very brief. His 
 men were too few to qualify him for achievements in 
 the South Sea. He repaired to Juan Fernandez for 
 shelter and refreshment, where, as all the world knows, 
 Alexander Selkirk left him, partly on account of his 
 hatred of the captain, and partly because of the unsear 
 worthy condition of the galley. Not long afterwards 
 the Cinque Ports foundered off the American coast, with 
 the loss of all hands excepting Stradling and seven of his 
 men, who were sent prisoners by the Spaniards to Lima, 
 in which city Stradling was still living when Dampier 
 came afterwards into these waters as Woodes Eogers's 
 pilot. What afterwards became of him is not known. 
 
 Nothing of interest occurred in Dampier's progress 
 north for nearly a month, and then on June 7th they 
 captured a vessel bound to Panama, laden with sugar 
 and brandy and bales of wrought silk. In this ship 
 was a letter addressed to the President of Panama 
 by the captain of the French man-of-war they had 
 fought. It was all about the action with the St. George, 
 and the writer boasted of having killed a great number of 
 the English, whilst he himself had sent ashore at Lima 
 thirty-two of his men, all whom had been disabled either 
 by the loss of a leg or an arm or an eye ; and he added 
 that, had Dampier chosen to follow and re-engage him, he 
 must have been captured. Funnell prints this with 
 evident relish as justifying the attitude of the crew of 
 the St. George, and as an impeachment of Dampier's 
 judgment and possibly his courage. In another letter 
 it was related that the two French ships at which Strad- 
 
126 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 ling had fired, and from which Dampier had made sail, 
 had picked up the boat containing the man and dog that 
 had broken loose from the Cinque, Ports ; also that they 
 had taken off the men Trho had been left on the island, 
 together with the privateersmen's anchors, cables, long- 
 boat, and stores. It was further ascertained from these 
 letters that the Spaniards had fitted out two ships to 
 cruise in search of Dampier — one of thirty-two brass 
 guns, twenty-four pounders each ; the other of thirty-six 
 guns of the same calibre ; each vessel had three hundred 
 and fifty seamen and one hundred and fifty soldiers, 
 all picked men. It does not seem, however, that 
 Dampier allowed his projects to be diverted by these 
 men-of-war. He knew they were off Guayaquil, and on 
 June 21st we find him in the bay named after that port 
 with a sail in sight, which next day proved to be one of 
 the Spanish ships — the one of thirty-two guns. "Being 
 pretty near each other,'' says Funnell, " they gave us a 
 Broadside, but we did not mind them." Dampier's chief 
 anxiety was to get the weather-gage. The wind was 
 half a gale, and in manoeuvring the St. George's foretop- 
 mast went over the side. Hatchets were seized and the 
 wreckage cut away, and the instant his ship was clear 
 Dampier put his helm up and got his vessel before it. 
 This inspired the enemy with wonderful spirit. He 
 crowded all the canvas he dared show to that wind, and 
 started in pursuit ; whereupon Dampier, observing that 
 his behaviour was animating the Spaniards with courage, 
 resolved to bring the ^S^^. George to the wind and fight it out. 
 Funnell relates this incident very brightly. " Captain 
 Dampier's opinion was that he could sail better upon 
 one Mast than the Enemy, and therefore it was best to 
 
V AN IDLE CONFLICT 127 
 
 put before the Wind; but, however, chose rather to 
 fight than to be chased ashore : So hoisting the bloody 
 Flag at the Main-topmast-head with a Eesolution neither 
 to give or to take Quarter, we began the Fight, and went 
 to it as fast as we could load and fire. The Enemy kept 
 to Windward at a good Distance from us ; so that we 
 could not come to make use of our Small-arms : But we 
 divided the two Watches ; and one was to manage the 
 Guns whilst the other looked on ; and when those at the 
 Guns were weary, the other were to take their Places 
 till they had refreshed themselves. By this means we 
 fired, I believe, five Guns to the Enemy's one. We fired 
 about 560, and he about 110 or 115; and we fought 
 him from twelve at Noon to Half an Hour to Six at 
 Night, altho' at a good Distance ; for he kept so far to 
 Windward of us that our Shot sometimes would hardly 
 reach him, tho' his would at the same time fly over 
 us." The cannonading — it came to no more — terminated 
 when the darkness fell. Dampier lay hove-to all night 
 waiting for the morning, but at daybreak nothing was 
 to be seen of the Spaniard. The action was merely a 
 shooting match, and the privateers had not a man killed 
 nor even hurt by the enemy. 
 
 Our hero's next step was to seek provisions and water. 
 The district, however, yielded him nothing, and he was 
 forced to rest satisfied with the lading of a couple of 
 small vessels, which he captured. One of them he fitted 
 out as a long-boat, and called her the Dragon. They 
 were now in the Gulf of Nicoya and at anchor close to 
 Middle Island, as Funnell terms it ; and here it was they 
 careened their ship, all hands going ashore and building 
 tents for the cooper and sailmaker, and for the storage 
 
128 WILLIAM DAMPIER ciiAr. 
 U- 
 
 of goods and provisions. Whilst this was doing Dampier 
 sent his mate, John Clipperton, and twenty men armed 
 to the teeth for a cruise in the Dragon. He found his 
 account in this little expedition, for at the end of six 
 days the Dragon returned with a Spanish craft of forty 
 tons freighted with brandy, wine, and sugar. Amongst 
 her people were six carpenters and caulkers, who had 
 been shipped by the owner for the purpose of repairing 
 her, and these men Dampier immediately set to work 
 upon his own ship. The bottom of the St. George, after 
 she had been careened, is described as resembling a 
 honeycomb. Nowhere was the plank much thicker 
 than an old sixpence; so sodden and rotten was the 
 wood that Funnell declares in some places he could 
 easily have thrust his thumb through it. They were 
 without timber to sheath her, and all that could be done 
 was to stop the leaks with nails and oakum. 
 
 Whilst the ship was in the hands of the carpenters 
 Dampier and Clipperton fell out, and the mate, with a 
 following of twenty-one men, mutinously seized the bark 
 that the Dragon had brought in, lifted her anchor and 
 sailed away outside the islands. Shelvocke, who was 
 afterwards associated with Clipperton, gives this man so 
 bad a character in his book that, if he possessed the same 
 qualities as Dampier's mate which he afterwards ex- 
 hibited as Shelvocke's consort, one can only wonder 
 that the captain of the St. George had not long before 
 marooned or pitched him overboard. The loss of these 
 twenty-two men was a serious blow, but the defection 
 might have resulted more seriously even than this to 
 Dampier, for all the St. George's ammunition and the 
 greater part of her provisions were in the bark when 
 
V CLIPPERTON'S CAREER 129 
 
 the mate seized her. Fortunately Clipperton was not 
 wholly a villain. Shortly after his departure he sent 
 word that he would put the stores belonging to the St. 
 George ashore in a house, keeping only what he required 
 for his own use. He was as good as his word ; canoes 
 were despatched, and the powder and provisions were 
 recovered. This man Clipperton was afterwards the 
 hero of some strange adventures. Harris calls him a 
 man of parts and spirit, but not the less was he the 
 completest rogue at that time ailoat. He professed 
 to have left Dampier for the same reason that had 
 caused Alexander Selkirk to live all alone by himself, — I 
 mean the craziness of the ship ; but surely he must have 
 been a rascal to have abandoned Dampier in the hour of 
 his need. Yet he was not wanting in the audacious cour- 
 age that was the characteristic of his buccaneering com- 
 peers. In his little bark, armed with two patareros, he 
 sailed to the coast of Mexico, captured a couple of ships, 
 one of which he sunk ; whilst for the other being new 
 he demanded ten thousand pieces of eight by way of 
 ransom, and got four thousand. He then sailed to the 
 Gulf of Salinas, cleaned his cockle-shell of a boat, and 
 made for the East Indies, reaching the Philippine Islands 
 in fifty-four days. He afterwards bore away for Macao, 
 where his crew left him. He returned to England in 
 1706, and in 1718 obtained command of the Success, 
 consort to the Speedwell, whose captain, Shelvocke, was 
 under him. He abandoned Shelvocke, and though they 
 afterwards met in the South Sea, declined to consort 
 with him in any way. His adventures are one of the 
 most interesting chapters in the annals of the buccaneers. 
 He returned home in or about the year. 1722, and 
 
 K 
 
130 WILLIAM D AMPLER chap. 
 
 shortly afterwards died of a broken heart, utterly 
 destitute. 
 
 But to return to Dampier. By October 7th he was 
 again in a condition to embark upon further adven- 
 tures. One notices with admiration his resolution to 
 keep the sea in an under-manned craft so rotten and 
 crazy that he might reasonably fear the first gale of 
 wind must pound her into staves. But the forlorn hope 
 was often the old buccaneer's best opportunity. Ex- 
 quemeling, or Esquemeling as the name is sometimes 
 spelt, tells of the pirate Le Grand that when famine- 
 stricken in a small boat in company with a few armed 
 men, he ordered one of his people to bore a hole through 
 the craft's bottom whilst approaching the vessel he 
 meant to board, that success might be as sure as despera- 
 tion could render it. There was something probably of 
 Le Grand's spirit in Dampier's policy. His men were 
 few, and he might have found it necessary to animate 
 them by an alternative whose issue could only mean 
 either conquest or destruction. 
 
 He was now cruising for the Acapulco ship, the most 
 romantic and golden of aU the hopes and dreams of the 
 privateersman. There were no limits to the fancies her 
 name conjured up. Imagination was dazzled by visions 
 of chests loaded with virgin gold and unminted silver, 
 by cases of costly ecclesiastical furniture, crucifixes, 
 chalices, and candlesticks of precious ore, images glorious 
 with jewels, plate of superb design, treasure equalling in 
 value the revenues of a flourishing principality. They 
 fell in with her on December 6th, in the morning. The 
 crew, Funnell drily tells us in efi'ect, had looked out for 
 her as though there were no diff'erence between seeing 
 
V CAPTAIN MAR TIN'S AD VICE 1 3 1 
 
 and taking her. They were indeed in the right kind of 
 mood for fighting. Their appetites had been whetted 
 by disappointment, and they were weary of a cruise that 
 had yielded them little more in the way of captures 
 than provisions, which their necessities quickly forced 
 them to consume. They were also sulky with the 
 defection of comrades, and every piratical instinct in 
 them was rabidly yearning after a prize which would 
 enable them to sail straight away home, with plenty of 
 money for all hands in their hold. They pluckUy bore 
 down to the tall fabric whose high sides were crowned 
 with the defences of bristHng tiers of guns, and saluted 
 her with several broadsides. The galleon, not suspecting 
 them to be an enemy, was unprepared ; the sudden 
 bombardment threw her people into confusion, and the 
 sailors — wretched seamen, as the Spaniards even at their 
 best were in those days — tumbled over each other in 
 their clumsy hurry to defend themselves. There was 
 one Captain Martin on board with Dampier, who, though 
 born a Spaniard, had been bred and educated in London. 
 He had been taken out of a ship captured by the Bt. 
 George in the preceding October. This Martin, whose 
 sympathies appear to have been with the English, 
 advised Dampier to take advantage of the confusion in 
 the galleon, and lay her aboard. Indeed it hardly 
 required a practised seafaring eye to perceive that, if the 
 Spaniard once got his batteries to bear, he would, to 
 employ Martin's language, "beat the St. George to 
 pieces." The value of the ship was reckoned at sixteen 
 million pieces of eight. That Dampier should have 
 hesitated is incomprehensible. Boarding was his only 
 chance ; he must have known that ; and yet he would 
 
132 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 not board. Hesitation was of course fatal. The enemy 
 brought his guns to bear, and it was then impossible for 
 the St. Gem-ge to lie alongside of her. The privateersmen 
 had nothing to throw but five-pound shot ; the galleon, 
 on the other hand, mounted eighteen and twenty-four 
 pounders. In a very short time the St. George was 
 struck between wind and water in her powder-room, and 
 two feet of plank were driven in under either quarter ; 
 after which nothing remained to Dampier but to make 
 his escape whilst his crazy ship continued to swim. 
 
 The bitterly disappointed crew clamoured to return 
 home. Fortune was against them, and the superstitions 
 of the forecastle were confirming the experiences of the 
 voyage. Further, there were scarcely provisions enough 
 to last them for another three months, whilst the ship 
 herself was in a condition to fall to pieces at any moment. 
 Less than this might sufficiently justify the mutinous 
 posture of the disgusted men. Nevertheless Dampier 
 persuaded them to prolong the cruise for another six 
 weeks, promising at the expiration of that time to carry 
 them to some factory in India, "where," says Funnell, 
 " we might all dispose of'ourselves, as we should think 
 most for our advantage." This being settled they pro- . 
 ceeded to the eastward, keeping the land in sight, but 
 though they passed Acapulco and other considerable 
 ports, I do not observe that Dampier attempted a single 
 town, or even sought a prize on the water. Apparently 
 the sole object of this trip was to find a convenient place 
 for watering the ship and the prize which they had with 
 them, — that is to say, the bark out of which they had 
 taken Captain Martin, — preparatory for their depart- 
 ure. But on January 6th, 1705, a month after their 
 
V FUNNELL'S PARTY 133 
 
 encounter with the Manila ship, there happened what 
 Funnell speaks of as a revolution in their affairs, " for 
 thirty of our Men," he continues, " agreed with Captain 
 Dampier to remain with him in the South Seas, but 
 with what View or on what Terms remained to us who 
 were not of that Number an impenetrable secret." It 
 is as likely as not that this was no new caprice on the 
 part of Dampier, and very possibly his motive in asking 
 the men to continue the cruise for another six weeks 
 was that he might have time to induce them to continue 
 with him for an indefinite term upon the South American 
 seaboard. Funnell's party consisted of thirty-three men, 
 which represents the force of Dampier's crew at that 
 time to have been sixty-three, not counting himself. 
 That thirty should decide to remain with him, and that 
 thirty-three should be, so to speak, forced to abandon 
 him without having any knowledge whatever of the 
 understanding between their shipmates and the com- 
 mander, is so inexplicable that I suspect some blunder or 
 concealment in Funnell's narrative at this point. It is, 
 indeed, just probable that Funnell and his thirty-two 
 associates were, by reason of bad health, disaffection, and 
 other causes, scarcely worth mustering. Yet they made 
 shift nevertheless to carry J;heir wretched little vessel to 
 the East Indies, and one might suppose that Dampier 
 would still have found his account in men who could 
 prove themselves qualified for such a navigation as 
 that. Or it is conceivable that Funnell and the others 
 were sick of the cruise and afraid of the ship, whilst 
 Dampier — that he might prevent the whole crew from 
 abandoning him — made golden promises under a pledge 
 of secrecy, which proved sufficiently potent to work upon 
 
134 WILLIAM D AMPLER chap. 
 
 the imaginations of thirty of the men, and to determine 
 them to give their captain another chance. 
 
 Be all this as it may, the St. George and the hark pro- 
 ceeded amicably together to the Gulf of Amapalla, at 
 which place they arrived on January 26th, and the 
 people at once went to work to divide the provisions 
 between the two ships. Before the bark sailed two of 
 the men who had resolved to stay with Captain Dampier 
 left him, and joined Funnell's party, which now numbered 
 thirty-five — namely, thirty-four English and a negro-boy. 
 Meanwhile Dampier's men were busy in refitting their 
 craft. The carpenter stopped the holes which the 
 cannon-balls of the galleon had made in her with tallow 
 and charcoal, not daring to drive in a nail. Four guns 
 were struck into the hold, which yet left sixteen mounted, 
 a greater number than Dampier had men to fight, if the 
 need arose, "for," says Funnell, "there remained with 
 him no more than twenty-eight Men and Boys, and most 
 of them landmen ; which was a very insignificant Force 
 for one who was to make War on a whole Nation." One 
 might think that the spectacle of such a ship as this 
 would inspire even a larger spirit of desertion than her 
 crew manifested. Certainly there was nothing in the 
 aspect of the tottering and rotten vessel to coax Funnell 
 and his companions back into Dampier's service. They 
 were supplied with four pieces of cannon, along with a 
 fair proportion of small arms and ammunition, and on 
 February 1st they bade farewell to their old associates 
 and started on their perilous voyage. 
 
 The subsequent adventures of Dampier need not take 
 long to relate. As we have seen, his crew consisted of 
 twenty-eight men only ; the St. George was in a pitiable 
 
V GLOOMY PSOSPECTS 135 
 
 condition, her seams open, every timber in her decayed, 
 her sails and rigging worn out, and in no sense was she 
 fit to keep the sea. Dampier was in the situation of a 
 gambler who has lost all but the guinea which he now 
 proposes to stake. Indeed, we find him throughout 
 confiding a great deal too much in luck. It is seldom 
 that he attempts to force fortune's hand by prompt, 
 vigorous, and original measures. One by one his brother 
 officers had abandoned him ; his crew had deserted him 
 by the score at a time ; and yet in a ship rotten to the 
 heart of her, and with a beggarly following of twenty- 
 eight gaunt and dissatisfied men, he clings to the scene 
 of his distresses and his disappointments with no further 
 expectation than the gambling hope that, since he is at 
 the very bottom of the wheel, the next revolution must 
 certainly raise him. Had he and his twenty-eight men 
 come fresh to these seas, they might have flattered them- 
 selves with brilliant prospects; smaller companies of 
 buccaneers had achieved incredible things, enlarged their 
 ranks as they progressed, shifted their flag from ship to 
 ship, until they found themselves in possession of a fleet 
 equal to any such force as the enemy in those waters had 
 it in his power to send against them. But Dampier's 
 men were dissatisfied and miserable, surly and despondent 
 with disappointment, and exhausted by privation and 
 severe labours. They looked at the future as promising 
 but a darker picture of what they had already sufi'ered. 
 It was indeed time for them to go home ; the privateering 
 spirit amongst them was moribund ; all heart had been 
 taken out of them. It speaks well for Dampier's personal 
 influence, whilst it also illustrates his singular genius of 
 persuasion, that he should have succeeded in keeping these 
 
136 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 men together by representations in -which possibly he 
 had as little faith as they. He told them that there was 
 nothing easier than to make their fortunes by surprising 
 some small Spanish town, and that the fewer there were of 
 them, the fewer there would be to share the booty. They 
 listened and sullenly acquiesced — animated, perhaps, by 
 a faint expiring gleam of their old buccaneering instincts. 
 Thereupon Dampier attacked Puna in Ecuador, then a 
 village formed of a small church and about thirty houses. 
 The night was dark when he landed, the inhabitants were 
 in bed; no resistance was offered, and the place was 
 captured without trouble. Having plundered this town, 
 they sailed to Lobos de la Mar, where they let go their 
 anchor, whilst they deliberated what they should do 
 next. On the way to this island they captured a small 
 Spanish vessel full of provisions. Dampier called a 
 council, and it was resolved that they should quit the 
 St. Georffe and sail away to the East Indies in their prize. 
 It is manifest from this resolution that their easy 
 plundering . of Puna, and their equally easy capture of 
 the bark,^ had failed to reconcile them to a longer cruise 
 against the Spaniards. Having transferred everything 
 likely to be of use to them from the St. George, they left 
 that crazy fabric rolling at her anchor and steered west- 
 wards for the Indies. 
 
 What adventures they met with on their way I do 
 not know. Harris says that on their arrival at one of the 
 
 ' This term " bark " is used generically by tbe old ■writers. Rigs 
 were few, and vessels, it would seem, took their names from their 
 dimensions, as galleon, carrack, galley, and the like. In our own 
 times — and it has been so for a century and a half, at least — a craft 
 is defined by her rig. Thus a vessel rigged as a ship would be 
 called a ship though she were only fifty tons. 
 
RETURN HOME 137 
 
 Dutch settlements their ship was seized, their property- 
 confiscated, and themselves turned loose to shift as they 
 best could. Dampier succeeded in making his way 
 home. He arrived, as was customary with him, a beggar. 
 But the reports of his voyage considerably enlarged his 
 reputation. The world pitied the misfortunes whilst it 
 admired the ambitious efforts and the bold projects of 
 a seaman of whose nationality every Enghshman was 
 proud. By command of the Queen he was presented to 
 her, kissed her hand, and had the honour of relating his 
 adventures to her. But all this left him poor, and it 
 was now his business once more to look about him for 
 further occupation, 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 1708-lYll 
 
 THE VOYAGE WITH WOODES KOGEES ^ 
 
 Dampier probably obtained the next berth we find him 
 filling through the influence of Woodes Eogers. There 
 is no doubt that it was owing to Dampier's influence 
 and representations that the expedition under Eogers 
 was equipped and despatched. Harris tells us that he 
 addressed himself to the merchants of Bristol, who listened 
 to his proposals with patience and interest. At all 
 events his experience would enable him to submit to 
 them that his own, and indeed the failures of others, 
 were owing, not to the voyage being a dangerous or 
 diflScult one, not to the courage nor to the superior 
 strength of the enemy, not to any lack of the right kind of 
 qualities amongst the crews, but simply to those under- 
 takings having been badly organised at the start, unwisely 
 
 ''■ "A Cruising Voyage Round the World : first'to the Soutt Seas, 
 thence to the East Indies, and homewards by the Cape of Good 
 Hope. Begun in 1708 and finished in 1711. Containing a Journal 
 of all the Eemarkable Transactions ; particularly of the taking of 
 Puna and Guayaquil, of the Acapuloo ship, and other Prizes. An 
 Account of Alexander Selkirk's living alone four years and four 
 months on an Island ; and a brief Description of several Countries 
 in our Course noted for Trade, especially in the South Sea, etc." 
 By Captain Woodes Rogers, 1712. 
 
CHAP. VI THE PILOT'S DUTIES 139 
 
 officered, and injudiciously conducted. The Bristol mer- 
 chants fully agreed with him, and illustrated the, spirit of 
 their concurrence by fitting out two ships and refusing 
 him any post of command. He and Eogers had long been 
 acquaiated, as may be gathered from several passages 
 in his voyages. There is little question that it was 
 Dampier's reputation which procured him his appoint- 
 ment as pUot to his friend ; but I take it that Eogers 
 warmly supported Dampier's solicitations, and that the 
 advocacy of the chief commander proved powerful 
 enough to neutralise, or at least to qualify, the prejudice 
 which our hero's misfortunes as a freebooter and his 
 half-heartedness as an explorer had excited against him. 
 As a pilot there was no man then living better 
 qualified. He had spent long months of his life in the 
 South Seas, and his knowledge of Indian and Pacific waters 
 was varied and extensive. His name was also formid- 
 able to the Spaniards, a detail of considerable moment 
 in the catalogue of privateering merits. His dignity 
 could sufier nothing by his acceptance of the post of 
 pilot to the expedition. Many sea-words have changed 
 their old signification, and when we now talk of a pilot 
 we think of a man whose business it is to navigate ships 
 through short spaces of dangerous waters. There were 
 of course pilots of this kind in Dampier's day. But ia 
 addition there were mariners selected for their knowledge 
 of distant parts to accompany ships in voyages round 
 the world, or to the ports of remote nations. The post 
 was an honourable one ; the pilot stood alone ; he had 
 not indeed the captain's general powers, but his duties 
 were attended with many privileges, and he was looked 
 up to as a person of authority and distinction. It was 
 
140 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 such a position then as Dampier would have been willing 
 to accept even though he had earned the value of an 
 estate by his last voyage. 
 
 The expedition was promoted, as has already been 
 said, by a number of Bristol merchants. Twenty-two 
 names are given as representing only a portion of this 
 very large committee of adventurers. The chief com- 
 mand was entrusted to Captain Woodes Eogers, a man 
 who had suffered much from the French, and who was 
 eager to repair as well as to avenge his injuries by 
 reprisals. He had long been known as an intelligent 
 officer and an excellent seaman. He had also a name 
 as a disciplinarian, and he was further remarkable for 
 the swiftness and sagacity of his decisions in moments 
 of difficulty and peril. In point of literary merit his 
 book is worthy to rank with Shelvocke's narrative, 
 though the form and spirit of both are manifestly 
 inspired by Dampier's volumes. The captain next in 
 command was Stephen Courtney, who was also a member 
 of the committee and the holder of a considerable share 
 in the speculation. Rogers's second captain, or chief 
 mate as he would now be called, was Thomas Dover, 
 a physician by profession, who in his old age wrote a 
 work called Br. Dover's Last Legacy to his Country, in 
 which he so effectually recommended the use of quick- 
 silver that "ladies as well as gentlemen of rank and 
 fortune bespangled the floors and carpets with this metal, 
 and scattered their diamonds wherever they went to 
 dance or to play." ^ It is strange to hear of a doctor of 
 medicine going as lieutenant of a buccaneering craft; 
 
 1 An Historical Account of all the Voyages Round the World, 
 vol. i. 1773. 
 
VI " THE CONSTITUTION" 141 
 
 but it is stranger yet to read that Dover's bad temper 
 was the cause of his being chosen. Yet his chief recom- 
 mendation lay in his violent tongue, which, it was argued, 
 would effectually prevent him from winning adherents, 
 so that there was no chance of his weakening the expedi- 
 tion by heading or creating a party ! ^ The captain under 
 Courtney was Edward Cooke, a person of talent and 
 observation and of no small literary ability, whose hatred 
 of the French was only equalled by Rogers. 
 
 The venture was thoroughly matured before it was 
 launched. Stringent rules and regulations serving as 
 articles of war were drawn up and signed by the pro- 
 moters, who called the document "The Constitution." 
 The experiences as well as the advice of Dampier may 
 be traced in these rules. It was required that in case 
 of death, sickness, or desertion, a council should be called 
 of all the officers of the ships, that the person selected 
 should be the unanimous choice, and that all attacks by 
 sea or land should first be generally debated by the whole 
 body of officers. In case of the votes for and against 
 being equal, Captain Dover, as President of the Council, 
 was to have the "double- voice." The manifest object 
 of these articles was to stop the bickerings which com- 
 monly attended the undertakings of the privateers, and 
 which were often the cause of their failures and defeats, 
 by importing the general voice into every decision. The 
 ships were the Bvke, of three hundred tons, thirty guns, 
 and one hundred and seventy men, with Rogers and 
 Dover as first and second captains ; and the Dutchess, of 
 
 1 But as a member of the committee he might also have claimed 
 a right to participate in the dangers as well as in the commercial 
 risks of the expedition. 
 
142 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 two hundred and seventy tons, twenty-six guns, and one 
 hundred and fifty-one men, whose first and second in 
 command were Courtney and Cooke. Both vessels were 
 commissioned by Prince George of Denmark to cruise 
 on the coasts of Peru and Mexico against the Queen's 
 enemies, the French and Spaniards. 
 
 Dampier was on board Woodes Eogers : the story of 
 the expedition, therefore, must be followed to its conclu- 
 sion, though, unfortunately, our hero has no longer an indi- 
 viduality. His name indeed occasionally occurs, but he 
 vanishes as a figure, and we are merely conscious as we, 
 follow the narrative that we are in his company, and 
 that though he is lost to view he is sharing in the 
 exploits and dangers, in the hopes and fears, of the crowd 
 of resolute men whom he pilots. 
 
 The two ships set sail from Bristol, or rather from 
 Kingroad, at the mouth of the river Avon, on Monday, 
 August 1st, 1708, and arrived at Cork on the 9th in 
 company with several other ships which had sailed under 
 the convoy of a man-of-war called the Hastings. Until 
 the 27th they were busy in thoroughly preparing the 
 ships for the voyage. Here also they received a number 
 of men to take the place of others who had been brought 
 from Bristol, but who, even in the short trip across the 
 St. George's Channel, had proved themselves worthless as 
 sailors. When they weighed on the morning of the 
 28th their crews were unusually strong. Eogers says 
 that he doubled the number of officers as a provision 
 against mutinies, and also that there might be plenty of 
 qualified persons to take command in case of death. 
 The DuTce indeed was so full of men that she was obhged 
 to leave a portion of the boatswain's stores behind to 
 
JACK ASHORE 143 
 
 make room for the people. The proverbial qualities of 
 the sailor show humorously at the outset of this voyage. 
 All hands knew that they were to sail immediately, yet 
 we read that "they were continually marrying whilst 
 we staid at Cork." An instance is given of a Dane whom 
 a Eoman Catholic priest had united in holy wedlock to 
 an Irishwoman. Neither understood the other's tongue, 
 and they were forced to hire an interpreter before they 
 could tell each other how fond they were. The incon- 
 venience of unintelligibility, however, did not cool their 
 fervour ; on the contrary, it was noticed that this Dane 
 and his Irish wife were more affected by their parting 
 than any of the other couples, "And," says the narrative, 
 " the Fellow continued melancholy for several Days after 
 we were at Sea. The rest understanding each other, 
 drank their Cans of Flip till the last Minute, concluded 
 with a Health to our good Voyages and their happy 
 Meeting, and then parted unconcerned." The number of 
 sailors in both ships when they weighed was three hun- 
 dred and thirty-three, one-third of whom were foreigners. 
 Many of them were by trade tinkers, tailors, haymakers, 
 pedlars, and fiddlers; there were also a negro and ten boys. 
 Eogers was glad at the start to sail under convoy of a 
 man-of-war. The holds of both the Bvke and the Dutchess 
 were flush to the hatches with provisions ; the 'tween- 
 decks were crowded with cables, with bags of bread, and 
 casks of water ; so that it would have been impossible to 
 engage an enemy without throwing a large quantity of 
 the stores overboard. There were one hundred and 
 eighty-two men aboard the Duke and one hundred and 
 fifty-one aboard the Dutchess, and the crowding, when 
 the tonnage of the ships is thought of side by side 
 
144 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 with their choked holds and 'tween -decks, must have 
 rendered life at the start intolerable to the privateers- 
 men. Despite their condition, however, they agreed to 
 the proposal of the captain of the man-of-war that they 
 should cruise a few days off Cape Finisterre ; the crews of 
 the vessels were thereupon mustered, and the nature and 
 intention of the expedition explained to them, in order 
 that such of the men as should show themselves discon- 
 tented might be sent home as mutineers in the Hastings. 
 All professed themselves satisfied with the exception of 
 " one poor Fellow," says Rogers, " who was to have been 
 Tything-man that year, and was apprehensive his Wife 
 would be obliged to pay 40 Shillings for his Default. 
 But when he saw everybody else easy, and strong hopes 
 of plunder, he likewise grew quiet by degrees, and drank 
 as heartily as anybody to the good Success of the 
 Voyage.'' Yet, despite the assurances of the men, a 
 mutiny happened whilst Rogers was on board a Swedish 
 vessel he had chased, whose papers exempted her. The 
 ringleaders were the boatswain and three of the inferior 
 oflBcers. Ten of the men were put in irons, and a 
 sailor seized to the " jeers " (as the tackles were called 
 which hoisted and lowered the fore and main yards) and 
 punished by the usual process of whipping and pickling. 
 The outbreak was so serious that all the officers went 
 armed, not knowing what was next to happen. After 
 some further trouble and much anxiety the mutiny was 
 quelled, but it needed all Rogers's valuable qualities as a 
 commander to deal with it. 
 
 I do not doubt, had Dampier been in charge, that the 
 disturbance would have ended in the ruin of the voyage. 
 Of the unruliness of the crews of that day, hundreds of 
 
VI FIELDING ON SAILORS 145 
 
 examples may be gathered from the contemporary records. 
 The seaman of Dampier's age was undeniably a lion- 
 hearted man, incomparably intrepid in his conflicts 
 whether with the elements or with the enemies of his 
 country ; but it is equally true that most of his charac- 
 teristics were those of the savage. He was a rufiian in his 
 behaviour, he was a brute in his tastes, he conversed in 
 a dialect that was almost wholly formed of oaths, and he 
 pursued his calling in a skin soaked with the liquor that 
 was served out to him by the gallon at the time. The 
 average merchant -sailor of the last century has been 
 sketched by Fielding in his Voyage, to Lisbon. "It is 
 difficult," he says, "I think, to assign a satisfactory 
 reason why sailors in general should of all others think 
 themselves entirely discharged from the common bands 
 of humanity, and should seem to glory in the language 
 and behaviour of savages ! They see more of the world, 
 and have most of them a more erudite education, than is 
 the portion of landmen of their degree. ... Is it that 
 they think true courage (for they are the bravest fellows 
 upon earth) inconsistent with all the gentleness of a 
 humane carriage, and that the contempt of civil order 
 springs up in minds but little cultivated at the same 
 time, and from the same principles, with the contempt 
 
 of danger and death'! Is it 'i In short, it is so." 
 
 Happily we may now say it was so ! But the reason is 
 not hard to find. Roderick Bandom is a full and satisfying 
 reply to Fielding's interrogatory. The sailor of that day 
 was a brute because his life was that of a brute. He 
 was for long months at a time absent from every possible 
 reiining influence. He was fed on provisions such as a 
 dog would recoil from. His sea-parlour was a black, wet 
 
 L 
 
146 WILLIAM DAMPIER ohap. 
 
 hole, filled with vermin and loathsome with bad smells. 
 His punishments were beyond expression inhuman ; he 
 was whipped until his back became a bloody mass, into 
 which brine was rubbed that his sufferings might be 
 rendered more exquisite. He was hoisted to a yard- 
 arm, then dropped suddenly into the water and hauled 
 violently under the ship's keel, and this was repeated 
 until he was nearly drowned. He was lashed half-naked 
 to the mast, and so left to stand for a period often 
 running into days, insulted by his shipmates, and 
 exposed to the scorching heat or the frosty sting of the 
 parallels in which the ship happened to be ; he was 
 loaded with irons and immured for weeks in a dark and 
 poisonous forepeak, whose only tenants besides himself 
 were the huge rats of the vessel's hold. It was not, 
 then, that the sailor regarded himself discharged, as 
 Fielding suggests, from the common bands of humanity ; 
 he knew nothing of humanity, whether during his brief 
 and roaring orgies ashore or during his long and bitter 
 servitude upon the high seas. The traditions of those 
 days still linger, and the sailor of our own times suffers 
 to a certain extent from prejudices which were excited 
 and perpetuated by the bold and reckless savages of the 
 age of Dampier and, later on, of Fielding. But I am 
 speaking of the average merchantman ; it is readily con- 
 ceivable that the buccaneer or privateersman should 
 have gone far beyond him. He recognised no restric- 
 tions save those which were absolutely essential to his 
 safety at sea; his profession of piracy rendered him 
 insensible to cruelty by familiarising him with many of 
 the most violent forms of it ; he slept like a wild animal 
 upon the hard deck, with a rug for his cover and nothing 
 
VI ORATAVA THREATENED 147 
 
 else between him and the stars. Dampier grimly says 
 in his chapter on the winds : " 'Tis usual with Seamen 
 in those parts to sleep on the Deck, especially for 
 Privateers ; among whom I made these Observations. In 
 Privateers, especially when we are at an Anchor, the 
 Deck is spread with Mats to lye on each Night. Every 
 Man has one, some two ; and this, with a Pillow for the 
 Head and a Eug for a Covering, is all the Bedding that 
 is necessary for Men of that Employ." For one day 
 the freebooter might feast on the fifty delicacies of a 
 plundered ship, and for weeks his food would be so 
 coarse and innutritious as to fill his eyes with the fires 
 of famine and pale his cheek to the haggardness of the 
 corpse. It needed exceptional and extraordinary powers 
 of command to control such wretches. The qualities of 
 the men in charge of Eogers and Courtney are signifi- 
 cantly expressed by their early mutiny. Many of them 
 were seasoned buccaneers — rufiians whom not even the 
 common hope could keep straight. Fortunately for his 
 employers, Eogers knew how to handle them. 
 
 On the 18th the two vessels captured a small Spanish 
 ship which they carried to Tenerifie. There were some 
 male and female passengers on board, and she was laden 
 with what would now be called a general cargo. The 
 English merchants, to whom possibly a portion of this 
 cargo was consigned, objected to the capture, and repre- 
 sented that they would be in danger if the bark were 
 not restored. The agent of the privateers, a man named 
 Vanbrugh, went ashore and was detained, and it came 
 very near to Eogers and Courtney bombarding the 
 town of Oratava. When the inhabitants saw the vessels 
 standing in with tompions out and all hands at quarters, 
 
148 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 they offered to satisfy the demands of the buccaneers, who 
 thereupon sold the prize for four hundred and fifty dollars 
 and then made haste to sail away, very glad of the chance 
 to once more " mind their own concerns," as Eogers puts 
 it. On the last day of September they dropped anchor 
 in the harbour of St. Vincent, one of the Cape de Verde 
 Islands. Scarcely were they arrived when fresh disturb- 
 ances arose amongst the men. The mutiny originated in 
 altercations touching the distribution of plunder, and 
 with the hope of terminating these incessant and perilous 
 brawls, the commanders went to work to frame such 
 articles as they believed would inspire the seamen with 
 confidence in the intentions of their superiors. The 
 paper they drew up is preserved, and it is of interest as 
 illustrating a form of marine life that for generations 
 has been as extinct as the ships in which the privateers- 
 men sailed. First of all it was settled that the plunder 
 taken on board any prize by either ship should be 
 equally divided between the companies of both ships. 
 Any man conceab'ng booty exceeding the value of a 
 dollar during twenty-four hours after the capture of a 
 prize was to be severely punished, and to lose his share 
 of the plunder. Article the fourth provided that "If 
 any prize be taken by boarding, then whatsoever is 
 taken shall be every man's own as follows : viz. a Sailor 
 10 pounds, any Officer below a Carpenter 20 pounds, a 
 Mate, Gunner, Boatswain, and Carpenter 40 pounds, a 
 Lieutenant or Master 80 pounds, and the Captains 100 
 pounds each, above the gratuity promised by the owners 
 to such as shall signalise themselves." It was further 
 agreed that twenty pieces of eight should be given to 
 him who first saw a prize of good value. Another 
 
VI A MUTINOUS MATE 149 
 
 article provided that every man on board, after the 
 capture of a prize, should be searched by persons 
 appointed for that purpose. This agreement was 
 signed by the officers and men of both ships, and 
 was perhaps the best, if indeed it was not the only, 
 expedient that Eogers could have hit upon for silenc- 
 ing the constant mutinous growlings of the rapacious 
 rogues under his command, unavailing as it subsequently 
 proved. 
 
 They weighed on October 8th and steered for the 
 coast of Brazil. In spite of thoughtfully-framed articles, 
 handsome concessions on the part of the captains, and 
 the taut discipline of the quarter-deck, the spirit of 
 mutiny continued strong. The men were too numerous ; 
 the ship's work made demands upon only a portion of 
 them at a time ; the crew had therefore plenty of leisure, 
 which they employed in haranguing one another into in- 
 subordination. As an example of the difficulty of dealing 
 with these men, it is related that a fellow named Page, 
 who was second mate of the Dutchess, was ordered on 
 board the Buke to exchange posts with a man similarly 
 rated. Captain Cooke was sent to fetch him; Page 
 refused to come ; a dispute followed, fists were doubled 
 up and the men fell to blows. They managed at last to 
 convey the mutinous mate to the Duke, but before they 
 had time to charge him with Ms offence, he sprang into 
 the sea and started to swim back to his ship. He was 
 recaptured, lifted over the side and punished — probably 
 spread-eagled and man-handled, after the old fashion. 
 Disturbances of this kind were not calculated to gild 
 the prospects of the sober-headed. In the Dutchess they 
 had eight of the ringleaders of a party (who had pro- 
 
I50 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 posed to run away with the ship) under hatches in 
 irons. There were repeated attempts to desert after the 
 vessels had come to an anchor on November 18th off the 
 coast of Brazil. Two sailors escaped into the woods, 
 but were so terrified by the sight of a number of 
 monkeys and baboons which they mistook for tigers, 
 that they plunged into the water to the depth of their 
 waists, and stood bawling for help until a boat was sent 
 to fetch them aboard. One thinks of Dampier, hot- 
 tempered and prone to despondency, talking with his 
 friend Eogers about the troublesome posture of the 
 crew, expressing many doubts as to the practicability of 
 the voyage, and perhaps suggesting adventures remote 
 from the prescription of the Bristol merchants. An 
 incident peculiar to the old piratical life steals out in 
 this part of the story. Early one morning the people 
 who were on the look-out on the quarter-deck sighted a 
 canoe gliding silently and shadow-like shorewards. It 
 was hailed and ordered to come aboard ; but no other 
 answer was returned than the swifter plying of the oars. 
 The pinnace and yawl were manned and sent in pursuit, 
 and on approaching the canoe one of them fired into it 
 to bring it to. It held on bravely nevertheless, but was 
 captured as its stem smote the beach. One of her 
 people was a friar, who with quivering knees instantly 
 owned to possessing a little store of gold, obtained, as 
 the rough sailors surmised, "by his trade of confessing 
 the ignorant.'' The father was very politely treated, but 
 he did not seem to value the attention paid him by 
 Captain Eogers. What he wanted was his gold, which 
 there is no reason whatever to suppose he ever received. 
 He talked of obtaining justice in Portugal or England, 
 
VI ALEXANDER SELKIRK 151 
 
 and -was answered by the hurricane shout to the fore- 
 castle to get the ship under-weigh. 
 
 The vessels were now fairly bound for the passage of 
 the Horn. The crew, who in the torrid zone growled 
 continuously and piratically in their gizzards, were no 
 sooner in the high latitudes than they grew reasonable. 
 It was the summer season in that hemisphere, but 
 Dampier carried them so far south that all hands nearly 
 perished of cold. At least a third of the people of both 
 ships were down with sickness ; and they barely escaped 
 a languishing and miserable end by the good fortune of 
 prosperous winds, which blew them swiftly northwards 
 under more temperate heights. It was necessary to 
 make land speedily for the sake of the men's health, 
 and Juan Fernandez was fixed upon. They steered for 
 the island, but the charts differed and they could not 
 find it. Dampier was as much at a loss as the rest, and 
 wondered at not being able to hit it, telling how often 
 he had been there, and how he carried a most accurate 
 map of the island about with him in his head. In order 
 to find it they were forced to sail in sight of the coast of 
 ChiU, so as to obtain " a departure," and then stretch 
 away west upon the parallel of it, or thereabouts. They 
 fell in with it at last, but not until after much fruitless 
 scouring of the seas. 
 
 The name of Dampier is intimately associated with 
 the passage that now follows. There is nothing, perhaps, 
 in what may be termed the romantic chapters of the 
 maritime annals more picturesque and impressive than 
 the discovery by the Bvke and Dutchess of Alexander 
 Selkirk on the island of Juan Fernandez. The accentua- 
 tion the story obtained from the genius of Defoe makes 
 
152 WILLIAM D AMPLER CHAi-. 
 
 it immortal. But even as a mere anecdote, without 
 better skill brought to bear upon it than is found in the 
 plain relations of Rogers and Cooke, its interest is so 
 remarkable, it is so brimful of fascinating inspiration, 
 that of all sea-stories it bids fair to be the longest remem- 
 bered. Indeed it must be said that a great number of 
 people, otherwise pretty well informed, are familiar with 
 the name of Dampier only in connection with the strange, 
 surprising adventures of Mr. Alexander Selkirk. The 
 narrative belongs peculiarly to Dampier's experiences. 
 Selkirk was mate of the Cinque Forts when her captain, 
 Stradling, was Dampier's consort, and he was still that 
 ship's mate when Stradling quarrelled with Dampier 
 at King's Island in the Bay of Panama. The tale 
 is related by Woodes Rogers and by Cooke,'' — an old- 
 world tale indeed, which every schoolboy has by heart ; 
 yet I cannot satisfy myself that its omission on the score 
 of triteness only would be desirable in a volimie that 
 professes to recount the most striking passages in the 
 naval career of William Dampier. Cooke's version is 
 fuller than Rogers's — that is to say, he wrote two 
 accounts of it, his reference to it in his first volume being 
 deemed meagre and unsatisfactory by the public, who 
 had been set agape by the wonderful yarn ; but Rogers's 
 narrative is the better written ; besides, as Dampier is 
 aboard the Buke, it is proper to allow his captain to 
 speak. The full story is much too long for quotation at 
 large in these pages ; I therefore select the following as 
 
 ^ In ^ Voyage to the South Sea trade, and round the World. 
 Wherein an Account is given of Mr. Alexander Selkirk, his manner 
 of Living, and taming some "Wild Beasts, during the four years and 
 four months he lived upon the uninhabited Island of Juan Fer- 
 nandez," 1712. 
 
VI TBE STORY OF SELKIRK 153 
 
 amongst tlie most striking passages. They were off the 
 island on February 1st, 1709, and sent the pinnace 
 ashore with Captain Dover in charge. 
 
 "As soon as it was dark, we saw a Light ashore. 
 Our Boat was then about a League from the Island, and 
 bore away for the Ships as soon as she saw the Lights : 
 We put our Lights aboard for the Boat, tho' some were 
 of Opinion the Lights we saw were our Boat's Lights : 
 But as Night came on it appeared too large for that. 
 We fired our Quarterdeck Gun and several Musquets, 
 shewing Lights in our Mizen and Fore Shrouds, that our 
 Boat might find us whilst we were in the Lee of the 
 Island : . . . All this Stir' and Apprehension arose, as 
 we afterwards found, from one poor naked Man who 
 passed in our Imagination, at present, for a Spanish 
 Garrison, a Body of Frenchmen, or a Crew of Pirates." 
 
 Next day they sent their yawl ashore, and as this 
 boat did not return, they despatched the pinnace to seek 
 her. Eogers then continues : 
 
 " Immediately our Pinnace returned from the Shore 
 and brought abundance of Crayfish with a Man cloathed 
 in Goat-skins, who looked wilder than the first Owners 
 of them. He had been on the Island Four Years and 
 Four Months, being left there by Captain Stradling in 
 the Cinque Forts ; his Name was Alexander Selkirk, a 
 Scotsman who had been Master of the Cinque Ports, a 
 Ship that came here last with Captain Dampier, who told 
 me that this was the best man in her, and I immediately 
 agreed with him to be a Mate on board our Ship : 'Twas 
 he that made the Fire last Night when he saw our 
 Ships, which he judged to be English. . . . The reason 
 of his being left here was a Difference between him and 
 
154 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 his Captain ; which, together with the Ship's being leaky, 
 made him wiUing rather to stay here, than go along with 
 him at first ; and when he was at last willing to go the 
 Captain would not receive him. . . . He had with him 
 his Cloaths and Bedding, with a Firelock, some Powder, 
 Bullets, and Tobacco, a Hatchet, a Knife, a Kettle, a 
 Bible, some Pratical Pieces, and his Mathematical In- 
 struments and Books. He diverted and provided for 
 himself as well as he could ; but for the first eight Months 
 had much ado to bear up against Melancholy and the 
 Terror of being left alone in such a Place. He built two 
 Huts with Pimento-trees, covered them with long Grass, 
 and lined them with the Skins of Goats, which he killed 
 with his Gun as he wanted, so long as his Powder lasted, 
 which was but a Pound ; and that being almost spent, he 
 got Fire by rubbing two Sticks of Pimento Wood together 
 upon his Knee. In the lesser Hut, at some Distance 
 from the other, he dressed his Victuals ; and in the 
 larger he slept, and employed himself in Eeading, singing 
 Psalms, and Praying, so that he said he was a better Chris- 
 tian while in this Solitude than ever he was before, or 
 than he was afraid he should ever be again. At first 
 he never eat anything till Hunger constrained him, partly 
 for Grief and partly for want of Bread and Salt : Nor 
 did he go to Bed till he could watch no longer ; the 
 Pimento Wood, which burnt very clear, served him 
 both for Fire and Candle, and refreshed him with its 
 fragrant Smell. ... By the Favour of Providence and 
 Vigour of his Youth, being now but thirty Years old, 
 he came at last to conquer all the Inconveniences of his 
 Solitude and to be very easy. When his Cloaths were 
 out he made himself a Coat and a Cap of Goat-skins, 
 
VI SELKIRK'S STORY 155 
 
 which he stitched together with little Thongs of the same 
 that he cut with his Knife. He had no other Needle 
 but a Nail ; and when his Knife was worn to the Back 
 he made others as well as he could of some Iron Hoops 
 that were left ashore, which he beat thin, and ground 
 upon Stones. Having some Linen Cloth by him, he 
 sewed him some Shirts with a Nail, and stitched them 
 with the Worsted of his old Stockings, which he pulled 
 out on purpose. He had his last Shirt on when we found 
 him in the Island. At his first coming on board us he 
 had so much forgot his Language for want of Use that 
 we could scarce understand him ; for he seemed to speak 
 his Words by halves. We offered him a Dram ; but he 
 would not touch it, having drank nothing but Water 
 since his being there ; and it was some Time before he 
 could relish our Victuals." 
 
 It is easy to imagine the interest with which 
 Dampier would listen to the recital of his old associate's 
 strange adventures. Cooke tells us that Selkirk had 
 conceived "an irreconcilible aversion to an oificer on 
 board the Ginqus Ports, who, he was informed, was on 
 board the Buke, but not being a principal in command, 
 he was prevailed upon to waive that circumstance and 
 accompany Captain Dampier, for whom he had a friend- 
 ship." Whoever the person may have been, the Scotch- 
 man's disKke of him was bitter, and it was to Dampier's 
 persuasions that Eogers owed the services of a man who 
 proved of the utmost use to him whilst lying at the 
 island by enabling him to supply the ships with fresh 
 provisions and by facilitating the business of taking in 
 wood and water. It is observable that Eogers styled 
 Selkirk the governor of the island, a half-humorous and 
 
156 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 half-pathetic fancy (when one thinks of the desperate 
 loneliness of the unhappy man), which Defoe afterwards 
 adopted when making Eobinson Crusoe speak of his pos- 
 sessions and territories, his castles and his dependents. 
 
 The vessels arrived, as we have seen, on February 
 1st, and by the 3rd a smith's forge had been conveyed 
 ashore, the coopers were hard at work, and there were 
 tents, or "pavilions," erected for the commanders and 
 the sick. But it was their business not to lose time, 
 for they had long before — that is to say, when they were 
 at the Canaries — heard that five large French ships were 
 coming to search for them in the South Sea; so that 
 very quickly, all the sick men happily recovering rapidly 
 with the exception of two who died, they had refitted 
 their ships, taken in wood and water, and boiled down 
 and stowed away about eighty gallons of sea-lions' oil to 
 use for the lamps, that they might save the candles. 
 This done they set sail, after holding a consultation, 
 which resulted in further regulations for the preservation 
 of discipline; and on May 15th captured a little vessel 
 of sixteen tons, whose master furnished them with the 
 reassuring news that seven French ships, which had been 
 cruising off this part of the coast for some time, had six 
 months previously gone away for the Horn, and it was 
 added they were not likely to return. There was other 
 news besides of a kind to make their mouths water, parti- 
 cularly that the widow of the deceased Viceroy of Peru 
 would shortly embark for Acapulco with her family and 
 the whole of her fortune, and probably break her journey 
 at Payta. They were also told that some months previ- 
 ously a ship had sailed from Payta for Acapulco with two 
 hundred thousand pieces of eight on board, together with a 
 
VI " CONQUEST OF GUAYAQUIL" 157 
 
 rich cargo of liquors and flour. More useful information 
 was conveyed in the statement that a certain Senor Morel 
 was waiting in a stout ship filled with dry goods for a 
 vessel expected from Panama richly laden, with a bishop 
 aboard, and that both craft would put to sea together. 
 The idea of a bishop was commonly associated in the 
 buccaneering mind with visions of the sacred splendours 
 of the altar and the fruits of long years dedicated to 
 painful hoarding. So it was straightway resolved by 
 Rogers and his people to start for a cruise off Payta, 
 meanwhile exercising all possible precaution against dis- 
 covery lest larger designs should be spoilt. 
 
 A few days after they had come to this determination 
 Captain Rogers and Captain Dover fell out. Rogers 
 says that Dover charged him with insolence; Captain 
 Cooke, on the other hand, takes Dover's part in his story 
 of this passage. Difficulties of this kind were incessantly 
 occurring amongst the buccaneers, and on the eve, too, 
 very often of the execution of big projects. The quarrel, 
 however, is not dwelt upon at length ; probably the dis- 
 putants quickly saw the wisdom of calling a truce that 
 they might attend to the serious business of what is 
 grandiloquently termed "the conquest of Guayaquil." 
 The great undertaking was settled thus : Dover was to 
 command a company of seventy marines, Rogers another 
 company of seventy-one officers and sailors, Courtney a 
 third company of seventy-three men, and Dampier was 
 to have charge of the artillery, with a reserve force of 
 twenty-two seamen. Meanwhile Cooke was to command 
 the Dutchess with forty-two men, and Captain Robert 
 Fry the Duhe with forty men ; bringing up the whole 
 force to a total of three hundred and twenty. In 
 
158 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 addition there were blacks, Indians, and prisoners, to 
 the number of two hundred and sixty-six ; forming an 
 army of five hundred and eighty-six people for the 
 captains and officers to look after. The appetites of the 
 buccaneers were shrewdly sharpened by the understand- 
 ing that bedding, wearing apparel, gold rings, buttons, 
 buckles, gold or silver crucifixes, watches, liquors, and 
 provisions, should be reckoned fair plunder to be equally 
 divided ; but money, women's earrings, loose diamonds, 
 pearls, and precious stones, were to be held as belonging 
 to the merchants. On the 15th there was a smart 
 engagement between the privateersmen's boats and a 
 Spanish ship, in which Eogers lost his brother, who was 
 second lieutenant on board the Bvke. The vessel was 
 captured, and proved to be the craft in which the bishop 
 had sailed ; but he had gone ashore at Point St. Helena, 
 leaving the ship to carry his property to Lima. She 
 had seventy blacks and a number of passengers on board. 
 The lading consisted of bale goods, and a considerable 
 quantity of pearls were found in her. Captain Cooke 
 took charge, and the prisoners were divided between the 
 Bvke, and Dutchess. 
 
 The little bark of sixteen tons which they had taken 
 some time previously they named the Beginning, and on 
 April 21st in the morning she was sent to cruise close 
 inshore to see all clear for the landing of the men. 
 The report she brought was that there was a vessel 
 riding close under the point whose crew, on sighting 
 the Beginning, had hurried ashore and vanished. On 
 this the privateersmen rowed towards the town of 
 Guayaquil. The night drew down dark ; the men pulled 
 stealthily with muffled oars; an hour before midnight 
 
VI A LAND ATTACK 159 
 
 they saw a light suddenly spring up in the town, towards 
 which they continued to row very softly until they were 
 within a mile of it; when on a sudden they were 
 brought to a halt by hearing a sentinel call to another 
 and talk to him. Concluding they were discovered, the 
 buccaneers pulled across the river, and lay still and very 
 quiet, waiting and watching. In a few minutes the 
 whole town flashed out into lights, the resonant notes 
 of a great alarm-bell swang through the soft wind, 
 several volleys of musketry were discharged, and a large 
 fire was kindled on the hill to let the town know that 
 the enemy was in the river. The officers in charge of 
 the boats, confounded by this unexpected discovery of 
 their presence, fell to a hot argument and grew so angry 
 that their voices were heard ashore. The Spaniards, 
 who could not understand them, sent post-haste for an 
 Englishman who was then living in the town, and 
 brought him, very secretly, close to the boats that he 
 might interpret what was said. But before he arrived 
 the privateersmen had concluded their arguments.'' 
 They remained all night in the river, and next day 
 contented themselves with capturing a number of vessels, 
 and receiving the governor under a flag of truce to treat 
 with him about the ransom of the town and ships. But 
 nothing came of the interview; and at four o'clock 
 in the afternoon, on April 23d, the whole force of 
 the buccaneers landed and attacked the place. The 
 Spaniards fired a single volley and fled; the English 
 pressed forward and seized the enemy's cannon, from 
 which every gunner had run saving one, an Irishman, 
 
 ' The Englishman afterwards joined the privateersmen, and told 
 them this story. 
 
i6o WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 who gallantly stuck to his post until he dropped mortally 
 wounded. The seamen marched through both, towns — 
 the Spaniards flying pell-mell before them — firing the 
 houses as they tramped forwards, and leaving gangs of 
 men behind them to guard the churches. There was a 
 thick wood on the right of the place, and all night long 
 the enemy continued to fire from among the trees at the 
 English sentries, but without injuring a man. From 
 time to time bodies of horse and foot showed themselves, 
 but only to wheel about and fly to the first musket 
 levelled at them. Meanwhile a party of twenty-two men 
 went in the Butches^s pinnace up the river, and sacked 
 every house they came across. The enemy was easily 
 kept at bay, and the buccaneers had no trouble in sending 
 booty and provisions in quantities to their ships. In 
 due course messengers, flourishing flags of truce, came to 
 talk about ransoming the town, and after much discus- 
 sion, the offer of thirty thousand doUars was accepted, 
 of which twenty-five thousand were paid. 
 
 The depredations of the buccaneers had been indeed 
 serious enough to threaten the townspeople with absolute 
 ruin if the sacking was not speedily arrested. Scarcely 
 had they withdrawn from Guayaquil when they took a 
 ship full of meal, sugar, and other commodities, making 
 the fourteenth prize they had captured in those seas ! 
 The town itself handsomely repaid the labour and danger 
 of assaulting, it ; about twelve hundred pounds' worth 
 of plate and jewellery, many bales of valuable dry goods, 
 and a great store of merchandise of all kinds, exclusive 
 of wines, waggon-loads of cocoa, several ships on the 
 stocks, and two freshly-launched vessels of four hun- 
 dred tons each, valued at eighty thousand crowns. But 
 
VI BOUND TO THE GALAPAGOS i6i 
 
 for their approach having been discovered they might 
 have found even a handsomer account than this in the 
 capture of the place, for it afterwards came to their ears 
 that the inhabitants in their flight carried away with 
 them money, plate, and jewels to the value of two hun- 
 dred thousand pieces of eight. Indeed the unhappy 
 Spaniards seem to have been plundered on all sides, for 
 in going the rounds the privateersmen took a number of 
 negroes and Indians laden with goods, which they 
 promptly confessed were stolen, " and we were afterwards 
 informed that in the Hurry the Inhabitants had given 
 Plate and Money to Blacks to carry out of the Town, 
 and could never hear of it after." 
 
 On May 11th we find Rogers, Dampier, and their com- 
 panions running before a strong gale of wind for the 
 Galapagos Islands. A number of the crew were pros- 
 trated with a malignant fever contracted at Guayaquil, 
 where, about a month before the buccaneers' arrival, 
 there had raged an epidemic disease of which ten or 
 twelve persons perished every day ; until the floors of the 
 churches being filled with bodies, the people dug a great 
 hole close to one of the structures where sailors had been 
 stationed as guards. In this hole lay a pile of putrefied 
 corpses, and the seamen only quitted their posts to return 
 to their ships poisoned. On the 18th they were off a 
 couple of large islands, and sent boats to seek for fresh 
 water. The errand was fruitless, though the searchers 
 went three or four miles into the country in their hunt. 
 Their business now was to go where fresh water was to 
 be had, for of the two crews there were no less than 
 one hundred and twenty men down with fever ; Captain 
 Courtney was dangerously ill, and Captain Dover was 
 
 M 
 
1 62 WILLIAM D AMPLER chap. 
 
 devoting his leisure to prescribing for him. So they made 
 sail for Gorgona, capturing a few vessels as they proceeded, 
 and, anchoring on June 13th, at once distributed their sick 
 amongst the prizes, and set to work to careen and repair 
 the BvM and Dutchess. By the 28th they had restored 
 their provisions and mounted their guns, having in four- 
 teen days caulked, rigged, discharged, and reloaded their 
 ships ; a smart piece of work that greatly astonished the 
 Spanish prisoners, who said that their people usually took a 
 couple of months to careen a vessel at ports where every 
 necessary appliance for this business was to be had. The 
 unhappy captives indeed, whilst watching or assisting 
 the English, would scarcely marvel at their triumphs by 
 land and sea when they observed their ceaseless and 
 vigilant activity, — how, without regard to the climate, 
 they worked from the break of day till darkness stopped 
 their hands, and how, with swift and unerring judgment, 
 they devised expedients for the remedying of difficulties 
 which in the eyes of their astonished prisoners appeared 
 at the time to be insurmountable. " The Natives of 
 Old Spain," says Eogers, "are accounted but ordinary 
 Mariners ; but here they are much worse, all the Prizes 
 we took being rather cobbled than fitted out for the Sea ; 
 so that had they such Weather as we often meet with in 
 the European Seas in Winter, they could scarce ever 
 reach a Port again as they are fitted ; but they Sail here 
 Hundreds of Leagues." Admissions of this kind are as 
 good as saying that seizures in the South Sea went, as 
 achievements, but a very little way beyond the mere act 
 of hailing a ship and bidding her strike. The boldness 
 of the English buccaneers is not very conspicuous in 
 such encounters. Most of the vessels they took were 
 
THE MARQUIS " 163 
 
 navigated by crews of yellow, nervous men, utterly 
 worthless as seamen, with neither heart nor muscle 
 as combatants; whilst the cabins were crowded with 
 priests, women, and sea-sick merchants, who increased 
 the disorder caused by the appearance of a privateer by 
 lamentations and tears, by wild appeals to the saints, 
 and passionate adjurations to the shivering crew. The 
 capture of such craft was as easy as catching flies. The 
 qualities of the English South Seamen of those days must 
 be sought in the records of their assaults on land, their 
 boarding of tall and powerfully armed galleons, their 
 murderous resistance to the attacks of ships -of -state of 
 great tonnage crowded with soldiers and sailors and 
 carrying ten guns to the Eover's one. 
 
 Whilst Eogers and his people were at Gorgona they 
 equipped one of their prizes named the Havre de Grace 
 as a third ship to act with the Duke and Dutchess. She 
 was called the Marquis, and Captain Cooke took command 
 of her. The business of fitting her out as a war vessel 
 occupied them from June 29th to July 9th, and when 
 she was finished they made a holiday of it, sitting 
 down to a hearty meal and drinking the Queen's 
 health with loud huzzas, and then the health of the 
 owners with more huzzas, and then their own healths 
 until their eyes danced in their heads. Spite of the 
 general joy, however, the Marquis proved something of 
 a failure, for Cooke says that her masts were new and 
 too heavy for her, and that being badly stowed she was 
 exceedingly tender, by which is meant that she heeled 
 or lay over unduly to light pressures, and scarcely made 
 headway when on a wind, "so that the Duke and 
 Dutchess were fain to spare a great deal of sail for me to 
 
i64 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 keep up with theml" Before lifting their anchors the 
 commanders and oflftcers of the ships met together to 
 value the plunder in order to divide it. One kind of 
 commodities they appraised at four hundred pounds; 
 the silver-hilted swords, buckles, snuff-bozes, buttons, 
 and silver plate at seven hundred and forty-three pounds 
 fifteen shillings, taking the piece of eight at four shillings 
 and sixpence. By this time there were upwards of eighty 
 thousand pounds' worth of property and treasure on 
 board destined for the ovniers. Dampier, we may 
 well suppose, shared in the high hopes and good spirits 
 of his shipmates. This was the only promising priva- 
 teering expedition he had ever been engaged in, and if 
 their luck continued he might reasonably flatter himself 
 with the belief that he would even yet snatch an inde- 
 pendency out of the reluctant maw of the sea. They 
 had rid themselves of their prisoners by sending them 
 away in some of the prizes. The female captives spoke 
 well of the treatment they had received, and ingenuously 
 confessed that they had met with far more courtesy and 
 civility than their own countrymen would have extended 
 to persons in their condition. The honourable and humane 
 behaviour of the English buccaneers towards their female 
 prisoners became a tradition, which was perpetuated and 
 confirmed by the wise policy of Commodore Anson, i 
 
 They sailed on August 11th, and nothing noteworthy 
 happened till September 6th, on which date we find 
 Dampier dining with Captain Eogers on board the 
 Bvke in company with Cooke and Courtney. Cooke 
 ^ In speaking of the English buccaneers it is necessary to dis- 
 tinguish them from the pirates pure and simple, such as Morgan, 
 Teach, and the other beauties whose lives are given in Captain 
 Charles Johnson's delectable volumes. 
 
VI OLD SEA-PICTURE 165 
 
 complained bitterly of the crankness of his ship the 
 Marquis, and objected to the evolutions of the other 
 vessels which obliged him to tack. They were bound 
 to the Galapagos, and he aiBrmed that they could have 
 made the islands without beating to windward. Dampier 
 said, No ; he knew where those islands were, and had 
 described them in one of his voyages ; and he asserted 
 that they were now to the westward of them. The 
 others agreed with Cooke, but Dampier was pilot, and 
 was therefore suffered to have his way. They were 
 right and he was wrong; but an error of a hundred 
 miles or so was reckoned a very trifling blunder in those 
 hearty, plodding times. A curious old sea-picture is 
 suggested by this discussion in the cabin of the Duke.- 
 The rough bulkheads, the low upper deck, the quaint 
 lanthorn swinging over the table from a beam, and 
 indicating by its oscillations the ponderous rolling of the 
 tall, squab, round-bowed fabric; the privateersmen sitting 
 round the table attired in the wild and picturesque 
 apparel of the early South Seamen — these are features to 
 bring the scene in clear outlines before the eye of the 
 imagination. One beholds them poring upon their old- 
 fashioned charts, pointing to the singular configurations 
 of the mainland and islands with hairy hands, and dis- 
 puting with little anxiety on a difference between easting 
 and westing measuring as many leagues as the space 
 from the Lizard to the Western Islands. Indeed the 
 real flavour and charm of the buccaneer's life are not to 
 be expressed by any mere method of historical treatment. 
 The hand of the artist is wanted, with imagination 
 vigorous and discerning enough to strictly correspond 
 with the traditionary truth. 
 
i66 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 On their arrival at the Galapagos they took in a good 
 supply of turtle, many of which were upwards of four 
 hundred pounds in weight. Sogers writes of the 
 turtle as if he had never seen it before. " I do not," 
 he says, "affect giving Eelations of strange Creatures, 
 so frequently done by others; but where an un- 
 common Creature falls in my Way I cannot omit it." 
 This is how the captain describes the ' ■ uncommon crea- 
 ture." 
 
 " The Creatures are the ugliest in Nature ; the Shell, 
 not unlike the Top of an old Hackney-coach, as black as 
 Jet J and so is the outside Skin, but shriveled and very 
 rough. The Legs and Neck are long and about the 
 Bigness of a Man's Wrist ; and they have Clubbed Feet 
 as big as one's Fist, shaped much like those of an Elephant, 
 with five Nails on the Forefeet and but Four behind, 
 and the Head little, and Visage small like Snakes ; and 
 look very old and black. When at first surprised they 
 shrink their Head, Neck, and Legs under their Shell." 
 
 This is the kind of simplicity that makes the perusal 
 of the old voyages wonderfully refreshing and delightful. 
 The old fellows looked at life with the eyes of a child 
 but with the intelligence of a man ; and so it happens 
 that their representations combine a most perfect and 
 fascinating simplicity with the highest possible qualities 
 of acuteness and sagacity. 
 
 On October 1st the ships were off the Mexican 
 coast. When the form of the land grew visible Dampier 
 told Eogers that it was hereabouts he attacked the 
 Manila ship in the St. George. He might have been 
 right, but Eogers does not speak as if he thought so, for 
 he says ; " Captain Dampier indeed had been here, but 
 
VI OFF CALIFORNIA 167 
 
 it was a long time ago, and therefore he seemed to know 
 but little of the Matter ; yet when he came to land in 
 Places he recollected them very readily." They suffered 
 much from scarcity of fresh water, and sent the pinnace 
 to explore some islands — the Tres Marias — lying off 
 Cape Corrientes. On one of them they found a human 
 skull, which was supposed to have belonged to an Indian 
 who, with another poor wretch of his own race, had 
 been left there by Captain Swan some twenty-three 
 years before. Dampier of course well remembered the 
 circumstance ; he had been with Swan in the Cygnet at 
 the time, and could recollect that provisions being scarce 
 they had left the unhappy Indians to make, as Rogers 
 says, a miserable end on a desert island. To judge, 
 however, from the refreshments these uninhabited spots 
 yielded, the Indians could not have perished from 
 starvation. The buccaneers met with hares, turtle-doves, 
 pigeons, and parrots, on all of which they fared sumptu- 
 ously. The sick thrived, and the general health of 
 the crews was never better. On November 1st they 
 were in view of the high coast of California. It was 
 much about the date on which Sir Thomas Candish had 
 taken the Manila ship, and, strangely enough, their keels 
 ploughed the very tract of water in which that remark- 
 able feat had been achieved. The memory, aged to us, 
 but lacking nothing of its old lustre, was to those men 
 comparatively recent, and the recollection was one to 
 animate them with great hopes and stem resolves. 
 They were indeed bent now on the adventure whose 
 successful issue had loaded Candish's ship with treasure. 
 They were on the look-out for the galleon, and that 
 nothing might be omitted to render fortune propitious. 
 
168 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 they again put in force the rules which had formerly 
 been laid down for cruising, established fresh regulations, 
 and made clear every dubious item in their programme 
 of proceedings and plunder. It was this galleon that 
 was to make their fortunes ; she it was also that formed 
 the grand hope of the Bristol committee of merchant 
 adventurers ; and the design of capturing her was the 
 mainspring of the whole expedition. After a consultation 
 it was agreed that they should dispose themselves thus : 
 the Marquis was to keep off the land at a distance of 
 from six to nine leagues at least ; the Buke was to cruise 
 at a range that would cover forty-five miles ; and the 
 Dutchess was to occupy the waters between her consorts. 
 There were, of course, false alarms • as, for instance, on 
 the 28th the Marquis fired a gun, which was promptly 
 answered by the Dutchess, on which the Duke hauled her 
 wind for the coast. It then turned out that the Marquis 
 had mistaken the Duke for the Manila ship, and fired as 
 a signal for the Dutchess to chase. They had to wait a 
 long time before the vessel they wanted hove in sight. 
 It was now a month later than the usual time of her 
 appearance in this part of the sea where she was being 
 waited for, and the anxiety of the buccaneers was in- 
 creased by their inability to obtain any intelligence of her. 
 Provisions were again scarce, and even on short allowance 
 there was barely bread enough to last for seventy days, — 
 a serious matter in the face of the inevitable run later on 
 to the Ladrone Islands, which promised to occupy fifty 
 days at the very least. This most unfortunate dearth of 
 stores, coupled with the growing dejection and mutinous 
 sulkiness of the men, determined Rogers and his brother 
 commanders to give themselves another week's chance, 
 
A DEAD CALM 
 
 and then, if the galleon did not appear, to sail away to 
 the Indies. 
 
 In order to save time the Dutchess was despatched to 
 a convenient bay to take in water and wood, etc., that 
 as one ship obtained these stores another might take 
 her place, thus always leaving two on the look-out. By 
 the 4th she had taken in what was necessary, and 
 the Marquis replaced her to refit. Until December 
 21st nothing happened; then on the morning of that 
 day, when the Duke was in the act of shifting her 
 helm for the place where the Marquis was refitting, the 
 look-out man aloft haiHng the deck, shouted that he saw 
 a sail bearing west about twenty miles distant. The 
 English ensign was immediately hoisted, and in a few 
 minutes both the Duhe and the Dutchess were standing 
 towards the stranger ; but on a sudden it fell stark calm, 
 and as conjecture was hopeless and expectation insup- 
 portable, the pinnace was manned and sent to see what 
 she could make of the distant ship. In reading Eogers's 
 account, you find your sympathies curiously enlisted on 
 behalf of those two stagnated buccaneering vessels, and 
 witness with but little effort of imagination the crowds 
 of weather-darkened, fiery-eyed men, some in the rigging, 
 some at the masthead, some leaning in impetuous pose 
 against the rail, staring their very hearts out under the 
 sharp of their hands at the cotton-white outline, glimmer- 
 ing like the tip of a sea-bird's pinion on the edge of the 
 distant gleaming horizon, whence the swell rolls in folds 
 of oil to the wet and flashing sides of the ships ; the 
 officers on the quarter-deck peering their hardest through 
 the lean and unsatisfying perspective -glasses of those 
 days ; Dampier and Rogers- together rehearsing their 
 
170 ' WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 intentions and recalling their experiences in voices 
 subdued by excitement ; above all, the old, worn, but 
 gallant Buke wearily dipping her faded, blistered bends 
 to the swing of the breathless sea, making in anticipation 
 of the withering roar of her ordnance, now grinning 
 mutely along her sides, a little thunder of her own with 
 the beating of her dark and well-patched canvas against 
 the huge tops and massive cross-trees of her swajdng 
 masts. "All the rest of the Day,'' says Eogers, "we 
 had very little Wind, so that we made no great Way ; 
 and the Boat not returning, kept us in a languishing 
 Condition, not being able to determine whether the 
 Sail was our Consort, the Ma/rqids, or the Acapulco Ship. 
 Our Pinnace was still in Sight, and we had nothing to 
 do but to watch her Motions : We could see that she 
 made towards the Butches^s Pinnace, which rowed to 
 meet her. They lay together some time, and then the 
 Butchess's Pinnace went back to their Ship which gave 
 us great Hopes. " An officer was sent to the Butchess to 
 ascertain what the stranger was, and to concert measures, 
 if she should prove an enemy, for engaging her. When 
 he was gone Eogers hoisted the French colours and 
 fired a gun ; the strange vessel answered, which satisfied 
 them that she was not the Marquis. It is manifest from 
 this that these privateersmen had no private code of 
 signals amongst them. Indeed detection seems to have 
 been entirely a matter of the exhibition of the national 
 bunting, in which there was just the same sort of 
 deception then as there was in later years, and as there 
 ever will be. Shortly after the ship had responded, the 
 officer returned with the report that she was the Manila 
 galleon. The statement fired the spirits of the crew; 
 
VI B UCCANEERS A T PR A VERS 1 7 1 
 
 they hove all their melancholy reflections on the short- 
 ness of their provisions overboard, and could think of 
 nothing but the figures they would make when they 
 arrived home with the vast treasure out yonder, stowed 
 snugly away under their hatches. "Every moment," 
 says Eogers, " seemed an hour till we came up with her." 
 It was arranged that the two pinnaces should stick to 
 her skirts all night and burn flares, that their own and 
 the position of the chase might be known ; and it was 
 further settled that if the Dvke and Dutchess were so 
 fortunate as to come up with her together they were to 
 board her at once : a resolution which Dampier, recalling 
 his experiences in the St. George, was pretty sure to 
 strengthen by his advice. 
 
 At dawn the chase was upon the weather-bow of the 
 Duke, about three miles away, and the Dutchess within a 
 couple of miles to leeward of her. Eogers threw his 
 sweeps over and rowed his ship for above an hour ; a 
 light breeze then sprang up and softly blew the vessel 
 towards the enemy. There was no liquor in the ship, 
 nothing to fortify the spirits in the shape of a dram ; so 
 a large kettle of chocolate was boiled and served out to 
 the crew, who, when they had emptied their pannikins, 
 went to prayers. But whilst they were in the midst of 
 their devotions they were interrupted by a broadside 
 from the Spaniards. It is not often that one reads of 
 the English buccaneers going to prayers before falling 
 to their business of slaughtering and plundering. Per- 
 haps they had learnt to despise this kind of ceremony 
 from the behaviour of the French freebooters, who were 
 wont to sing Te Deum and force captive priests to 
 celebrate Mass in the cathedrals and churches which they 
 
172 WILLIAM D AMPLER ohap. 
 
 had despoiled. If the Spaniards saw Rogers's privateers- 
 men on their knees, something of irony might have been 
 intended by their manner of cutting short their worship 
 and supplications. The Don was fully prepared; his 
 guns loaded, his little army of men at stations, and casks 
 of gunpowder hanging at his yard-arms ready to fall and 
 explode when the attempt should be made to board. 
 The action began at eight o'clock, and the Bvk& for some 
 time fought the galleon single-handed. The conflict was 
 a brief one. The Spaniards had no stomach, and after 
 Rogers had poured in a few broadsides the enemy 
 "struck her colours two-thirds down." His flag was 
 thus flying when the Dutchess came up and fired five 
 guns at the big ship along with a volley of small shot. 
 It was mere waste of powder ; the galleon had already 
 submitted and was silent. The victory, it must be 
 admitted, was cheaply earned, yet there is little doubt 
 that such was the temper of the buccaneers they would 
 have fought to the last man for this golden prize. She 
 was a large vessel named Nostra Seniora de la Incarnacion 
 Disenginao, mounting twenty guns and twenty swivels, and 
 carrying one hundred and ninety-three men, of whom nine 
 were killed and several wounded. The fight lasted three 
 glasses, that is three hours. Rogers was shot through the 
 left cheek ; the bullet destroyed the greater part of his 
 upper jaw, and some of his teeth were found upon the deck 
 where he fell. He was obliged to give his orders in writing 
 to hinder the flow of blood, and to escape the agony of 
 attempting to articulate. Only one man besides himself 
 was wounded. Having repaired the trifling damage 
 they had sustained, they steered for the harbour 
 where the Marquis lay, and anchored. They found 
 
VI THE SECOND GALLEON 173 
 
 their consort fully equipped and ready to sail, and 
 her people in good spirits and eager for action. At 
 night a consultation was held respecting the disposal of 
 the hostages, and as a second Manila ship was daily 
 expected, they debated plans for capturing her. After 
 some talk it was agreed that the hostages should be set 
 at liberty ; but the discussion about the expected galleon 
 ended in something like a quarrel. Eogers, speaking in 
 the heat of the moment, had censured Courtney for not 
 having shown the promptitude that was necessary in 
 attacking the Nostra Seniora. This Courtney of course 
 resented as a reflection upon his honour. When, then, 
 Eogers proposed to cruise in the Dutchess for the coming 
 Manila ship, Courtney insisted upon making the search 
 in the Marquis. The question was put to the vote, 
 Eogers's proposal overruled, and his people obliged, to 
 their great mortification, to remain in the harbour. 
 This incident is related so obscurely both by Cooke 
 and Eogers that I confess I do not fully understand it. 
 The Duke was in good condition, and why the three in- 
 stead of the two ships did not start on a cruise which, 
 as the sequel proves, demanded even more than their 
 united strength, is a riddle I am unable to solve. 
 
 On Christmas Day the Dutchess and the Marquis put 
 to sea, and when they were gone Eogers posted two 
 sentinels on the top of a hill that he might instantly be 
 apprised of a third sail heaving in sight. Before twenty- 
 four hours had elapsed the signal was made, and in hot 
 haste Eogers started to the assistance of his consorts, 
 though the stout-hearted sailor was in no condition for 
 further adventures just then. He was indeed so weak 
 from loss of blood that he could scarcely stand. His 
 
174 WILLIAM D AMPLER chap. 
 
 head and throat were swollen, and the effort to speak 
 caused him excruciating pain ; but he turned a deaf ear 
 to the entreaties of the officers and surgeons that he 
 would remain in harbour on board the prize. The 
 galleon was in sight at daybreak, and by noon the 
 Mwrqwis had succeeded in bringing her to an engagement. 
 The wind was light, and it was almost impossible to 
 manoeuvre the vessels ; so that though the Dutchess and 
 the Marquis continued at intervals to fire at the Manila 
 ship until dusk, the Dulte even at midnight was still at 
 a considerable distance from the enemy. When the day 
 broke the wind shifted, and Eogers was able to bring 
 his guns to bear. The fighting was now severe, and 
 continued so for four hours ; the galleon was hotly 
 defended, though her people lay so concealed in their 
 close quarters that the privateersmen could scarcely 
 make any use of their small arms. It was only when a 
 head appeared or a port was opened that they found a 
 mark for their muskets. The eagerness of the bucca- 
 neers defeated their seamanship. Their vessels were 
 repeatedly falling foul of one another and throwing 
 the crews into disorder. The guns of the Margxiis were 
 so small that her firing was to little or no purpose. 
 At last it came to Rogers signalling to Courtney and 
 Cooke to come on board him with other officers ; and 
 then every man telling of the injuries his ship had sus- 
 tained, and all admitting that it would jeopardise too 
 many lives to board or attempt to board the lofty galleon, 
 it was resolved to let her go— that is to say, they agreed 
 to keep her company till night, and then in the darkness 
 to lose her, and make the best of their way back to the 
 prize they had already secured. In sober truth the 
 
THE VIGONIA 
 
 175 
 
 enemy had proved too many for them. The BvMs 
 mainmast was so wounded that Eogers expected every 
 moment to see it go by the board. Her rigging, too, 
 was so shattered by shot that she had to sheer off in 
 order to knot and splice, being scarcely manageable. 
 The Dutchess also had her foremast badly wounded, her 
 sails were in rags, and the ends of her standing rigging 
 were trailing overboard. Further, there were not above 
 one hundred and twenty men in all three ships fit for 
 boarding, " and those but weak," says Eogers, " having 
 been very short of Provisions ;" and that nothing might 
 be wanting to complete the list of the reasons of their 
 failure, their ammunition was very nearly expended. 
 Eogers was again wounded, this time in his- left foot. In 
 the Dutchess they had twenty men killed and disabled. 
 The Marquis, on the other hand, came off without the 
 loss of a single person. The galleon was a handsome 
 ship, very large, carrying the flag of the admiral of 
 Manila. She was making the voyage for the first time. 
 Her name was the Vigonia; she was pierced for sixty 
 guns, forty of which were mounted, along with an equal 
 number of brass swivels. Her crew numbered over four 
 hundred and fifty men, and there were many passengers 
 besides. It was supposed that she was worth ten 
 millions of dollars; but it is doubtful whether, even 
 if the buccaneers had succeeded in boarding, they 
 would have taken her, for Eogers says : " After my 
 Eeturn into Europe I met in Holland with a Sailor who 
 had been on board the large Ship when we engaged her ; 
 and he let us into the Secret that there was no taking 
 her ; for the Gunner kept constantly in the Powder-room, 
 declaring that he had taken the Sacrament to blow the 
 
176 WILLIAM D AMPLER chap. 
 
 Ship up if we boarded her ; which made the Men, as may 
 be supposed, exceedingly resolute in her defence. I was 
 the more ready to credit what this Man told me because 
 he gave as regular and circumstantial account of the 
 Engagement as I could have done from my Journal." ^ 
 
 On the first day of the new year, 1710, they were again 
 in harbour alongside their great prize ; and now being 
 anxious to leave these seas, they put their prisoners on 
 board one of the smaller captures with water and provi- 
 sions enough to last them for a voyage to Acapulco, and 
 then addressed themselves to the urgent business of re- 
 pairing and making all ready for their departure. They 
 renamed the galleon the Batchelor, and a quarrel arose 
 touching the appointment of a commander for her, a 
 post regarded by them all as of dignity and importance. 
 Captain Dover, asserting his claims as a merchant adven- 
 turer, and representing the considerable sum of money 
 he had risked in this expedition, demanded the berth. 
 Eogers and others, among whom, no doubt, would be 
 Dampier, objected that Dover knew nothing whatever 
 of navigation, and voted for Cooke Finally, at the 
 cost of many high words and much strong feeling, it was 
 decided at a full council that Captain Fry and Captain 
 Stretton should have entire control of the navigation of 
 the Batchelor under Captain Dover, Alexander Selkirk 
 to be the master and Joseph Smith the chief mate. The 
 island of Guam was then fixed upon as a rendezvous, 
 and on January 10th the buccaneers weighed for a run 
 to the East Indies. 
 
 ' Moreover, tliere was a numter of pirates on board with their 
 booty, for the preservation of which, we may take it, they intended 
 to fight hard. 
 
VI HIS HALF-HEARTEDNESS 177 
 
 They were when they started in no very enviable 
 condition. Their stores were scanty; their live stock 
 consisted of four hens ; and of wine or spirits they had 
 barely the contents of a dozen bottles. The rations 
 were limited to a pound and a half of flour and a small 
 piece of meat for a mess of five men, with three pints of 
 water a man on twenty-four hours for drink and cooking. 
 Eogers was ill with his wounds, and many of the crew 
 were sick and weak and unfit to do the work of the ship. 
 Hunger drove the men into robbery. A few days after 
 they sailed some pieces of pork were missed. Fortunately, 
 in the interests of justice, the thieves were discovered, 
 and punished by every man of the watch giving them a 
 stroke of the cat-o'-nine-tails. 
 
 What follows now is little more than a journal of the 
 voyage, rendered for the most part tedious by descrip- 
 tion and by the introduction of incidents of little or no 
 interest. Dampier's name seldom occurs; when it is 
 mentioned it is always in reference to something that 
 helps to accentuate characteristics noticeable in his own 
 account of his adventures. For instance, in April, when 
 they were oflf a point of land which they took to be the 
 north-east point of Celebes, the vessel was proving very 
 leaky; which, added to the general ignorance of the 
 ship's situation, filled the crew with melancholy and 
 irritation. "Captain Dampier," says Rogers, "dis- 
 couraged us very much : He had been twice here, and 
 therefore what he said among the Seamen passed without 
 Dispute, and he laid it down as a thing certain that if 
 we could not reach Ternate or find the Island of Tula it 
 was impossible for us to get any Refreshment, there 
 being nothing to be met with on the Coast of New 
 
 N 
 
178 WILLIAM D AMPLER chap. 
 
 Guiney." It had been thus with Dampier whilst buc- 
 caneering off the New Holland shore ; thus had it been 
 with him too when hunting for water on the sand-hills 
 of the Western Australian seaboard, his foot on the 
 margin of a vast region of earth which he had neither 
 temper nor heart to explore, though he had travelled 
 many thousands of miles in a crazy ship and with a 
 troublesome crew for no other purpose. This trick of 
 discouraging the people he led, or was one of, is the 
 secret of his failure as a commander and explorer. 
 Rogers, a bolder and more hopeful, and. certainly in 
 many respects an equally sagacious man, was not likely 
 to feel grateful for Dampier's melancholy shakes of the 
 head, and his gloomy, prognosticating countenance ; but 
 his own experiences left him nothing to say, for though 
 the ships spent the best part of the month of May off 
 the coast of New Guinea, all that Rogers could observe 
 that seemed to him worth mentioning was, " It is most 
 certain these Islands, which are scattered through the 
 Streights, and few or none of which are peopled, would 
 all of them bear Spice, and afford immense Riches to 
 this Nation, if they were settled." 
 
 They were in great distress whilst they were in 
 these seas. The men mutinously resented the wise 
 reduction in the quantity of the food served out to 
 them; and to save serious disturbance Rogers was 
 forced to return to the old scale. They sighted land, 
 but did not know what it was, nor could Dampier 
 help them. Having searched for Borou, an island 
 of the Indian Archipelago, they resolved to steer to 
 Batavia, touching at Bouton for provisions. Accord- 
 ingly they stood away to the south-west before a strong 
 
Vi CAPE TOWN 
 
 179 
 
 gale of wind at east. But their progress was obstructed 
 by some small islands, into one of which they must have 
 run in the dead of night had the weather not cleared 
 suddenly and discovered it to them. It was not until 
 Tuesday, June 17th, 1710, that they arrived at Batavia. 
 At sight of the town the crews were so rejoiced that 
 they could do nothing but hug and shake one another 
 by the hand, and bless their stars and question if there 
 was such a paradise in all the world ; " And this," says 
 Rogers, "because they had Arrack for Eight Pence a 
 Gallon, and Sugar at a Penny a Pound." 
 
 The ships were in a deplorable condition, particularly 
 the Marquis, which was so rotten with worms and wear 
 that it became necessary to hire another craft to carry 
 her lading. They sailed from Batavia on October lith, 
 and proceeded direct to the Cape of Good Hope, where 
 they arrived without misadventure and without any inci- 
 dent occurring in the passage that is worth repeating. 
 Shortly after they had entered Table Bay twelve sail of 
 Dutch ships came in, which, with the English vessels then 
 at anchor, made altogether twenty-three ships riding in 
 the spacious and beautiful haven. The picture is about one 
 hundred and seventy years old, and it is difficult to realise 
 that the ocean traflSc of those dim times to the Indies by 
 way of the Gape should have been considerable enough to 
 crowd the spacious surface of the waters on whose margin 
 stand the ivory-white structures of Cape Town. Retrospect 
 is often corrective. We have a right to compliment our- 
 selves upon what we have done and are doing ; but it does 
 not seem to me that our marine achievements can be com- 
 pared as illustrations of human skill and determination 
 with the examples of the adventurous genius of an age 
 
l8o WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 when the greater portion of the antipodean world lay in 
 darkness ; when navigation was little better than guess- 
 work; when the art of shipbuilding was crude, rude, 
 and primitive ; when there was nothing but the heavens 
 to consult for weather ; when the tyranny of the winds 
 was only to be dominated by a kind of perseverance that 
 must be ranked among the lost qualities of human 
 nature. Despite these conditions the early mariner 
 crowded the oceans with fabrics laden with the produce 
 of the known continents, and rolled stubbornly to his 
 hundred ports, often in suffering and often in distress 
 indeed ; yet on the whole freer, in his valiant ignorance, 
 from disaster than is the sailor of the current hour. 
 There is no longer need for ships to halt and bait at 
 Table Bay. The propeller thrashes them to their destina- 
 tion with the punctuality of the railway-train ; or they 
 are wafted by pyramids of canvas— the graceful and 
 elegant result of centuries of experiment — on a journey 
 to New Zealand or Japan, which they complete in less 
 time than the old seafarer took to find his way from the 
 English Channel to Madeira. But the very existence of 
 the facilities of the engine-room, of the nimbleness of 
 the clipper-moulded keel, of the capacity of the towering 
 and exquisitely-calculated heights of cloths to snatch a de- 
 sired power of propulsion from the teeth of the antagon- 
 istic gale, is, I take it, an admission of our own weak- 
 ness when we contrast the ocean-machinery with which 
 science has dowered us with the contrivances with 
 which the early seamen triumphed over the forces of 
 Nature and created new worlds as heritages- for a self- 
 complacent posterity. Those twenty-three ships at 
 anchor in Table Bay, surveyed by the eyes of Dampier 
 
ARRIVAL AT HOLLAND 
 
 and his toil-worn comrades, make but a little part of a 
 great marine pageant ; yet it is a detail to constrain the 
 gaze. Fancy reconstructs them ; they cease to be vision- 
 ary ; they float before us as substantial fabrics, brave with 
 pennons and the glitter of brass guns and the gay raiment 
 of their time. They illustrate the most strenuous of all 
 the periods of the world's maritime life ; for the infancy 
 of navigation was over, and it had already put on the 
 proportions of a youthful giant, the impulse of whose 
 unripened vitality was urging it to extraordinary efforts. 
 
 Before the ships under Eogers sailed, six more vessels 
 entered the bay, along with several English Indiamen 
 and a large Portuguese carrack from Brazil ; and when 
 the hour of departure came the homeward-bound (in 
 all, English and Dutch, numbering twenty-five) rolled 
 stately under swelling canvas out of Table Bay, — a 
 spectacle that, remote as it is, and visible only to the 
 gaze of fancy, cannot but stir the imagination when one 
 thinks of the floating castles, with their swelling sails 
 and their brilliant streamers, as the van of the ever- 
 growing procession that was in time to whiten the 
 remotest seas, and crowd the harbours of countries of 
 which some were then without the impress of a European 
 foot. 
 
 The ships progressed merrily. They touched at St. 
 Helena, and seven days later at Ascension, and after a 
 passage of three months from the Cape of Good Hope 
 dropped anchor in the Texel. Eogers and his brother 
 commanders had now to act with much circumspection ; 
 they were informed by letters from their owners that 
 the English East India Company, jealous of their success, 
 had appointed a secret committee to inspect their charter 
 
i82 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap, vi 
 
 as to privileges ; they were also enjoined to exercise the 
 utmost caution in respect of the Dutch East India Com- 
 pany, and strict orders were issued that no officer or 
 sailor should on any pretence whatever be suffered to 
 take any goods on shore, or purchase the least trifle 
 from any stranger who visited the ships. They re- 
 mained in Holland until September 30th, 1711, then 
 sailed from the Texel under convoy of four of Her 
 Britannic Majesty's ships, and on October 14th the 
 BuTie. and Dutchess arrived off Erith, at which place 
 the Batchelor had come to an anchor some short time 
 before. Thus ended one of the most memorable of all 
 the voyages ever undertaken by the English buccaneers. 
 The cargo and treasure obtained by this expedition 
 were valued at between three and four hundred thousand 
 pounds, and Cooke tells us that, after allowing for all 
 deductions, such as cost of convoy, agency, lawsuits, and 
 thefts, the net profits amounted to one hundred and 
 seventy thousand pounds. 
 
CHAPTEE VII 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 As Dampier steps over the ship's side the reader is pre- 
 pared to learn that no more is heard of him. He is a 
 shadow amongst a congregation of shades, and when he 
 quits his comrades his first stride carries him into 
 absolute obscurity, and he vanishes like a puff of tobacco 
 smoke. One would be glad to be able to do more 
 than give a mere handshake of farewell to such an 
 English sailor as this. It would be pleasant to be able 
 to follow him, to learn what sort of life he led, what 
 new adventures, if any, he met with, what his health 
 was, and what his means, the pleasures he took ashore, 
 and the esteem in which he was held by those with 
 whom he conversed before that dark old soldier Death 
 quietly beckoned him out. I think we may take it that 
 he never married whilst he pursued his sea -life; but 
 when he came ashore for good he was tolerably ad- 
 vanced in years, and it would not be safe to conjecture 
 what he did then. He had never known the comforts 
 of a home, and the old seaman might find a kind of 
 excuse for marrying in that reflection. Captain Cooke 
 says that the net profits of Eogers's voyage (see pre- 
 vious page) were fairly divided amongst the officers and 
 
i84 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 crew. This is to be doubted. Before the officers and 
 crew touched a penny the Bristol merchants, of whom 
 there was a great number in the venture, would take 
 their share, and we may suppose that their dividend 
 did not leave the balance a very big one for the many 
 people who had claims upon it. A man named Hatley, 
 who sailed in 1719 with Shelvocke and Clipperton, was 
 wont to declare that "he knew by woeful experience 
 how they were used on board the Bvke and Dutchess ; 
 that they were never paid one-tenth of their due, and 
 that it plainly appeared how a certain gentleman designed 
 to treat them, by his bullying them, and endeavouring 
 to force them from Gravesend before they had received 
 their river pay and impress money." ^ Dampier's claims 
 were no doubt ranked amongst those of the officers ; 
 but whatever his share might have been, it is not very 
 conceivable that, invested, it yielded him an income 
 sufficient for his plainest requirements. 
 
 He was fifty-nine years old when he returned from 
 his last voyage. Even assuming that his health was good 
 enough to suffer him to go on using the sea, it is more 
 than probable that at the age of sixty he would exhibit 
 no further taste for the hard, perilous, and unremunera- 
 tive calling. Considering the eminence he had achieved, 
 it is strange that there are no discoverable contemporary 
 references to this portion of his life ; none, at all events, 
 that I have been able to meet with or hear of, though I 
 have not spared inquiry. This silence might sanction 
 the conjecture that on his return he went into the 
 country, perhaps to his little Dorsetshire estate, if it be 
 
 ' A Voyage Sound the World, ty Captain George Shelvocke, p. 
 38. The "certain gentleman" was probably Captain Dover. 
 
vix LAST YEARS 185 
 
 reasonable to suppose that he had not parted with it in 
 the time of his poverty, and died not long afterwards 
 amid the obscurity of rural and provincial surroundings. 
 But speculation is fruitless, and even unwise, in the face 
 of the chance of the story of his ending being some of 
 these days lighted upon; for the literary digger was 
 never more active than he is now, and a spadeful of the 
 old mould of time may yet be thrown up with informa- 
 tion enough in it about this circumnavigator to answer 
 all questions as to his closing years. Anyway I think 
 we may be pretty sure that he never went to sea again. 
 A sailor ages rapidly on the salt -beef, honeycombed 
 biscuit, and stormy weather of his vocation, and at fifty 
 is commonly as old in body and mind as the landsman 
 at seventy. Dampier was a seaman when he was a boy, 
 and no man, even in those strenuous ocean-going days, 
 ever lived a harder and more wearing life. He had 
 spent years in the most unhealthy and enfeebling climates 
 in the world ; he had starved on rotten food, lain un- 
 sheltered on deck through the damp and fever-breeding 
 nights of the West Indian and Panama parallels; he 
 had had more than most men's share of worry and 
 anxiety; he had drunk deep of the cup of disappoint- 
 ment, and he had sounded poverty to its depths. We 
 may then fairly consider him as an old man at sixty, 
 and assume with confidence that as he wanted both the 
 taste and the opportunity for further seafaring, the last 
 voyage he ever took in this world was as pilot to his 
 friend Woodes Eogers. 
 
 There is a tradition that he was known to Defoe, 
 which Sir Walter Scott traces to a passage in the Be- 
 view. Whether Defoe knew Dampier in the flesh or 
 
1 86 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 not, his literary obligations to him appear considerable. 
 Gwptain Singleton, published in 1720; the nautical 
 passages in Colonel Jack, published in 1722 ; A New 
 Voyage Bound the World, published in 1725 ; together with 
 a variety of ocean incidents to be met with in Boxana, 
 Moll Flanders, and in others of the voluminous publica- 
 tions of this master, seem to me directly inspired by 
 Dampier's writings. There were indeed Cowley, Wafer, 
 Eingrose, Cooke, and the contemporary buccaneering 
 authors to consult ; but it is only necessary to contrast 
 Defoe's tales of the sea, the marine passages in his 
 shore stories, and his accounts of foreign countries, with 
 the descriptions of Dampier, and more particularly the 
 reflections with which he interpolates his narratives, to 
 perceive the true source of some of the finest of the 
 imaginations of the author of Captain Singleton and 
 Bobinson Crusoe. Defoe exhibited his gratitude in an 
 odd form. Here are some opening passages in his New 
 Voyage Bound tlie World : 
 
 " It has for some ages been thought so wonderful a 
 thing to sail the tour or circle of the globe, that when 
 a man has done this mighty feat he presently thinks it 
 deserves to be recorded, like Sir Francis Drake's. So, 
 as soon as men have acted the sailor, they come ashore 
 and write books of their voyage, not only to make a 
 great noise of what they have done themselves, but, 
 pretending to show the way to others to come after 
 them, they set up for teachers and chart-makers to 
 posterity. Though most of them have had this mis- 
 fortune, that whatever success they have had in the 
 voyage they have had very little in the relation, except 
 it be to tell us that a seaman, when he comes to the 
 
VII COMPARISON WITH DEFOE 187 
 
 press, is pretty much out of his element, and that a very 
 good sailor may make but a very indifferent author." 
 
 Language of this sort does not sound very graciously 
 in the mouth of a man whose best work is owing to the 
 hints he obtains from the people whose labours and 
 pubhcations he ridicules. I hope I shall not be deemed 
 heterodox if I say that, in my humble judgment, great 
 as is my veneration for Defoe, in point of interest 
 neither his New Voyage nor his Captain Singleton is 
 to be compared with the narratives of Dampier, Cooke, 
 Eogers, and Shelvocke ; whilst there is a quaintness and 
 freshness about their plain, manly, sailorly style which 
 I instantly miss on turning to Defoe's later books. It 
 is quite true indeed that when the New Voyage Bound the 
 World was written the circumnavigation of the globe 
 was no longer considered an extraordinary feat ; but 
 then forty-two years had elapsed since Dampier had 
 sailed with the buccaneers from Virginia on his first 
 tour, and in that interval the experiences of the journey 
 — deemed remarkable at the time — had been often 
 enough repeated by his own and the voyages of others, 
 to rob the accomplishment of all its wonder. Dampier's 
 best merits have been fairly expressed by Sir Walter 
 Scott, whose reference to him in connection with the life 
 of Defoe was inevitable. He speaks of him as a mariner 
 "whose scientific skill in his profession and power of 
 literary composition were at that time rarely found in 
 that profession, especially amongst those rough sons of the 
 ocean who acknowledged no peace beyond the Line, and 
 had as natural an enmity to a South American Spaniard 
 as a greyhound to a hare, and who, though distinguished 
 by the somewhat mild term of buccaneer, were little 
 
WILLIAM DAMPIER 
 
 better than absolute pirates." This is true, but more 
 may be said. Dampier was not only the finest sailor of 
 his day — I mean in the strictly professional sense of the 
 word — ^his travels are to this hour foremost among the 
 best-written and most interesting in the language. 
 Seafaring and literary qualifications are a rare combina- 
 tion even in our own age of stiff marine-examinations, of 
 a race of naval officers distinguished for their culture 
 and their breeding, and of a merchant navy whose 
 masters and mates are, in the higher ranges at least, 
 persons of education and intelligence. But in Dampier's 
 day the sailor, whether he fought for the throne or for 
 merchant adventurers, or toiled for himself as a sea- 
 carrier, was a coarse, unlettered man. The union in 
 Dampier of the qualities which he exhibited must have 
 rendered him something of a prodigy to his contempor- 
 aries, whilst it forms his claim upon the attention and 
 esteem of posterity. No mariner ever observed more 
 closely. In his Discourse of Winds he anticipates half 
 the contents, of the volumes of Piddington and Eeid.^ 
 One would say indeed that Dampier never passed an 
 hour without pulling out his notebook. Piddington 
 particularly calls attention to the accuracy of the old 
 sailor's touches in his picture of the banks of red clouds 
 which herald the bursting of a typhoon in the China 
 seas. He also refers to Dr. Franklin's Letters, in which 
 
 ^ The former writer observes with great justice : ' ' We are perhaps 
 too much accustomed to rely on our instruments nowadays, and 
 we neglect those signs which must after all have been the baro- 
 meters and simpiesometers of Drake, Cavendish, Dampier, and all 
 our daring band of naval and commercial navigators up to the 
 end of the last century, and stiU are so for our hardy fishermen 
 and coasters." T?ie Sailor's Horn Book, p. 240, 1851. 
 
HIS QUALITIES AS A WRITER 189 
 
 there is a paper of extracts from Dampier's Voyages 
 that was read at the Eoyal Society — he does not say 
 when — and quotes at large, as substantiating a theory 
 of his own, a passage in the extracts descriptive of the 
 appearance, motion, and danger of the waterspout. So 
 in a score of other directions. No bird of strange 
 plumage meets Dampier's eye but his pen, with micro- 
 scopic fidelity, reproduces its hues, form, and tricks 
 of flight and movement. He will pause in his narrative 
 to describe a fish, and make you see it as clearly as 
 though you leaned over the side with him watching it. 
 All variety of products he carefully notes. He has also 
 a quick eye for human nature, detects and dryly repre- 
 sents the characteristics of his shipmates, and sketches 
 with humorous gravity the hideous New Guinea savage 
 whose tatooings he enlarges upon, or the primrose-coloured 
 Chinaman whose tail he measures. He is probably at 
 his best in the Supplement he wrote to the Voyage, Round 
 the World. The mariner must have received with grati- 
 tude this remarkable description of the towns and coasts 
 of the Dutch possessions in the East Indies and of 
 Tonquin. There was nothing in "Waggoner" at all 
 resembling such writing as this, nothing so trustworthy, 
 nothing indeed in any other existing sea-volume so helpful to 
 the sailor. He was the best hydrographer and geographer 
 of his age, and in truth in many respects I hardly know 
 where to look for his equal when I reflect upon what he 
 did, and consider the heroic obstinacy with which he 
 persevered in his high resolution to observe and note 
 dovni all that he saw in defiance of the distractions of a 
 life of hardship, conflict, and brutal association, and 
 despite the lack of the twenty scientific conveniences 
 
I90 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap. 
 
 which now facilitate the labours of the navigator and 
 explorer. 
 
 And perhaps those who respect his memory most will 
 be best pleased to think he was a failure as a buccaneer. 
 I have already quoted a passage from his preface in which 
 he does not dissemble the repugnance with which he 
 recurs to his life of piracy. Nothing could be more 
 intelligible than the disgust and loathing that possessed 
 him when he sat in silence writing his book, and thinking 
 of the character of the persons whom it was necessary 
 he should refer to as his intimates. They were sailors 
 indeed, but they were also brutes ; no man knew that 
 better than Dampier; no man was better acquainted 
 than he with the vices, the profligacy, the horrors of the 
 every- day speech of the men whose company he had 
 kept for months and years. ^ That quality of sympathetic 
 adhesion which the French call esgrit de corps was not 
 likely to exist in a man who, when he had parted from 
 his shipmates, found the recollection of them insupport- 
 able. Indeed he was but a poor buccaneer. He was as 
 courageous as the best man he ever sailed with ; plunder 
 he loved as well as the rest ; but he despised and detested 
 his associates, and probably only held his own amongst 
 
 1 Captain 'Williain Snelgrave, in his A New Account of Ghiinea 
 and tlie Slave-Trade, \75i, paints a lively picture of the behaviour 
 and conversation of privateersmen. "I took leave of the Captain 
 and got into my Hammock, tho' I could not sleep in my melan- 
 choly Circumstances. Moreover the execrable Oaths and Blasphemies 
 I heard among the Ship's Company shock'd me to such a degree, 
 that in Hell itself I thought there could not be worse ; for tho' 
 many seafaring men are given to swearing and taking God's Name 
 in vain, yet I could not have imagined human Nature could ever so 
 far degenerate, as to talk in the manner those abandoned wretches 
 did." P. 217. 
 
HIS CHARACTER 191 
 
 them by the exaction of that sort of respect which such 
 fellows would feel for a man of education, of wide ex- 
 perience, and the best navigator of his time. The reason 
 of his failure as a commander his own narratives make 
 clear. His books show that he understood human nature, 
 but his actions prove that he could not control or direct 
 it. Nor is it hard to see why he was unsuccessful as an 
 explorer. He appeared to exhaust his energy in theories, 
 so that by the time he addressed himself to action nearly 
 all his enthusiasm was gone. The importunities which 
 led to his being placed in command of the Roebuck and 
 despatched to the Southern Ocean must have been 
 eloquent. No doubt he was perfectly sincere in his 
 representations. As a privateersman he had sighted the 
 shores of the unknown land of the antipodes ; how far 
 south it extended he could not imagine, but vast portions 
 of it lay under heights which by analogous reasoning he 
 could prove fertile and beautiful, rich in promise to the 
 coloniser, and assuring an enlargement of the dominions 
 of the sovereign by the acquisition of a territory possibly 
 vaster than the whole of Europe. All this, we may take 
 it, he fully believed, and eagerly, impetuously, and elo- 
 quently expressed. But the passage from England to 
 Western Australia was a long one. His ardour had 
 cooled before he was off the coast of Brazil. He was 
 chagrined by the behaviour of his crew, and there were 
 other causes to cloud and chill his excitable and impres- 
 sionable nature. You can see that he had lost all heart, 
 or at least all appetite, for the quest he had undertaken 
 long before the coast of New Holland rose over his bows. 
 Men of Dampier's temperament may be able to write 
 engaging narratives of their adventures, and exhibit all 
 
193 WILLIAM DAMPIER chap, vii 
 
 the solid virtues of the sober, as well as all the airy 
 qualities of the poetic, observer; but they are not formed 
 of the stuff of which explorers are made. Their pulse 
 beats too hotly at the start and too languidly towards 
 the end. Yet the world does well to hold the name of 
 Dampier in memory as a skilful seaman, an acute observer, 
 an agreeable writer, and a thorough Englishman. 
 
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 [S^ady. 
 HBNRY IL By Mrs. J. R. Geeen. 
 
 [Emdy. 
 EDWARD I. By F. YoEK Powell. 
 HBNRY VII. By James Gaibdnee. 
 
 CARDINAL WOLSBY. By Professor 
 
 M. Ckeiqhton, M,A., D.O.L., LL.D. 
 
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 ELIZABETH. By E. S. Beesly. 
 OLIVER CROMWELL. By Feedeeio 
 Haerison. [Rea^. 
 
 WILLIAM IIL By H. D. Teaill. 
 
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 PITT. By John Moeley. [aor%. 
 PEEL. By J. R. Thuksb-ield. 
 
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