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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 conceivable that
the buccaneer or privateersman should have gone far beyond him.
He recognised no restrictions 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 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 Rug 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
Rogers and Courtney are significantly expressed by their early
mutiny. Many of them were seasoned buccaneers—ruffians whom
not even the common hope could keep straight. Fortunately for his
employers, Rogers knew how to handle them.
On the 18th the two vessels captured a small Spanish ship which
they carried to Teneriffe. 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
represented 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 Rogers and
Courtney bombarding the town of Oratava. When the inhabitants
saw the vessels standing in with tompions out and all hands at
quarters, 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 Rogers 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
disturbances 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 privateersmen 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
concealing 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 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 Rogers could have hit upon for
silencing 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 insubordination. 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 Duke 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 his 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
proposed 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 Rogers 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 Rogers. 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, and was answered
by the hurricane shout to the forecastle 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 Chili, 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 Duke and Dutchess of
Alexander Selkirk on the island of Juan Fernandez. The accentuation
the story obtained from the genius of Defoe makes 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 remembered.
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 Ports 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, [27]—
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 volume 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 Duke, 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 amongst the 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. Rogers 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 Ports; 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 his Captain; which,
together with the Ship's being leaky, made him willing 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 Practical Pieces,
and his Mathematical Instruments 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 Reading, singing Psalms, and Praying, so that he said he
was a better Christian 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, 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 “irreconcilable aversion to an officer on
board the Cinque Ports, who, he was informed, was on board the
Duke, but not being a principal in command, he was prevailed upon
to waive that circumstance and accompany Captain Dampier, for
whom he had a friendship.” Whoever the person may have been, the
Scotchman's dislike of him was bitter, and it was to Dampier's
persuasions that Rogers 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 Rogers styled
Selkirk the governor of the island, a half-humorous and half-pathetic
fancy (when one thinks of the desperate loneliness of the unhappy
man), which Defoe afterwards adopted when making Robinson
Crusoe speak of his possessions 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, particularly 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 previously a ship had sailed from
Payta for Acapulco with two hundred thousand pieces of eight on
board, together with a rich cargo of liquors and flour. More useful
information was conveyed in the statement that a certain Señor
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 discovery 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 disputants 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 Duke with forty men; bringing up the whole force to a total of
three hundred and twenty. In 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 understanding 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 Rogers lost his
brother, who was second lieutenant on board the Duke. 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 Duke 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 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. [28] 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, 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 Dutchess'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 discussion, the offer of thirty
thousand dollars 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 hundred tons each, valued at eighty thousand crowns. But
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
hundred 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 companions
running before a strong gale of wind for the Galapagos Islands. A
number of the crew were prostrated 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
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 Duke and Dutchess. By the 28th
they had restored their provisions and mounted their guns, having in
fourteen 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
Rogers, “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 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 Rover's one.
Whilst Rogers 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 keep up with them.” Before lifting their anchors
the commanders and officers 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-
boxes, 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
owners. Dampier, we may well suppose, shared in the high hopes
and good spirits of his shipmates. This was the only promising
privateering 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 independency 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.
[29]
 They sailed on August 11th, and nothing noteworthy happened till
September 6th, on which date we find Dampier dining with Captain
Rogers on board the Duke in company with Cooke and Courtney.
Cooke 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 affirmed
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 disputing 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.
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. Rogers writes of the turtle as if he had never seen it before.
“I do not,” he says, “affect giving Relations of strange Creatures, so
frequently done by others; but where an uncommon Creature falls in
my Way I cannot omit it.” This is how the captain describes the
“uncommon creature.”
“The Creatures are the ugliest in Nature; the Shell, not unlike the
Top of an old Hackney-coach, as black as Jet; 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 Rogers that it was
hereabouts he attacked the Manila ship in the St. George. He might
have been right, but Rogers does not speak as if he thought so, for
he says: “Captain Dampier indeed had been here, but 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 sumptuously. 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 when Sir Thomas Candish had taken the
Manila ship, and, strangely enough, their keels ploughed the very
tract of water in which that remarkable 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 stern 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, 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 Duke 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 increased 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, 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 hailing 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 Duke and the Dutchess were standing towards the
stranger; but on a sudden it fell stark calm, and as conjecture was
hopeless and expectation insupportable, the pinnace was manned
and sent to see what she could make of the distant ship. In reading
Rogers'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,
glimmering 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
intentions and recalling their experiences in voices subdued by
excitement; above all, the old, worn, but gallant Duke 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 swaying masts. “All the rest of
the Day,” says Rogers, “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 Marquis, 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 Dutchess's Pinnace, which rowed to
meet her. They lay together some time, and then the Dutchess's
Pinnace went back to their Ship which gave us great Hopes.” An
officer was sent to the Dutchess to ascertain what the stranger was,
and to concert measures, if she should prove an enemy, for
engaging her. When he was gone Rogers 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; they hove all their melancholy reflections on the
shortness 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 Rogers, “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 Duke 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. Rogers 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. Perhaps 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 had despoiled. If
the Spaniards saw Rogers's privateersmen 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 Duke 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 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. Rogers, 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, Rogers 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, Rogers'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 Rogers that I confess I do not fully understand it. The
Duke was in good condition, and why the three instead 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 Rogers 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 Rogers 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 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 Marquis had succeeded in bringing her to
an engagement. The wind was light, and it was almost impossible to
manœuvre the vessels; so that though the Dutchess and the
Marquis continued at intervals to fire at the Manila ship until dusk,
the Duke even at midnight was still at a considerable distance from
the enemy. When the day broke the wind shifted, and Rogers 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 buccaneers
defeated their seamanship. Their vessels were repeatedly falling foul
of one another and throwing the crews into disorder. The guns of
the Marquis 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 sustained, 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 enemy had proved too many for them.
The Duke's mainmast was so wounded that Rogers 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 Rogers, “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. Rogers 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 Rogers
says: “After my Return 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 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.” [30]
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 provisions enough to last them for a voyage to
Acapulco, and then addressed themselves to the urgent business of
repairing 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 adventurer, and representing the considerable sum of
money he had risked in this expedition, demanded the berth. Rogers
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.
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. Rogers 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 description 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 off 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,
“discouraged 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 Guiney.” It had been thus with Dampier whilst buccaneering 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. Accordingly they stood
away to the south-west before a strong 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 14th, and proceeded direct to the Cape of Good Hope,
where they arrived without misadventure and without any incident
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 traffic of those dim times to the Indies by way of the
Cape 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 ourselves upon what we have done and are
doing; but it does not seem to me that our marine achievements can
be compared as illustrations of human skill and determination with
the examples of the adventurous genius of an age when the greater
portion of the antipodean world lay in darkness; when navigation
was little better than guesswork; 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 destination 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 desired power of propulsion from the teeth of the
antagonistic gale, is, I take it, an admission of our own weakness
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 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 visionary; 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 Rogers 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. Rogers
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 as to
privileges; they were also enjoined to exercise the utmost caution in
respect of the Dutch East India Company, 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 remained 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
Duke 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.
 CHAPTER VII
CONCLUSION

As Dampier steps over the ship's side the reader is prepared 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 advanced 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 Rogers's voyage (see previous page)
were fairly divided amongst the officers and 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 Duke 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.” [31] 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
unremunerative 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
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 information 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 unsheltered 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 disappointment, 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 Rogers. [32]
There is a tradition that he was known to Defoe, which Sir Walter
Scott traces to a passage in the Review. Whether Defoe knew
Dampier in the flesh or not, his literary obligations to him appear
considerable. Captain Singleton, published in 1720; the nautical
passages in Colonel Jack, published in 1722; A New Voyage Round
the World, published in 1725; together with a variety of ocean
incidents to be met with in Roxana, Moll Flanders, and in others of
the voluminous publications of this master, seem to me directly
inspired by Dampier's writings. There were indeed Cowley, Wafer,
Ringrose, 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 Robinson Crusoe. Defoe exhibited
his gratitude in an odd form. Here are some opening passages in his
New Voyage Round the 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
misfortune, 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 press, is pretty much out of his
element, and that a very good sailor may make but a very indifferent
author.”
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