William Dampier

“ Wonderful tales had long been current of the capture of treasure by little insignificant 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. [Pg 110] Speculative men of substance were found and an expedition equipped, the ships being the St. George, Captain William Dampier, and the Fame, Captain John Pulling. ”

“ 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 [Pg 12] 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. ”

“ 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 impressionable 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 the solid virtues of the sober, as well as all the airy qualities of the poetic, observer ”

“ The vessel which had sailed in company with that of Captain Rogers, the Duchess, of Bristol, had arrived. This vessel, commanded by William Cook, had, for a master-pilot, a man more celebrated in maritime annals than the commanders of the expedition themselves;—this was Dampier, the indefatigable William Dampier, who, a short time since a millionaire, now completely ruined in consequence of foolish speculations and prodigalities, had just undertaken a third voyage around the world. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 official help for a voyage of discovery to New Holland. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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 buccaneers walked down to the beach to wait until the ship should weigh and be gone, fearing their liberty whilst she stayed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 [Pg 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. ”

“ 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 Francisco, of Tasman at Hobart Town! ”

“ 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 honourable naval warfare in their lawlessness; and to their credit let this stand, that though they professed themselves as no more than privateersmen, their behaviour will certainly bear comparison with the state-sanctioned and instructed conduct of the officers and crews of the expedition under Commodore Anson.
But my business is with Captain William Dampier only. ”

“ Then I bore away to the north side of the island where we found no anchoring neither. We saw several people, and some coconut-trees, but could not send ashore for want of my pinnace which was out of order. In the evening I stood off to sea to be at such a distance that I might not be driven by any current upon the shoals of this island if it should prove calm. We had but little wind, especially the beginning of the night; but in the morning I found myself so far to the west of the island that, the wind being at east-south-east, I could not fetch it ”

“ My clerk answered him that I had no such design but, without coming nearer them, would be contented if the governor would send water on board where we lay, about 2 leagues from the fort; and that I would make any reasonable satisfaction for it. The governor said that we should have what water we wanted, provided we came no nearer with the ship: and ordered that as soon as we pleased we should send our boat full of empty casks, and come to an anchor with it off the fort, till he sent slaves to bring the casks ashore and fill them; for that none of our men must come ashore. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ Here Dampier was so [Pg 92] 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. ”

“ They are stout, lusty, well-limbed people, both men and women, fat and fleshy; and they and their children as round and plump as little porpoises; though the island appears so barren to a stranger as scarce to have food for its inhabitants. I enquired how many people there might be on the isle; and was told by one of the padres that here were 230 souls in all. The negro governor has his patent from the Portuguese governor of St. Jago. He is a very civil and sensible poor man; and they are generally a good sort of people. He expects a small present from every commander that lades salt here ”

“ In the evening we passed by Cape Mabo; and afterwards steered away south-east half east, keeping along the shore which here trends south-easterly. The next morning, seeing a large opening in the land with an island near the south side, I stood in, thinking to anchor there. When we were shot in within 2 leagues of the island the wind came to the west, which blows right into the opening. I stood to the north shore; intending, when I came pretty nigh, to send my boat into the opening, and sound before I would adventure in. We found several deep bays, but no soundings within 2 miles of the shore ”

“ The quarrel between Stradling and his men rose to such a height that the crew 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 [Pg 116] himself ”

“ Those twenty-three ships at anchor in Table Bay, surveyed by the eyes of Dampier [Pg 181] 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 ”

“ We lay here 7 weeks; and, although the north-north-west monsoon was every day expected when I was at Laphao, yet it was not come, so that if I had prosecuted my voyage to the eastward without staying here it had been but to little advantage. For if I had gone out and beaten against the wind a whole month I should not have got far; it may be 40, 50 or 60 leagues; which was but 24 hours run for us with a large wind; besides the trouble and discontent which might have arisen among my men in beating to windward to so little purpose, there being nothing to be got at sea ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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 fight, 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 hundred and fifty, the other of two hundred tons. Meanwhile 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. ”

“ 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 exhibited, and his curious caprices of decision. He starts for Jamaica to cut logwood at Campeché; on his arrival he changes his mind and prepares for his return ”