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WILLIAM DAMPIER

The title of this section requires, perhaps, some explanation; and first as to the phrase "South Seas." In the sixteenth and two following centuries this term was applied to that portion of the Pacific Ocean which borders the west coast of South America, from Cape Horn to the Gulf of Panama. It had been first exploited by the Spaniards, and became a great treasure-hunting ground for them, until France and England stepped in to obtain a share in the spoils, and the Spanish treasure-ships were tracked and waylaid by English privateers and men-of-war; which also attacked Spanish ports and towns.

To this end there were several privateering expeditions sent out, at the end of the seventeenth and during the eighteenth century: and it is of some of these that it is proposed to treat in this chapter.

In this connection, it is impossible to omit the name of William Dampier; for he was, for a time, a privateer captain, duly supplied with a commission to fight against the enemies of his sovereign. He had served, in his youth, in the Royal Navy, but had subsequently been in very bad company, sailing with the famous buccaneers, who were practically pirates, in the South Seas. This did not prevent him, however, from eventually obtaining, after many vicissitudes, the command of a man-of-war, the Roebuck: he lost his ship, and was tried by court-martial for cruelty to Lieutenant Fisher; and this was the end of his connection with the Navy, for the court found the charge proved against him, sentenced him to forfeit his pay, and pronounced him to be an unfit person to command a king's ship.

Dampier was not, indeed, fit for any post of command, though he was a very distinguished man, by reason of his skill as a navigator, and the immense pains he took in noting and recording the characteristics, natural history, winds, currents, and every imaginable detail of those portions of the world which he visited. The results of his observations were treated with the greatest deference for generations afterwards, and in many respects hold good to the present day. His praises have been sung in all the languages of Europe, and one at least of his admirers alludes to him as "a man of exquisite refinement of mind." The word "refinement" must be taken as signifying, in this instance, the faculty of recognising and distinguishing between cause and effect in what came under his notice, a kind of natural intuition with regard to matters of scientific interest, a love of science for its own sake; for of refinement, in the commonly accepted sense of the word, Dampier certainly displayed a grievous lack, at least in his capacity as captain of a ship, even in those rough days.

However, after his trouble in the Roebuck, he was placed in command of a privateer, the St. George, of twenty-six guns, for a voyage to the South Seas, having for a consort a smaller vessel, the Cinque Ports, commanded by one Pickering, and they sailed from Kinsale—a favourite port of call and place of departure in those days—on September 11th, 1703.

The voyage was almost entirely a failure; the crews were more or less insubordinate from the first, neither Dampier nor Pickering knowing how to manage them. Pickering died when on the coast of Brazil, and Stradling, his mate, succeeded him.

When they had got round Cape Horn, and made the island of Juan Fernandez, the crews mutinied openly; some of them went on shore, and declared their intention of deserting altogether. When this was patched up, there still remained an utter lack of confidence between Dampier and his subordinates. The two ships engaged a French cruiser, against Dampier's wish, and the action was futile and ill-fought, so that the Frenchman got away. Nothing prospered with them.

Dampier was for ever making plans which held out the prospect of wealth, but had not the courage to follow them up. Alarmed at the sight of two French ships as they returned to Juan Fernandez, he sheered off, leaving a quantity of stores, and six men who had secreted themselves on the island. When at length they were in great straits for food, they captured a large Spanish ship laden with provisions; over this capture there was a final rupture between Dampier and Stradling, and they parted for good. They took two or three small vessels also, of no value, which only facilitated the defection of Dampier's followers. One of them Stradling had appropriated; in the other two, first John Clipperton, Dampier's mate, and then William Funnell, his steward, decamped, each with a party of men. The St. George was too rotten to venture in any longer, and eventually, after plundering a small Spanish town, Dampier seized a brigantine, and sailed for the East Indies, only to be taken and imprisoned in a Dutch factory for some months. At last he arrived in England, towards the end of 1707, to find that William Funnell—who represented himself as Dampier's mate—had published an account of the cruise, in which Dampier was belittled and held up to ridicule.

Dampier immediately set to work and wrote a vindication of his conduct during the cruise—an angry and incoherent tirade, which probably convinced no one, and was answered shortly afterwards by one George Welbe, one of his former officers, in a pamphlet which was also a wordy and violent assault; but the impression finally left upon the mind of the reader is that Dampier was a very fine navigator and amateur scientist, but a very bad commander. We shall hear of him again very shortly, in a more subordinate capacity.

In connection with this luckless cruise, there is one incident of considerable interest, which should not be overlooked. The Cinque Ports carried as sailing master one Alexander Selkirk, of Scotch extraction. Obviously, he must have been a seaman of considerable experience and capacity, to have been selected for this post; and presumably he would have knowledge of the navigation of the South Seas. He had, in fact, quitted his home in Scotland at the age of eighteen, and been absent for six years, during part of which time he is believed to have been with the buccaneers.

When Captain Pickering died Selkirk viewed with great dissatisfaction the prospect of sailing under his successor, Stradling, whom he hated; and on the return of the Cinque Ports to Juan Fernandez, after parting from Dampier, he took occasion of a violent quarrel with Stradling to carry out a mad project which he had formed some time previously—to desert the vessel and fend for himself on this or some other island.

Stradling took him at his word, and, when on the point of sailing, conveyed Selkirk, with all his traps, on shore and "dumped" him on the beach.

The Scotchman shook hands with his shipmates very cheerfully, wishing them luck, while Stradling, apprehensive of more desertions, kept calling to them to return to the boat, which they did.

As the boat pulled away, and Selkirk realised that he was to be left there, absolutely severed from all intercourse with mankind, probably for years, possibly until death, a sudden terrible revulsion of feeling rushed upon him, and he ran down the beach, wading into the sea, with outstretched hands imploring them to return and take him on board.

Stradling only mocked him; told him his conduct in asking to be landed was rank mutiny, and that his present situation was a very suitable one for such a fellow, as he would at least not be able to affect others by his bad example; and so rowed away and left him: and it was nearly four and a half years later that he was rescued, by the crew of another English privateer, as we shall see.

The special interest attached to this incident lies, of course, in the fact that, had Stradling not hardened his heart and rowed away, that wonderful book "Robinson Crusoe," the delight of our early years, would in all probability never have been written—or at least the principal portion, dealing with his life on the island, would not have been written; for it was undoubtedly the story of Alexander Selkirk's long, solitary sojourn on Juan Fernandez which gave Daniel Defoe the idea, though there is no reason to suppose that he obtained any details from Selkirk himself; indeed, the story of Robinson Crusoe and his adventures is, without doubt, pure romance. So there we may leave Alexander Selkirk for the present: a miserable man enough at first, we may well imagine.