_I.--Buccaneering in Southern Seas_
William Dampier, buccaneer and circumnavigator, was born
at East Coker, Somersetshire, England, in 1652, and died
in London in March, 1715. At sea, as a youth, he fought
against the Dutch in 1673, and remained in Jamaica as a
plantation overseer. Next he became a logwood cutter on
the Bay of Campeachy, and finding himself short of wood to
barter for provisions, joined the privateers who waged
piratical war on Spaniards and others, making "many
descents among the villages." Returning to England in
1678, he sailed again in that year for Jamaica; "but it
proved to be a voyage round the world," as described in
his book, and he did not reach home till 1691. In 1698 he
was given command of a ship, in which he explored the
Australian coast, but in returning was wrecked on the Isle
of Ascension. In 1711 he piloted the expedition of Captain
Woodes-Rogers which rescued Alexander Selkirk from the
Island of Juan Fernandez. The "New Voyage Round the
World," which was first published in 1697, shows Dampier
to be a man of considerable scientific knowledge, his
observations of natural history being trustworthy and
accurate.
I first set out of England on this voyage at the beginning of the year
1679, in the Loyal Merchant, of London, bound for Jamaica, Captain
Knapman commander. I went a passenger, designing when I came thither to
go from thence to the Bay of Campeachy, in the Gulf of Mexico, to cut
logwood. We arrived safely at Port Royal in Jamaica, in April, 1679, and
went immediately ashore. I had brought some goods with me from England,
which I intended to sell here, and stock myself with rum and sugar,
saws, axes, hats, stockings, shoes, and such other commodities as I knew
would sell among the Campeachy logwood-cutters. About Christmas one Mr.
Hobby invited me to go a short trading voyage to the country of the
Mosquito Indians. We came to an anchor in Negril Bay, at the west end of
Jamaica; but, finding there Captains Coxon, Sawkins, Sharpe, and other
privateers, Mr. Hobby's men all left him to go with them upon an
expedition; and being thus left alone, after three or four days' stay
with Mr. Hobby, I was the more easily persuaded to go with them too.
I was resolved to march by land over the Isthmus of Darien. Accordingly,
on April 5, 1680, we went ashore on the isthmus, near Golden Island, one
of the Sambaloes, to the number of between 300 and 400 men, carrying
with us such provisions as were necessary, and toys wherewith to gratify
the wild Indians. In about nine days' march we arrived at Santa Maria,
and took it, and after a stay there of about three days, we went on to
the South Sea coast, and there embarked ourselves in such canoes and
periagoes as our Indian friends furnished us withal. We were in sight of
Panama on April 23, and having in vain attempted Pueblo Nuevo, before
which Sawkins, then commander-in-chief, and others, were killed, we made
some stay at the isle of Quibo.
About Christmas we were got as far as the isle of Juan Fernandez, where
Captain Sharpe was, by general consent, displaced from being commander,
the company being not satisfied either with his courage or behaviour. In
his stead Captain Watling was advanced; but he being killed shortly
after before Arica, where we were repulsed with great loss, we were
without a commander. Off the island of Plata we left Captain Sharpe and
those who were willing to go with him in the ship, and embarked into our
launch and canoes. We were in number forty-four white men who bore arms;
a Spanish Indian, who bore arms also, and two Mosquito Indians, who
always have arms among the privateers, and are much valued by them for
striking fish and turtle, or tortoise, and manatee, or sea-cow; and
five slaves taken in the South Seas, who fell to our share. We sifted
as much flour as we could well carry, and rubbed up twenty or thirty
pounds of chocolate, with sugar to sweeten it; these things and a kettle
the slaves carried on their backs after we landed.
We gave out that if any man faltered in the journey overland he must
expect to be shot to death; for we knew that the Spaniards would soon be
after us, and one man falling into their hands might well be the ruin of
us all. Guided by the Indians, we finished our journey from the South
Sea to the North in twenty-three days.
_II.--Adventures with the Privateers_
It was concluded to go to a town called Coretaga (Cartagena), and march
thence on Panama. I was with Captain Archembo; but his French seamen
were the saddest creatures ever I was among. So, meeting Captain Wright,
who had taken a Spanish tartane (a one-masted vessel) with four
petereroes for stone shot, and some long guns, we that came overland
desired him to fit up his prize and make a man-of-war of her for us.
This he did, and we sailed towards Blewfields River, where we careened
our tartane.
While we lay here our Mosquito men went in their canoe and struck some
sea-cow. This creature is about the bigness of a horse, and ten or
twelve feet long. The mouth of it is much like the mouth of a cow,
having great thick lips. The eyes are no bigger than a small pea; the
ears are only two small holes on the side of the head; the neck is short
and thick, bigger than the head. The biggest part of this creature is at
the shoulders, where it has two large fins, one at each side of its
belly.
A calf that sucks is the most delicate meat; privateers commonly roast
them. The skin of the manatee is of great use to privateers, for they
cut them out into straps, which they make fast on the sides of their
canoes, through which they put their oars in rowing, instead of pegs.
The skin of the bull, or of the back of the cow, they cut into
horsewhips, twisted when green, and then hung to dry.
The Mosquitoes, two in a canoe, have a staff about eight feet long,
almost as big as a man's arm at the great end, where there is a hole to
place the harpoon in. At the other end is a piece of light wood, with a
hole in it, through which the small end of the staff comes; and on this
piece of bob-wood there is a line of ten or twelve fathoms wound neatly
about, the end of the line made fast to it. The other end of the line is
made fast to the harpoon, and the Mosquito man keeps about a fathom of
it loose in his hand.
When he strikes, the harpoon presently comes out of the staff, and as
the manatee swims away the line runs off from the bob; and although at
first both staff and bob may be carried under water, yet as the line
runs off it will rise again. When the creature's strength is spent they
haul it up to the canoe's side, knock it on the head, and tow it ashore.
When we had passed by Cartagena we descried a sail off at sea and chased
her. Captain Wright, who sailed best, came up with her and engaged her;
then Captain Yanky, and they took her before we came up. We lost two or
three men, and had seven or eight wounded. The prize was a ship of
twelve guns and forty men, who had all good small arms; she was laden
with sugar and tobacco, and had eight or ten tons of marmalade on board.
We went to the Isle of Aves, where the Count d'Estrées's whole squadron,
sent to take Curaçoa for the French, had been wrecked. Coming in from
the eastward, the count fell in on the back of the reef, and fired guns
to give warning to the rest. But they, supposing their admiral was
engaged with enemies, crowded all sail and ran ashore after him, for his
light in the maintop was an unhappy beacon. The men had time enough to
get ashore, yet many perished. There were about forty Frenchmen on board
one of the ships, where there was good store of liquor. The afterpart of
her broke away and floated off to sea, with all the men drinking and
singing, who, being in drink, did not mind the danger, but were never
heard of afterwards.
Captain Payne, commander of a privateer of six guns, had a pleasant
accident at this island. He came hither to careen, therefore hauled into
the harbour and unrigged his ship. A Dutch ship of twenty guns seeing a
ship in the harbour, and knowing her to be a French privateer, came
within a mile of her, intending to warp in and take her next day, for it
is very narrow going in. Captain Payne got ashore, and did in a manner
conclude he must be taken; but spied a Dutch sloop turning to get into
the road, and saw her, at the evening, anchor at the west end of the
island. In the night he sent two canoes aboard the sloop, took her, and
went away in her, making a good reprisal, and leaving his own empty ship
to the Dutchman.
While we lay on the Caracas coast we went ashore in some of the bays,
and took seven or eight tons of cacao; and after that three barques, one
laden with hides, the second with European commodities, the third with
earthenware and brandy. With these three barques we went to the island
of Roques, where we shared our commodities. Twenty of us took one of the
vessels, and our share of the goods, and went directly for Virginia,
where we arrived in July 1682.
_III.--On Robinson Crusoe's Island_
I now enter upon the relation of a new voyage, proceeding from Virginia
by the way of Tierra del Fuego and the South Seas, the East Indies, and
so on, till my return to England by way of the Cape of Good Hope. On
August 23, 1683, we sailed from Achamack (Accomack), in Virginia, under
the command of Captain Cook. On February 6 we fell in with the Straits
of Le Maire, and on February 14, being in latitude 57°, and to the west
of Cape Horn, we had a violent storm, which held us till March 3--thick
weather all the time, with small, drizzling rain. The nineteenth day we
saw a ship, and lay muzzled to let her come up with us, for we supposed
her to be a Spanish ship. This proved to be one Captain Eaton, from
London. Both being bound for Juan Fernandez's Isle, we kept company, and
we spared him bread and beef, and he spared us water.
On March 22, 1684, we came in sight of the island, and the next day got
in and anchored. We presently went ashore to seek for a Mosquito Indian
whom we left here when we were chased hence by three Spanish ships in
the year 1681, a little before we went to Africa. This Indian lived here
alone above three years. He was in the woods hunting for goats when
Captain Watling drew off his men, and the ship was under sail before he
came back to shore.
He had with him his gun and a knife, with a small horn of powder and a
few shot. These being spent, he contrived a way, by notching his knife,
to saw the barrel of his gun into small pieces, wherewith he made
harpoons, lances, hooks, and a long knife; heating the pieces first in
the fire, which he struck with his gun-flint, and a piece of the barrel
of his gun, which he hardened, having learnt to do that among the
English. The hot pieces of iron he would hammer out and bend as he
pleased with stones, and saw them with his jagged knife, or grind them
to an edge by long labour, and harden them to a good temper as there was
occasion. With such instruments as he made in that manner he got such
provision as the island afforded, either goats or fish. He told us that
at first he was forced to eat seal, which is very ordinary meat, before
he had made hooks; but afterwards he never killed any seals but to make
lines, cutting their skins into thongs.
He had, half a mile from the sea, a little house or hut, which was lined
with goatskin. His couch, or barbecue of sticks, lying along about two
feet distant from the ground, was spread with the same, as was all his
bedding. He had no clothes left, having worn out all those he brought
from Watling's ship, but only a skin about his waist. He saw our ship
the day before we came to an anchor, and did believe we were English,
and therefore killed three goats in the morning before we came to
anchor, and dressed them with cabbage to treat us when we came ashore.
This island is about twelve leagues round, full of high hills and small,
pleasant valleys, which, if manured, would probably produce anything
proper for the climate. The sides of the mountains are part woodland and
part savannahs, well stocked with wild goats descended from those left
here by Juan Fernandez in his voyage from Lima to Valdivia. Seals swarm
as thick about this island as though they had no other place to live in,
for there is not a bay nor rock that one can get ashore on but is full
of them. They are as big as calves, the head of them like a dog,
therefore called by the Dutch sea-hounds. Here are always thousands--I
might say millions--of them sitting on the bays, or going and coming in
the sea round the island. When they come out of the sea they bleat like
sheep for their young, and though they pass through hundreds of other
young ones before they come to their own, yet they will not suffer any
of them to suck. A blow on the nose soon kills them. Large ships might
here load themselves with sealskins and train-oil, for they are
extraordinary fat.
Our passage lay now along the Pacific Sea. We made the best of our way
towards the line, and fell in with the mainland of South America. The
land is of a most prodigious height. It lies generally in ridges
parallel to the shore, three or four ridges one within another, each
surpassing the other in height. They always appear blue when seen at
sea; sometimes they are obscured with clouds, but not so often as the
high lands in other parts of the world--for there are seldom or never
any rains on these hills, nor are they subject to fogs. These are the
highest mountains that ever I saw, far surpassing the peak of Teneriffe,
or Santa Marta, and, I believe, any mountains in the world.
_IV.--More Buccaneering Exploits_
On May 3 we descried a sail. Captain Eaton, being ahead, soon took her;
she was laden with timber. Near the island of Lobos we chased and caught
three sail, all laden with flour. In the biggest was a letter from the
viceroy of Lima to the president of Panama, assuring him there were
enemies in that sea, for which reason he had despatched this flour, and
desiring him to be frugal of it, for he knew not when he should send
more. In this ship were likewise seven or eight tons of marmalade of
quinces, and a stately mule sent to the president, and a very large
image of the Virgin Mary in wood, carved and painted, to adorn a new
church at Panama. She brought also from Lima 800,000 pieces of eight to
carry with her to Panama; but while she lay at Huanchaco, taking in her
lading of flour, the merchants, hearing of Captain Swan's being at
Valdivia ordered the money ashore again.
On September 20 we came to the island of Plata, so named, as some
report, after Sir Francis Drake took the Cacafuego--a ship chiefly laden
with plate, which they say he brought hither and divided with his men.
Near it we took an Indian village called Manta, but found no sort of
provision, the viceroy having sent orders to all seaports to keep none,
but just to supply themselves. At La Plata arrived Captain Swan, in the
Cygnet, of London. He was fitted out by very eminent merchants of that
city on a design only to trade with Spaniards or Indians; but, meeting
with divers disappointments, and being out of hopes to obtain a trade in
these seas, his men forced him to entertain a company of privateers, who
had come overland under the command of Captain Peter Harris. Captains
Davis and Swan sent our small barque to look for Captain Eaton, the isle
of Plata to be the general rendezvous; and on November 2 we landed 110
men to take the small Spanish seaport town of Payta. The governor of
Piura had come the night before to Payta with a hundred armed men to
oppose our landing, but our men marched directly to the fort and took it
without the loss of one man, whereupon the governor of Piura, with all
his men, and the inhabitants of the town, ran away as fast as they
could. Then our men entered the town, and found it emptied both of money
and goods. There was not so much as a meal of victuals left for them. We
anchored before the town, and stayed till the sixth day in hopes to get
a ransom. Our captains demanded 300 packs of flour, 300 lb. of sugar,
twenty-five jars of wine, and a thousand jars of water, but we got
nothing of it. Therefore Captain Swan ordered the town to be fired.
Once in three years the Spanish Armada comes to Porto Bello, then the
Plate Fleet also from Lima comes hither with the king's treasure, and
abundance of merchant ships, full of goods and plate. With other
privateers we formed the plan, in 1685, of attacking the Armada and
capturing the treasure. On May 28 we saw the Spanish fleet three leagues
from the island of Pacheque--in all fourteen sail, besides periagoes.
Our fleet consisted of but ten sail. Yet we were not discouraged, but
resolved to fight them, for being to windward, we had it in our choice
whether we would fight or not. We bore down right afore the wind upon
our enemies, but night came on without anything besides the exchanging
of a few shot. When it grew dark the Spanish admiral put out a light as
a signal to his fleet to anchor. We saw the light in the admiral's top
about half an hour, and then it was taken down. In a short time after we
saw the light again, and being to windward, we kept under sail,
supposing the light to have been in the admiral's top.
But, as it proved, this was only a stratagem of theirs, for this light
was put out a second time at one of their barques' topmast head, and
then she went to leeward, which deceived us. In the morning, therefore,
contrary to our expectations, we found they had got the weather-gauge
of us, and were coming upon us with full sail. So we ran for it, and
after a running fight all day, were glad to escape. Thus ended this
day's work, and with it all that we had been projecting for four or five
months.
The town of Puebla Nueva was taken with 150 men, and in July, being 640
men in eight sail of ships, we designed to attempt the city of Leon. We
landed 470 men to march to the town, and I was left to guard the canoes
till their return. With eighty men Captain Townley entered the town, and
was briskly charged in a broad street by 170 or 200 Spanish horsemen;
but two or three of their leaders being knocked down, the rest fled. The
Spaniards talked of ransom, but only to gain time to get more men. Our
captains therefore set the city on fire, and came away.
_V.--Home by the East Indies_
Afterwards we steered for the coast of California, and some of us taking
the resolution of going over to the East Indies, we set out from Cape
Corrientes on March 31, 1686. We were two ships in company, Captain
Swan's ship, and a barque commanded under Captain Swan by Captain Tait,
and we were 150 men--100 aboard of the ship, and 50 aboard the barque,
besides slaves. It was very strange that in all the voyage to Guam, in
the Ladrones, we did not see one fish, not so much as a flying fish.
From Guam we went to Mindanao in the Philippines. About this time some
of our men, who were weary and tired with wandering, ran away into the
country. The whole crew were under a general disaffection, and full of
different projects, and all for want of action. One day that Captain
Swan was ashore, a Bristol man named John Reed peeped into his journal
and lighted on a place where Captain Swan had inveighed bitterly against
most of his men. Captain Tait, who had been abused by Captain Swan, laid
hold of this opportunity to be revenged. So we left Captain Swan and
about thirty-six men ashore in the city, and sailed from Mindanao. Among
the Pescadores we had a storm in which the violent wind raised the sea
to a great height; the rain poured down as through a sieve; it thundered
and lightened prodigiously, and the sea seemed all of a fire about us. I
was never in such a violent storm in all my life; so said all the
company. Afterwards we came to Grafton and Monmouth islands, the island
of Celebes, and others.
Being clear of all the islands, we stood off south, and on January 4,
1688, we fell in with the land of New Holland, a part of Terra Australis
Incognita. It is not yet determined whether it is an island or a main
continent, but I am certain that it does not join Asia, Africa, or
America.
We sailed from New Holland to Sumatra and the Nicobar Islands, where,
being anxious to escape from the ship, I desired Captain Reed to set me
ashore. Mr. Robert Hall, and a man named Ambrose, whose surname I have
forgot, were put ashore with me. From the Nicobar people we bought for
an axe a canoe, in which we stowed our chests and clothes, and in this
frail craft we three Englishmen, with four Malays and a mongrel
Portuguese, made our way to Achin. The hardships of this voyage, with
the scorching heat of the sun at our first setting out, and then the
cold rain in a fearful storm, cast us all into fevers. Three days after
our arrival our Portuguese died. What became of our Malays I know not.
Ambrose lived not long after.
In January, 1691, there came to an anchor in Bencouli Road the Defence,
Captain Heath commander, bound for England. On this ship I obtained a
passage to England, where we arrived on September 16, 1691.