1699-1701
THE VOYAGE OF THE “ROEBUCK.”[14]
Dampier tells us nothing of his private and home-going life after he
carries us to sea with him in the _Loyal Merchant_, and so little is
known of that side of his career that there is no means of supplying
his omissions except by conjecture. It is pretty certain that he was
very needy when he returned from his first voyage round the world. The
value of his Dorsetshire estate cannot be guessed, but even if he still
retained it, his views and endeavours are at this time those of a poor
man. In the first volume of his Travels, as we have seen, he treats of
New Holland as a privateersman would,—glances, to use his own metaphor,
at the fringe of the carpet without desire to examine the texture or
the body of it, and quickly shares the disgust of his shipmates, whose
dreams are wholly of plunder. But on coming home and reflecting, whilst
setting about the writing of his Travels, on the land he had sighted in
the distant southern ocean, it is conceivable that ambitious thoughts
should begin slowly to fill his mind. The world at large at that time
barely credited the existence of a continent south of the East Indies.
The draughts of Tasman, the relations of De Quiros, Le Maire, and
others, were regarded for the most part as travellers' tales. Dampier
might justly hope in an age when the colonising instincts of the
English were never keener, that money and honour must be the reward of
the man who should be the first to open out a country fabulous yet in
the judgment of mankind, and, by the light of discovery, resolve what
was still visionary and dark into a magnificent reality.
His next step, at all events, was to seek ministerial and official
help for a voyage of discovery to New Holland. He lived in the days of
Dryden and of the patron, and his dedications exhibit him as possessed
in a high degree of the art of literary congeeing. This undesirable
but profitable capacity of cringing serviceably supplemented the
reputation he had made for himself as a traveller. He found patrons in
Charles Montague, afterwards Earl of Halifax, President of the Royal
Society, and one of the Lord Commissioners of the Treasury; in Edward,
Earl of Oxford, one of the principal Lords of the Admiralty; and in
Thomas Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, who filled the office of Lord High
Admiral. His representations were successful, probably beyond his own
expectations, and in the beginning of the year 1699 he was appointed
to the command of His Majesty's ship _Roebuck_ of twelve guns, manned
by a crew of fifty men and boys, and victualled for a twenty months'
cruise. Confidence, such as this trust implies, in the character and
qualifications of a man whose rating even as a privateersman was but
that of an able seaman, handsomely testifies to the very high opinion
in which Dampier was held.
The nature of the soil, climate, and the general character of Terra
Australis, Dampier could only conjecture. The ideas he had formed of
this unknown continent were, that it was a vast tract of land situated
in the richest climates in the world, having in it especially all the
advantage of the torrid zone, so that in coasting it the navigator
might be sure of meeting with broad areas productive of the rich
fruits, the drugs and spices, and perhaps the minerals discoverable
in other parts in, as he concluded, the same parallels of latitude.
His scheme was to narrowly survey all islands, shores, capes, bays,
creeks, and harbours, fit for shelter as well as defence, to take
careful soundings as he went, to note tides, currents, and wind, and
the character of the weather, with a special view to the settling
of the best districts. He also proposed to closely observe the
disposition and commodities of the natives, though he candidly admits
that after his experience of their neighbours “he expected no great
matters from them.” The course he originally designed to take was to
the westward by way of the Straits of Magellan, so as to strike the
eastern coast of Australia; and there is very little doubt that had
he pursued his first intention he would have anticipated nearly every
discovery of importance in those waters subsequently made by his
celebrated successor James Cook. Unhappily his judgment erred in one
essential direction. He was of opinion that the lands lying nearest
the equator would best repay the explorer. Nor perhaps could he guess
how far he would have to penetrate the high latitudes if he stood
south; and having passed the greater portion of his seafaring life in
Mexican, Pacific, and Indian seas, his love of the sun, fortified by
recollection of the cold of the Horn and of the one bitter voyage he
took to Newfoundland, might suffice to determine him on pinning his
faith as an explorer and on limiting his curiosity as a sailor to the
summer regions of the globe. Yet his great knowledge of the equatorial
climates should certainly have warned him against a Northern Australian
and New Guinea quest. Further, there were the experiences of Tasman to
help him, whose relations are as finger-posts in the extracts of Dirk
Rembrantz. Had he steered westwards, the sighting of the New Zealand
coast to the south, or of the shining islands of the Paumotu and other
groups to the north, would have borne in the truth upon his ready and
sagacious mind, corrected his fears of cold weather, given him clear
views as to the southernmost extension of the Terra Incognita, and
perhaps have antedated the civilisation of Australia by half a century.
In an evil moment, intimidated by thoughts of the ice of Tierra del
Fuego, and worried by the murmurs and half-heartedness of a crew,
the majority of whom were quite young seamen, “only two in the ship
ever having passed the Line, and those two none of the oldest,” he
determined to prosecute his voyage to New Holland by way of the Cape of
Good Hope.
He sailed from the Downs on January 14th, 1699. His intention was to
proceed to Pernambuco, and thence directly to the coast of New Guinea;
but scarcely had a month elapsed when the crew began to give trouble,
to mutter their dislike of the proposed voyage, and even to talk of
obliging him to return to England. At Pernambuco, owing to the distance
of the anchorage from the town, the men would have found it easy to
slip the vessel's cables and run away with her; and not choosing to
venture any risk of this kind, Dampier steered for Bahia de Todos
los Santos. This was a considerable trading-port in his time, formed
of about two thousand houses. He found upwards of thirty large ships
lying in the bay, and speaks of a busy traffic in linen and woollen
goods, in hats and silk stockings, in biscuit, wheat, flour, and port
wine. His closeness of observation is once again exhibited in all that
he has to say about this place. Nothing escapes him. He gives you a
long catalogue of all the vegetables and fruits of the district, of
the birds, beasts of prey, dogs, monkeys, hogs, and the like, and
then comes to the sea, from which he produces a list of twenty-three
different kinds of fish. He sailed on April 3rd, and made a fair course
for the coast of New Holland. The quality of the reckoning of even an
expert mariner in those days may be gathered from his telling us that,
seeing a large black bird flying near the ship, he suspected that he
was much nearer the Cape of Good Hope than he had imagined, since it
was well understood that this sort of bird is never to be met with
farther than ninety miles from land. By his own account, he was two
hundred and seventy miles from the Cape; but next day, meeting a vessel
named the _Antelope_, bound to the East Indies from Table Bay, he found
that L'Agulhas bore only twenty-five leagues distant. The inaccuracy
of the computations of those times must needs excite the wonder of our
own age of exact science. In Matthew Norwood's _System of Navigation_,
“teaching the whole Art in a way more familiar, easie and practical
than hath been hitherto done,” published in 1692, though from internal
evidence I gather it to have been compiled in 1683-84, there is a
catalogue of the longitudes and latitudes “of the most principal places
in the world, beginning from the meridian of the Lizard of England.”
The latitude, as a rule, is tolerably approximate, but the longitude is
very much otherwise. For instance, the Cape of Good Hope is said to be
in 34° 24´ S. latitude, and in 25° 33´ E. longitude. Cape Frio is put
down as in 22° 55´ S. latitude, and 33° 59´ W. longitude. Cape Blanco
is entered as 47° 30´ S. latitude, 62° 52´ W. longitude![15] These are
representative of the whole of this singular table of calculations. Yet
Norwood was greatly esteemed as a navigator, and his book was to be
found in most ships' cabins. It is amazing that the early mariners were
not perpetually blundering ashore. By what secret instincts they were
advised I know not; yet it is certain they made as little of being a
hundred miles out of their course without knowing it, as we should in
these days of an error of the length of a ship's cable.
Dampier continued to sail to the eastwards, and on July 25th signs
unmistakable of the neighbourhood of land were witnessed in the form
of quantities of floating seaweed and moss; but it was apparently not
until August 2nd that the coast hove into view, on which date Dampier
says, “We stood in towards the land to look for an harbour to refresh
ourselves, after a voyage of 114 degrees from Brazil.” They coasted for
a few days in vain search of a secure anchorage, and then observing an
opening of the land they made for it, and brought up in two fathoms
and a half of water. This opening Dampier called Shark's Bay, a name
it has ever since retained.[16] He makes this bay to lie in 25° S.
latitude and 87° longitude E. from the Cape of Good Hope, “which is
less,” he says, “by a hundred and ninety-five leagues than is laid down
in the common draughts.” He paints a pretty picture of his first view
of this place, telling us of sweet-scented trees, of shrubs gay as
the rainbow with blossoms and berries, of a many-coloured vegetation,
red, white, yellow, and blue, the last preponderating, and all the air
round about very fragrant and delicious with the perfumes of the soil.
The men caught sharks and devoured them with relish,—a hint not only
of very bad stores, but of provisions growing scarce; for disgusting
as the salt-beef of the sea becomes after a long course of it, he must
have a singular stomach and a stranger appetite who will choose shark
in preference. One of the fish they captured was eleven feet long, and
inside of it they found the head and bones of a hippopotamus, the hairy
lips of which were still sound “and not putrefied.” The jaw was full
of teeth, two of them eight inches long and as big as a man's thumb;
“The flesh of it was divided among my Men, and they took care that
no Waste should be made of it, but thought it as things stood, good
Entertainment.”
They remained in Shark's Bay till the 10th, fruitlessly searching for
fresh water; then coasting north-east, they fell in with a number of
small rocky isles called Dampier's Archipelago, in latitude south about
20° 30´, and about 116° 30´ E. longitude. Here Dampier was so much
struck with the character of the tides that he concluded there must be
a passage to the south of New Holland and New Guinea to the eastward
into the Great South Sea. His meaning is not clear, but then he is in
the situation of a man who fires at a mark in the night; he misses, but
the ball speeds in the right direction. Their pressing want was fresh
water. Gangs of men were repeatedly sent ashore to seek it, but to no
purpose. Their first sight of the natives was on August 31st. All sorts
of signs of peace and friendship were made, but their gesticulations
were probably too violent, and might even have grown alarming as
contortions, and the wild men fled, menacing Dampier and his people as
they ran. The only sort of intercourse they succeeded in establishing
was a conflict. One of the barbarians was shot dead and an English
sailor wounded. Dampier says, speaking of these natives, that they had
the most unpleasant looks and the worst features of any people he ever
saw, “though,” says he, “I have seen a great variety of Savages.” He
judges that these New Hollanders were of the same race as the people
he had previously met with in his first voyage round the globe, “for,”
he exclaims, “the Place I then touched at was not above forty or fifty
Leagues to the N.E. of this, and these were much the same blinking
Creatures; here being also abundance of the same kind of Flesh-flies
teasing them, and with the same black Skins and Hair frizzled, tall,
thin, etc., as these were; but we had not the Opportunity to see
whether these, as the former, wanted two of their fore Teeth.” It
seems to me that he blackened his portraits of these uncomely people
for the same reason that we find him later on describing the country
sourly as though there had been little or nothing to admire; I mean
with the wish to render the failure of his voyage less disappointing
to his patrons at home. In short, he writes as if he would have people
suppose that New Holland is a savage and worthless land, inhabited by
loathsome monsters. One of the native princes he describes as painted
with a circle of white pigment about his eyes, and a white streak down
his nose, from the forehead to the tip of it. The breast and a portion
of the arms were also whitened with the same paint. If Dampier do not
exaggerate, then these embellishments which he portrays, supplementing
the natural hideousness of the savages, might well cause the youthful
Jack Tars who filled his forecastle to imagine themselves upon one of
those enchanted, demon-haunted lands, from which the ancient mariner of
the legends was wont to sail away with trembling despatch, his hair on
end and his eyes half out of his head.
“If it were not,” writes Dampier, “for that sort of pleasure which
results from the Discovery even of the barrenest spot upon the Globe,
this coast of New Holland would not have charmed me much.” There is
little of the enthusiasm of the explorer in this avowal; all through
his career, in fact, Dampier exhibits himself as a man of caprices
easily diverted from his first intentions, quickly sickened by failure,
though never discomfited by the harshest sufferings or by the most
formidable difficulties, so long as he can keep himself in spirits by
the assurance of some approach to good fortune attending the issue of
his adventure. Probably he was now willing to believe of New Holland,
despite the wise conjectures with which he vitalised his early scheme,
that all that remained to be seen was no better than what he was
now viewing. Or, the length of time his voyage had already occupied
had provided him with plenty of leisure for the contemplation of his
prospects, and he was beginning to think that he had been misled by
his original impulse, and that there was neither dignity nor profit to
be got out of a toilsome survey of an obscure, remote, inhospitable
coast. One sometimes likes to think of the return amongst us of such a
man as this. If one could summon the dead from their sleep of centuries
that they might behold the issue of the labours of the generations
whose processions filled the time between their Then and our Now, it
would be such old navigators as Dampier whom one would best like to
arouse. Think of Cabot and Cartier going a tour through the United
States, of Columbus taking ship by an ocean mail-steamer to the West
Indies, of Bartholomew Diaz listening to the eloquence of South African
legislators in the House of Assembly at Cape Town, of Mark de Niza at
San Francisco, of Tasman at Hobart Town! As we watch Dampier digging
for water amid the sand-hills of the Western Australian seaboard,
the reality of the living present becomes a wonder even to us who
are familiar with it. The shining cities, the flourishing towns, the
radiant congregation of ships flying the flags of twenty different
nationalities, every fruitful, every busy condition of commerce,
manufacture, science, art, literature, entering into and stimulating
the life of the highest form of human civilisation, are as miracles and
as dreams to us standing in imagination by the side of the lean figure
of this buccaneer, quaintly apparelled in the boots, belt, and broad
hat of his old calling, and gazing with him upon a land whose silence
is broken only by the cries of unfamiliar creatures, by the murmur of
the wind among the leaves of a nameless vegetation, and by the solemn
wash of the ocean surge arching in thunder upon a shore that, to the
minds of hundreds and thousands away in far-off Europe, is as unreal
and illusive as the islands of Plato and More. What heart would have
come to our stout navigator with but the briefest of all possible
prophetic glimpses into the future of that great continent on whose
western sands he searches for water, reluctant, dubious, half-dismayed!
There was much, however, it must be admitted, to dishearten him. The
behaviour of his crew was causing him anxiety; and about this time the
scurvy broke out amongst the men. Moreover, though his people hunted
diligently for fresh water, their labours were unrewarded. So Dampier
determined to shape a course for Timor, if, to use his own language, he
“met with no refreshment elsewhere.” He had spent altogether about five
weeks in cruising off the coast, covering in all, as he calculates, a
range of 900 miles, but without making any sort of discovery that was
in the least degree satisfactory to himself. He started afresh with the
intention to steer north-east, keeping the land aboard, as sailors say.
His chief and perhaps only desire at that time was to fill his casks
with fresh water. They once again then lifted their anchor on December
5th, 1699, but had not measured many miles when they discovered that
the numerous shoals along the coast would render an inshore voyage
impracticable. Dampier thereupon bore away seawards and deepened his
water from eleven to thirty-two fathoms. Next day but the merest film
of land was in sight, and on the 7th nothing of the coast was visible,
even from the masthead. By this time he was heartily weary of New
Holland. He confesses his disgust very honestly, and laments the weeks
he has wasted on the coast, which he believes he could have employed
with greater satisfaction to himself and with larger promise of success
had he pushed straight on to New Guinea. His men were drooping; the
scurvy was being helped by the brackish water they were obliged to
drink, and he could think of no better remedy than to shift his helm
and steer away for the Island of Timor.
He gives a very close and interesting description of this island. He
had certainly plenty of leisure for inspection, for he did not get
under weigh again until December 12th, whence, though he does not date
his arrival at Timor, we may gather that he must have stayed there
for at least three months. He now headed on a straight course for New
Guinea—the coast of which he discovered in the form of very high land
on New Year's Day, 1700. Islands studded the water on all sides, from
one of which some days afterwards they saw smoke rising. At sight of
this Dampier bore away for it before a brisk gale, and anchored in
thirty-five fathoms of water at the distance of about two leagues
from what proved a large island. Thus they remained during the night,
whilst all through the hours of darkness they observed many fires
burning ashore. In the morning they weighed again and sailed closer to
the land, anchoring within a mile of the beach; whereupon a couple of
canoes came off to within speaking distance of the ship. The savages
called to them, but their language was as unintelligible as their
gestures. Dampier invited them by motions to step on board, but this
they declined to do, though they approached so close that they were
able to see the beads, knives, hatchets, and the like, which were held
up with the idea of tempting them to enter the ship. Dampier then got
into his pinnace and rowed shorewards. He hailed the people there in
the Malay language, but they did not understand him. Numbers of the
wild men lurked in ambush behind the bushes, but on Dampier throwing
some knives and toys ashore they ran out, and, wading to the boat,
poured water on to their heads as a sign of friendship. He describes
these people as a sort of tawny Indians with long black hair, differing
but slightly from the inhabitants of Mindanao. He also noticed amongst
them a number of woolly-headed New Guinea negroes, most of whom he
suspected were slaves to the others. The crew gave them brandy, which
they drank with relish,—a behaviour that caused Dampier to suppose
that, let their religion be what it would, they were not Mahometans.
It is noteworthy that Tasman differs from Dampier to the extent of
describing these natives as resembling the savages of New Zealand. He
speaks of them as being armed with slings, darts, and wooden swords,
decorated with bracelets and rings of pearl, with rings in their
noses. Schouten had long previously found them a very ferocious and
intractable people, who would have made themselves masters of his
vessel if he had not fired upon them and put them to flight. But as in
these so in those days. The world was somewhat kaleiodoscopic, and the
combination of colours seen by the peering traveller at one time was by
no means the same assemblage of hues viewed by other eyes at another
time.
On February 4th the _Roebuck_ was off the north-west coast of New
Guinea. Here Dampier found some very pleasant islands richly wooded
and full of wild pigeons, and sweetened to the sight by vast spaces of
white, purple, and yellow flowers, which so perfumed the wind that the
fragrance could be tasted at a great distance from the shore. On one of
them he stood surrounded by a portion of his crew, and after drinking
the king's health, christened the spot King William's Island. Crossing
the equator they proceeded to the eastward, and then, partly with the
idea of escaping the perils of a navigation among shoals and islands,
and partly with the hope of being rewarded for their sufferings and
disappointments by some discovery of magnitude and importance, they
steered the ship for the mainland. They were now within sight of a high
and mountainous country, green and beautiful with tropical vegetation,
and dark with forests and groves of tall and stately trees. A number
of canoes came out to them, but the brief intercourse terminated in
the usual way: the intentions of the natives were misunderstood; a
gun was fired and several savages killed. Dampier's narrative at this
point deals for some pages chiefly with the natives of New Guinea,
though he shortly describes the islands and the aspect of the mainland
as he sails along. So far his tone is one of disappointment, but
nevertheless he keeps a very steady, honest eye upon the object of
his voyage to these unknown waters. “I could have wished,” he says,
“for some more favourable opportunities than had hitherto offered
themselves as well for penetrating into the heart of the New discovered
country as for opening a Trade with its inhabitants, both of which
I very well knew, could they be brought about, must prove extremely
beneficial to Great Britain.” Happily the conduct of his officers and
men had improved, and they seemed as willing as he to explore the new
land; but he writes with knowledge of the issue, and it is impossible
to miss in this narrative of his the subdued and faltering language
of a discouraged heart. On March 14th he was within view of what he
terms a well-cultivated country. He observed numbers of cocoa-trees,
plantations apparently well ordered, and many houses. His method of
opening communication with the natives was by firing a shot over a
fleet of canoes, which sent them paddling away home as fast as their
crews could drive them. Presently three large boats put off, one of
which had about forty men in her. The _Roebuck_ lay becalmed, and it
looked as if the blacks meant to attack the ship. A round shot was sent
at the canoes, the savages turned about, and a light breeze springing
up, the ship followed them into the bay. When close to the shore
Dampier noticed the eyes of innumerable dusky-faced people peeping at
the vessel from behind the rocks. A shot was fired to scare them, but
they continued peeping nevertheless. Dampier seems surprised after this
that the natives were unwilling to trade. The utmost they consented
to do was to climb the trees for cocoanuts, which they contemptuously
flung at the English with passionate signs to them to be gone.
The crew were now finding plenty of fresh water, and the ship's casks
were soon filled. In spite of the defiant posture of the savages, it
was agreed, after a consultation amongst the officers and men, to
remain where they were and attempt a better acquaintance with the
people of the coast. Next day whilst the boats were ashore, forty or
fifty men and women passed by; they moved on quietly without offering
any violence. Says Dampier, speaking of them: “I have observed among
all the wild Nations I have known that they make the Women carry
the burdens, while the Men walk before without carrying any other
load than their arms.” Extremes meet, and assuredly in some respects
the most polished nation in the world is within a very measurable
distance of the most savage. It does not appear that the obligation
of having occasionally to kill a few natives greatly interfered with
the friendly relations between them and Dampier's men. The ship's
company went ashore and slaughtered and salted a good load of hogs,
whilst the savages peered at them from their houses. “None offered
to hinder our Boats landing,” writes Dampier; “but, on the contrary,
were so Amicable, that one man brought ten or twelve Cocoanuts, left
them on the Shore, after he had shewed them to our Men, and went out
of sight. Our People, finding nothing but nets and images, brought
them away; these two of my men brought in a small Canoe; and presently
after, my Boats came off. I ordered the Boatswain to take care of the
nets, the images I took into my own Custody.” Thus they requited the
friendly disposition of these poor savages by plundering them. Who can
doubt that most of the massacres of European crews by the inhabitants
of countries often as beautiful and radiant as earthly paradises, the
glory and sweetness of which might easily be deemed to have subdued the
human beings found upon them to the tenderness and lovableness of the
inspirations of the soil, the fruit, the majestic forests, the shining
birds, should be the effect of traditions whose origin may be found in
the barbarities practised by the early mariner?
Dampier describes the country hereabouts as mountainous and wooded,
full of rich valleys and pleasant fresh-water brooks. He named it Port
Montague, in honour of the patron to whom he had dedicated his first
volume. The _Roebuck_ sailed from this place on March 22nd, and two
days afterwards, in the evening, Dampier, who was indisposed and lying
down in his cabin, was hastily called on deck to behold what the crew
regarded as a miracle. The wonder was no more than a burning mountain,
but then those were days when enchanted islands[17] were to be met with
at sea, and this great flaming scene was at once a prodigy and a terror
to the sun-tanned mariners, who stared at it over the rail with every
superstitious instinct in them astir. Tasman had viewed it, but the
honest old Batavian did not wield Dampier's pen. It was a grand sight
indeed,—a large pillar of fire crimsoning the north-west blackness,
rearing its blood-red blaze higher and higher for three or four minutes
at a time, then sinking till it seemed to have died, then rising afresh
flaming furiously. They got a better view of this volcano a little
later. “At every explosion we heard a dreadful noise like thunder, and
saw a flame of fire after it the most terrifying that ever I beheld.”
Streams of liquid light ran down to the foreshore and overflowed the
beach with incandescent lakes. The description of this burning mountain
is, I think, one of the finest passages in Dampier's writings.
All this while he supposed that he was still off the coast of New
Guinea; but following the trend of the shore, he arrived at those
straits which still bear his name, and then discovered that the little
country whose seaboard he had been exploring was an island. This
land he called Nova Britannia, or, as we now know it, New Britain.
Happy would it have been for the reputation of Dampier if, instead of
steering east through his straits, he had continued to skirt the New
Guinea coast to the south-east, for by so doing he must have rounded
into the Gulf of Papua, struck the channel called Torres Straits,
and, catching sight of Cape York, have been encouraged to pursue his
exploration of the coast of New Holland on that side of the great
continent whose fruitfulness, beauty, and conveniency have courted the
civilisation of Europe. It is true that the _Roebuck_ was provisioned
for twenty months only, but an ardent and ambitious navigator would
have made little or nothing of such a condition of his voyage as this
when close aboard of him were lands filled with fruit, hogs, fowls, and
fresh water. But there is no question that Dampier had long grown weary
of this business. He could see nothing but honour (and little enough of
that, as things went) to be got out of this journey, and as a poor man,
with the heart of a buccaneer in him besides, he would appreciate the
need of something more substantial than fame. Be this as it may, he had
now, it being April 26th, 1700, started on his return home, intending
on the way to call at Batavia to careen and doctor his crazy ship for
the long voyage to England. When clear of the straits a vessel hove in
sight at dusk, and as her manœuvrings were puzzling they loaded their
guns, lighted the matches, and made ready to fight her. She sheered
off, but was in sight at daybreak, and then proved to be nothing more
dangerous than a Chinese junk laden with tea, porcelain, and other
commodities, and bound for Amboyna. The _Roebuck's_ progress was very
slow; she was coated with weeds and barnacles, and in a sea-way her
timbers worked like a basket. It was not until June 23rd that they
arrived at the Straits of Sunda, and at the close of the month they
dropped anchor off Batavia. Here Dampier stayed for three months whilst
his ship was careened and repaired. Her condition was such that one can
only wonder that he and his crew ventured to sail home in her. We might
scarcely credit that Dampier's patrons honestly felt much faith in his
representations, and in the hopes he held out of vast and important
discoveries, when we find them putting him and his crew of boys into
a ship which time had made rotten probably some years before she was
equipped for this voyage, if it were not that the later experiences of
Anson exhibit the same profound departmental indifference and neglect
on an occasion which we may assume was regarded as far more significant
than Dampier's expedition. Of all the wonderful accomplishments of the
English sailor, nothing to my mind is so amazing as the triumphs with
which he crowns the cause of his country in defiance of the miserable
indifference of the British Admiralty to him and to his labours. The
best that Dampier could do with his ship was so to patch her up as to
enable her to carry her people home with the pumps going day and night.
They sailed from Batavia on October 17th, arrived at the Cape of Good
Hope on December 30th, and brought up at the island of Ascension in a
sinking condition on February 21st, 1701. Even whilst Ascension was
in sight the _Roebuck_ had sprung a fresh leak, and when she anchored
both hand and chain pumps were going. There was still a long stretch of
ocean for them to traverse, and a ship like a sieve to measure it with.
The tinkering of the carpenters apparently increased the mischief, and
whilst Dampier was waiting below to receive the news of the leak being
stopped, the boatswain arrived with a long face to tell him that the
vessel was sinking. “The plank was so rotten,” says Dampier, “it broke
away like Dirt, and now it was impossible to save the Ship; for they
could not come at the Leak because the water in the run was got above
it. I worked myself to encourage my Men, who were very diligent, but
the Water still increased, and we now thought of nothing but saving our
lives: Wherefore I hoisted out the boat that if the Ship should sink
we might be saved; and in the Morning we weighed our anchor and Warped
in nearer the shore, tho' we did but little good.” The men with their
clothes and bedding were sent ashore on rafts; the sails were unbent
and converted into tents for the use of Dampier and his officers; fresh
water and rice had been landed for the use of all, “but,” writes the
unfortunate commander, “great part of it was stolen away before I came
ashore, and many of my books and papers lost.” Luckily there was no
lack of turtle, but those who have visited Ascension will understand
the distresses of a numerous crew cast away upon an uninhabited island
of cinders and volcanic cones, with one green hill only far away in
the middle of the calcined heap for the eye to find refreshment in.
They were fortunate enough to discover a spring of fresh water; the
men carried their beds into the hollows of the rocks, and perhaps
thought themselves better off than in the wet, dark, half-drowned,
cockroach-laden forecastle of the _Roebuck_. Moreover, in addition to
turtle there were crabs, goats'-flesh, and sea-birds for food; and as
the air of Ascension is about the sweetest and most wholesome in the
world, the castaways kept their health and spirits, and managed on the
whole very well indeed.
Their imprisonment did not last long. On April 3rd four vessels hove
in sight, and in the course of the day anchored off the island. Three
of them proved English men-of-war—the _Anglesea_, _Hastings_, and
_Lizard_; the fourth was an East Indiaman named the _Canterbury_.
Dampier went on board the _Anglesea_ with thirty-five of his crew,
and the remainder were divided between the other men-of-war. The
ships proceeded to Barbadoes, but Dampier, with a keen sense of his
misfortunes, and anxious to justify himself to his patrons, accepted
an offer to return to England in the _Canterbury_. “The same earnest
desire,” he says, “to clear up Mistakes, to do myself Justice in
the opinion of the World, and to set the Discoveries made in this
unfortunate voyage in their proper Light, that it may be of use to the
World, how unlucky soever it proved to me, is the reason that induced
me to publish it; And I persuade myself that such as are proper Judges
of these sort of Performances will allow that I have Delivered many
things new in themselves, capable of affording much Instruction to such
as meditate future Discoveries, and which in other respects may be of
great utility to the present age and to posterity.”