from the Atlantic to the great
southern ocean, for which our ablest geographers had contended, and in
pursuit of which vast sums had been spent in vain, and many mariners had
miserably perished.

WILLIAM DAMPIER

New Voyage Round the World

_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. Hob