Stage 3-4

From Captain Tristian, Dampier was transferred to another Frenchman, Captain Archemboe (probably Archambaut).

He soon grew weary of living with the French.

• Their sailors were the saddest creatures that he was with.

He compelled Captain Wright to add him with other English to his crew.

The cruise in the Caribbean Sea:

• is described in Chapter 3.
• brought them little profit
• gave Dampier plenty of time for his favourite studies and observations.

He was at the island of Aves little more than a year after the disaster to Count d’Estree’s fleet (February 1681) which he describes from hearsay.

Off the Caracas coast, he and 20 others took one of the ships and their share of the spoil and sailed off to Virginia.

He does not specify the cause of the defection or the intention in choosing that destination. Of his 13 months’ stay there he says no more than that he fell into troubles of some sort.

STAGE 4

In August 1683, he again joins the buccaneers in the Revenge, Captain Cook.

The cruise was a long one round the Horn and up the Pacific coast as described in Chapters 4 to 9. The course taken was to the Cape Verde Islands and Sierra Leone.

Here the buccaneers boarded and took a fine Danish vessel, the Bachelor’s Delight, 36 guns, to which Cook transferred his crew.

It was a flagrant piracy against a friendly nation, without any justified harms to Spain. Dampier is ashamed to mention it. But Cowley relates the incident without compunction.

Dampier sailed with Cook till his death at Cape Blanco in June 1684, thereafter with his successor, Captain Davis.

On the Bachelor’s Delight he found “the men more under command than I have ever seen privateers, yet I could not expect to find them at a minute’s call.”

This is the only indication Dampier gives of his rating and Mr. Masefield suggests with some probability that he was second master or master’s mate under Ambrosia Cowley.*

Cook was joined (March 1684) by Captain Eaton in the Nicholas, and in October, at Plata, by Captain Swan in the Cygnet.

Swan’s case was pitiful.

The Cygnet, fitted out by London merchants for lawful trade, had met Captain Peter Harris and a party of buccaneers at Nicoya with a considerable booty in hand.

Swan’s men, with whom he had already had difficulties at the straits, were now seduced, and he was compelled to turn pirate.

He was no backslider, however–it was by his order that Payta was burned to the ground in default of ransom (Chapter 6).

Nevertheless his deflection from the path of virtue and duty weighed heavily on his mind. In a letter from Panama to a friend, quoted by Mr. Masefield, he asks him to assure his employers that “I do all I can to preserve their interests and that what I do now I could in no wise prevent.

So desire them to do what they can with the King for me, for as soon as I can I shall deliver myself to the King’s justice.” His view now was that if the buccaneers were backed by the government “the King might make this whole kingdom of Peru tributary to him in two years’ time.”

As he wrote the attack on the Lima fleet was impending, and he adds in a message to his wife, “I shall, with God’s help, do things which (were it with my Prince’s leave) would make her a lady: but now I cannot tell but it may bring me to a halter.”

His end is told in Chapter 16.

The climax of this cruise was to have been the capture of the fleet carrying treasure from Lima to Panama. Davis and Swan had now (May 1685) been joined by Captains Townley and Harris, and by a French contingent under Captain Gronet. The growth of the piratical movement is seen in the numbers given by Dampier. The buccaneers had ten sail (six ships and four tenders, etc.) carrying no less than 960 men. They had, however, only 52 guns, these being in Davis’s and Swan’s ships. The Spaniards on the other hand had 14 sail, six of them “of good force,” with 174 guns in all. Everything went against the pirates. While they had the weather-gage Gronet failed them: the Spaniards by a ruse obtained the weather-gage, and a running fight round the bay ensued, from which the assailants were glad to escape. In the event of success there would have been no booty of plate, that having been already landed at Lavelia in view of a probable attack.*

The noteworthy events of this cruise, besides captures of casual prizes, are the taking and burning of Payta, and the abortive attempt on Guayaquil (Chapter 6) the taking and burning of Leon in Nicaragua, where was killed an old buccaneer who had fought with Cromwell in Ireland; and the parting of Davis and Swan* (Chapter 8). Dampier, “not from any dislike to my old captain but to get some knowledge of the Mexican coast,” joined up with Swan, who was minded to pass over to the East Indies, “which was a way very agreeable to my inclination.” Thus is first inferentially expressed his intention of circumnavigation, more than 6 1/2 years after he set out from England.

FIFTH STAGE.

On breaking with Davis Swan’s chief object in crossing the Pacific (Dampier probably sharing it) was to have done with buccaneering, and by honest trading to reinstate himself in the good graces of his employers. To induce his men to go with him, however, he was obliged to hold out hopes of further piracy in the East Indies. At Guam in the Ladrones he made no attempt to pursue an Acapulco ship, being “now wholly averse to any hostile action.” At Mindanao the party conducted themselves as traders and were hospitably entertained by the sultan. Little trade was available and thoughts were entertained of settling there, the men being now weary lotus-eaters. The six months’ residence at this place led to serious trouble: Swan became brutal and tyrannical towards his men, succumbed to the attractions of the town, and made long absences from his ship. Another mutiny was the result; the majority of the crew seized the ship, left Swan ashore, and sailed off under a new captain–Read. Dampier’s conduct on this occasion exhibits the same aloofness as on other occasions. He took no part in the men’s conspiracy, nor, on the other hand, as it would seem, in the attempt to get Swan aboard. In spite of his better feelings he became a pirate for another 18 months.

SIXTH STAGE.

The voyage under Captain Read, from the buccaneering point of view, was a complete failure. Though “our business was to pillage,” only two prizes were taken and those of little account. Much sea and land, however, was explored, as is seen by the route–Manila, Pulo Condore, Formosa, Celebes, the north coast of Australia and the Nicobars. Here Dampier ended his buccaneering career of 8 1/2 years. The men had become more and more drunken, quarrelsome, and unruly, and Dampier looked for an opportunity to escape from “this mad crew.”* A canoe was obtained and Dampier, the surgeon, and another Englishman, with a few natives, set out for Achin. In his terror during a storm which threatened to overwhelm their puny craft Dampier “made sad reflections on my former life and looked back with horror and detestation on actions which before I disliked but now I trembled at the remembrance of.” In his escape from the dangers attendant on those actions curiously enough he recognised the protection of Heaven. “I did also call to mind the many miraculous acts of God’s Providence towards me in the whole course of my life.”

(Footnote. See below: “I did ever abhor drunkenness, which now our men that were abroad abandoned themselves wholly to.”) Whatever condemnation may be passed on Dampier’s long association with pirates it must be noted to his credit that during the whole period of this cruise in the archipelago, while his companions were drinking and brawling, he was studiously recording his observations. His six months’ residence at Mindanao provides us with a full description of plant and animal life, as also of the inhabitants, their government, religion, manners, and customs (Chapters 11 and 12). Here too comes on the scene that curious Prince Jeoly, the “painted prince,” whom Dampier brought to England for show and there sold as his only asset.

(*Footnote. Mr. Masefield quotes a broadsheet of the time (Dampier Voyage Volume 1 page 539) from which it appears that the prince was on view at the Blue Boar’s Head in Fleet Street.) SEVENTH STAGE.

From Achin, and for the rest of the circumnavigation, Dampier was for the most part a mere passenger. First a voyage to Tonquin with Captain Welden (July 1688 to April 1689) thence to Malacca and Fort George and back to Achin and Bencoolen, where he was employed as gunner in the English fort for five months. This section of his travels is omitted from the New Voyage and reserved for the Voyage to Tonquin. At Achin, as will be seen in Chapter 18, he learns the further adventures of Captain Read and his crew whom he had deserted at the Nicobars.

EIGHTH STAGE.

His eventful voyage now draws to a close (Chapters 19 and 20). Getting a passage from Bencoolen in the Defence, Captain Heath, Dampier arrived in the Downs on 16 September 1691, 12 1/2 years since he had left England. All buccaneer’s visions of a home-coming with ample booty in bar gold or pieces-of-eight had vanished, and he landed with no more marketable commodities than a tattooed native.

DAMPIER’S SUBSEQUENT LIFE.

On his return to England Dampier was 39 years of age. Further great voyages were in store for him, each of which would require its own commentary. None, however, has been so attractive to the reading public as the New Voyage, it may be because the other expeditions, though comprising exploits and adventure, are hardly so attractive to law-abiding citizens as those to which additional zest is provided by contempt of law.

For six years nothing is known of Dampier’s life except that he was at Corunna in 1694, probably in a merchant ship. It is likely that he made other such voyages: in the intervals he was preparing his New Voyage for publication early in 1697. Its immediate success obtained for him an appointment at the customs house as land-carriage man, and in June of that year he was examined before the Council of Trade and Plantation with respect to possible settlements on the Isthmus of Darien. Early in 1698 he was again examined before the council with regard to an expedition against the pirates to the east of the Cape of Good Hope. His advice may have been sought partly on account of his piratical experience and partly because his book had shown that he had little heart in the business.