THE ROEBUCK VOYAGE

THE ROEBUCK VOYAGE

He now submitted to the government proposals for a new voyage of exploration to New Holland, which were accepted. He was appointed captain of the Roebuck, 21 guns, his first command, at the age of 47. He tells the story of his cruise in his Voyage to New Holland, published in two parts, 1703 and 1709.

The expedition went awry from the first and for divers causes. His ship was unseaworthy for a long voyage, and he quarrelled with his men, especially with his lieutenant, Fisher, whom he put in irons and handed over as a prisoner to the Portuguese governor at Bahia. At Shark’s Bay, in Western Australia, scurvy and the lack of water and provisions broke his spirit and he turned homewards. After touching at Timor, Batavia, and the Cape he got his crazy vessel as far as Ascension where she foundered. There he got a passage in a man-of-war to Barbados and so home in a merchantman.

From the point of view of exploration the voyage was no great success: he might have anticipated Cook, Furneaux, and Flinders, and he touched only the barren coast of Western Australia.* His failure was largely due to his employers, who gave him an unseaworthy and badly provisioned ship, and to his mutinous crew. It would be unjust to attribute the failure to his incompetency as a leader of men: all that is to be said is that in the conditions he did not succeed as such.

(Footnote. His name has, however, been rightly honoured in Australasia. There is the Dampier Strait at the west end of New Guinea and also a Dampier Island. Western Australia gives his name to a district and an archipelago: New South Wales to a county.) On his return he had to meet not only adverse criticism on his failure as an explorer, but also a court martial at the instance of Lieutenant Fisher. He was found guilty of “very hard and cruel usage towards Lieutenant Fisher,” for which the court held there were no grounds. He was fined all his pay and declared to be “not a fit person to be employed as commander of any of His Majesty’s ships.” We cannot question the judgment of a court the principal members of which were Sir George Rooke and Sir Cloudesley Shovell. It was one which in our time, when public opinion upholds legal decisions and requires governments to respect them, would be the end of an officer’s career. It was not so in Dampier’s case. We need not here consider whether the government disagreed with the judgment or merely disregarded it, because the War of the Spanish Succession had now broken out and Dampier’s buccaneering experience was wanted on behalf of the country. Private owners fitted out two privateers, the St. George and the Fame, Dampier being appointed to the former as commander. Ten months after the court martial he had an audience of the Queen to whom he was introduced by the Lord High Admiral, and kissed hands on his mission.

(*Footnote. That is his pay as captain: his pay as land-carriage man at the customs was by special order paid to him during his absence and went to the support of his wife.)

THE ST. GEORGE VOYAGE.

The only account we possess of this privateering voyage is that of William Funnell, who was rated mate of the St. George, as he himself claims, or as steward according to Dampier. Funnell is a dull and malicious reporter and is not to be trusted when he deals with Dampier’s motives and conduct.

Trouble began at the start, Captain Pulling in the Fame deserting him in the Downs. His place was taken at Kinsale (August 1703) by Captain Pickering in the Cinque Ports. On the Brazilian coast Pickering died and was succeeded by his lieutenant, Stradling. More quarrelling ensued, enhanced by the hardships of the passage round the Horn. Dissension between Stradling and his men led to the marooning of Alexander Selkirk on Juan Fernandez. The failure to take two enemy ships led to further recriminations and desertions.

Dampier quarrelled with Stradling and left him at Tobago: he quarrelled also with his own mate, Clipperton, who went off with 21 men in a prize bark. After another failure to capture a Manila bark, he was deserted by Funnell and 34 men. His ship, being unseaworthy, was abandoned, and with his now reduced crew of about 30, in a prize brigantine, he crossed the Pacific to a Dutch island where they were imprisoned. Dampier did not reach England till the close of 1707. So began, continued and ended in disaster his second voyage of circumnavigation. Meanwhile Funnell had already published his damaging book.* Dampier would perhaps have written the story of the voyage himself but, being already engaged to go to sea, he contented himself with publishing his Vindication in language strangely different from that of the New Voyage. Mr. Masefield describes it as “angry and incoherent,” but it may fairly be regarded as being no more than a collection of notes jotted down in indignation and hot haste, preparatory to a more reasoned vindication later.**

(*Footnote. Funnell by his references in his preface to the popularity of Dampier’s previous work evidently intended to forestall Dampier by passing off his book as another Dampier voyage.) (**Footnote. Funnell’s Voyage round the World was published in 1707. Dampier got home later in that year and left again with Woodes Rogers 2 August 1708. Some of Funnell’s passages relating to Dampier and the Vindication, also the Answers to the Vindication, by John Welbe, a midshipman on board Captain Dampier’s ship, are set out in Mr. Masefield’s admirable edition of the Voyages, Volume 2 pages 576 to 593. Welbe’s answers are spiteful and probably in great part untrue. As Mr. Masefield points out he contradicts them in a material particular in a subsequent letter of 1722 preserved in the Townshend manuscripts.)

THE DUKE AND DUTCHESS VOYAGE.

When Dampier returned from his second voyage as captain the merchants of Bristol were already organising a privateering expedition to the Pacific under Captain Woodes Rogers, and the honourable office of pilot was offered to Dampier. Of all his voyages this was probably the happiest to himself. The expedition was lawful and gave him no qualms of conscience; he was free from the cares and responsibilities of supreme command; he served under one of the most competent captains of the time, and his experience and ability as a navigator, as well as his wise counsel, enabled him to contribute largely to the success of the venture. The two vessels were the Duke and Dutchess, Dampier sailing on the former with Rogers. In the list of officers he is described as “William Dampier, Pilot for the South Seas, who had been already three times there and twice round the World.” Perhaps profiting by the experience of Dampier’s previous ill-equipped expeditions, the merchants had provided the ships so liberally with provisions and gear that the between decks were badly encumbered, and the ships “altogether in a very unfit state to engage an enemy.” The crews indeed were of the same unpromising material with which Dampier was familiar. About one-third were foreigners, the rest landsmen, “tailors, tinkers, pedlars, fiddlers and hay-makers.” Between Cork, “where our crew were continually marrying,” and the Canaries a dangerous mutiny broke out which Rogers promptly put down, imposing upon a ringleader the indignity of being whipped by a fellow-conspirator. Troubles with the crew were, however, to a large extent obviated by the payment of regular wages: the contract of employment on the St. George had been the vicious one of “no prey, no pay.” Moreover Rogers was wise enough to share his responsibility with his officers, and all questions of importance were referred to committees, Dampier’s name being on nearly every list. Discipline was thus preserved and the cruise resulted in the capture of many prizes and a very large booty, which unhappily did not benefit Dampier, as the distribution was delayed till after his death.*

(*Footnote. The booty amounted to about 170,000 pounds, a large share going to Woodes Rogers. He was able to rent the Bahama Islands from the lords proprietors for 21 years and became their governor. See Rogers, W., in the Dictionary of National Biography.)

The most interesting feature of this voyage was the rescue of Alexander Selkirk from the island of Juan Fernandez, which the ships might not have hit without Dampier’s knowledge of the winds. The meeting with his countrymen after his desolate life of four years is told by Woodes Rogers* with unconscious art, and one cannot help favourably comparing the inarticulate Selkirk with the expansive Ben Gunn of Treasure Island. Dampier took a leading part in the scene; he was able to tell Rogers that Selkirk was the best man in the Cinque Ports, from which he had been marooned; so, says Rogers, “I immediately agreed with him to be a mate on board our ship.”**

(*Footnote. Woodes Rogers published the account of the voyage, A New Cruising Voyage round the World 1712.) (**Footnote. The various lives of Alexander Selkirk are well summarised in the Dictionary of National Biography. It is probable that Selkirk did not alone provide the suggestion of Robinson Crusoe. Defoe had also before him Dampier’s account of the rescue of the marooned Moskito Indian in Chapter 4.)

After his return from his last voyage Dampier lived 3 1/2 years more, probably in London, where he died in the parish of St. Stephen, Coleman Street, in March 1715. His will dated 29 November 1714 was proved on 23 March 1715. He described himself as “diseased and weak of body, but of sound and perfect mind,” and left nine-tenths of his property to his cousin, Grace Mercer, the remaining tenth to his brother, George Dampier, of Porton, in the county of somerset. the large share of his property bequeathed to his cousin may indicate that she looked after him in his last years. His wife had probably predeceased him, as she is not mentioned in the will. By a previous will made before 1703 he had left a sum of 200 pounds to his friend, Edward Southwell, to be disposed of as he should think best for his wife’s use. On the starting of the St. George cruise however he was constrained to put that sum into the venture.