William Dampier - Pirate? Privateer

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Bart:
William Dampier

homepage.de/hawkeyepike/images/p_texel.jpg     The battle of Texel on August 11, 1673 as witnessed by William Dampier



   William Dampier lived 1652-1715. He was an English explorer and buccaneer. He fought (1673) in the Dutch War, managed a plantation in Jamaica, then worked with logwood cutters in Honduras (1675-78). After taking part in a buccaneering expedition against Spanish America (1679-81), he sailed from Virginia in 1683 on a piratical voyage along the coast of Africa, across the Atlantic, and around Cape Horn to prey on Spanish cities on the west coast of South America. The party split up, and Dampier joined a group that crossed to the Philippines. Dampier was marooned (probably voluntarily) on the Nicobar Islands. After many hardships, he returned to England in 1691.

   He published an account of his experiences in A New Voyage round the World (1697), supplemented by Voyages and Descriptions (1699), which included Discourse of Trade-Winds, a masterly treatise on hydrography. Dampier was made a naval officer and commanded an expedition (1699-1701) to Australia, New Guinea, and New Britain (which he discovered to be an island and named). Other discoveries included Dampier Archipelago and Dampier Strait.

   His vessel, the Roebuck, finally foundered off Ascension Island. Dampier commanded an unsuccessful privateering expedition (1703-7) in the course of which Alexander Selkirk was voluntarily marooned. Dampier's account was published in his Voyage to New Holland (Part I, 1703; Part II, 1709). Though an excellent hydrographer and navigator, he proved an incompetent commander, guilty of drunkenness and overbearing conduct. He was pilot to Woodes Rogers on a voyage around the world (1708-11).

Diving Doc:
Bart,
at the risk of repeating some of your post. Here is some more on this man, William Dampier

William Dampier (1651 ? March, 1715) was an English buccaneer, sea captain, author and scientific observer. He was the first Englishman to explore or map parts of New Holland (Australia) and New Guinea. He was the first person to circumnavigate the world twice, and went on to complete a third circumnavigation.
William Dampier, pirate, navigator and explorer
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Contents


    * 1 Biography
    * 2 First circumnavigation
    * 3 The Roebuck expedition
    * 4 Second circumnavigation
    * 5 Third circumnavigation
    * 6 Influence
    * 7 Works
    * 8 Further reading
    * 9 External links

Biography

Dampier was born at East Coker in Somerset and baptised on 5 September 1651. He went to sea at the age of 16. He served with Edward Sprague in the Third Anglo-Dutch War and fought at the Battle of Schooneveld in June 1673. In 1674 he worked as a plantation manager on Jamaica, but he soon returned to the sea .

First circumnavigation

In the 1670s he crewed with buccaneers on the Spanish Main of Central America, twice visiting the Bay of Campeche. This led to his first circumnavigation: in 1679 he accompanied a raid across the Isthmus of Dari?n in Panama and captured Spanish ships on the Pacific coast of that isthmus; the pirates then raided Spanish settlements in Peru before returning to the Caribbean.

Dampier made his way to Virginia, where in 1683 he engaged with a privateer named Cook. Cook entered the Pacific via Cape Horn and spent a year raiding Spanish possessions in Peru, the Galapagos Islands, and Mexico. This expedition collected buccaneers and ships as it went along, at one time having a fleet of ten vessels. In Mexico Cook died, and a new leader, Captain Davis, took command. Dampier transferred to Captain Charles Swan's ship, the Cygnet, and on 31 March 1686 they set out across the Pacific to raid the East Indies, calling at Guam and Mindanao. Leaving Swan and 36 others behind, the rest of the pirates cruised to Manila, Pulo Condore, China, the Spice Islands, and New Holland (Australia).

Early in 1688 Cygnet was beached on the northwest coast of Australia, near King Sound. While the ship was being careened Dampier made notes on the fauna and flora he found there. Later that year, by agreement, he and two shipmates were marooned on one of the Nicobar Islands. They built a small craft and sailed it to Acheen in Sumatra. After further adventures Dampier returned to England in 1691 via the Cape of Good Hope, penniless but in possession of his journals.

The Roebuck expedition
Map of the area charted in HMS Roebuck in 1699


The publication of these journals as New Voyage Round the World in 1697 created interest at the British Admiralty and in 1699 Dampier was given the command of HMS Roebuck with a commission to explore Australia and New Guinea.

The expedition set out on 14 January 1699, and on July 1699 he reached Dirk Hartog Island at the mouth of Shark Bay in Western Australia. In search of water he followed the coast northeast, reaching the Dampier Archipelago and then Roebuck Bay, but finding none he was forced to bear away north for Timor. Then he sailed east and on 1 January 1700 sighted New Guinea, which he passed to the north. Sailing east, he traced the southeastern coasts of New Hanover, New Ireland and New Britain, discovering the Dampier Strait between these islands (now the Bismarck Islands) and New Guinea.

On the return voyage to England, Roebuck foundered near Ascension Island on 21 February 1701 and the crew were marooned there for five weeks before being picked up on 3 April by an East Indiaman and returned home in August 1701.

Although many papers were lost with the Roebuck, Dampier was able to save many new charts of coastlines, trade winds and currents in the seas around Australia and New Guinea.

On his return Dampier was court-martialled for cruelty. On the outward voyage Dampier had crewman George Fisher removed from the ship and jailed in Brazil. Fisher returned to England and complained about his treatment to the Admirality. Dampier wrote an angry vindication of his conduct, but he was found guilty, docked his pay for the voyage, and dismissed from the Royal Navy.

Second circumnavigation
Capt Dampier's new voyage to New Holland &c in 1699


He wrote an account of the 1699?1701 expedition, A Voyage to New Holland and returned to privateering.

The War of the Spanish Succession broke out in 1701 and English privateers were being readied to assist against French and Spanish interests. Dampier was appointed commander of the 26-gun government ship St George, with a crew of 120 men. They were joined by the 16-gun galleon Cinque Ports (63 men) and sailed on April 30, 1703.

En-route they unsuccessfully engaged a French ship but captured three small Spaniard ships and one vessel of 550 tons.

However, The expedition was most notable for the events surrounding Alexander Selkirk. The captain of the Cinque Ports, Thomas Stradling fell out with Sailing Master Selkirk. In October 1704 the Cinque Ports had stopped at the uninhabited Juan Fern?ndez Islands off the coast of Chile to resupply. Selkirk had grave concerns about the seaworthiness of Cinque Ports and after a disagreement with Dampier, he opted to remain on the island. Selkirk was to remain marooned for four years and 4 months and his experiences were to become the inspiration for Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe.

Selkirk's misgivings were fully justified: Cinque Ports did later sink with the loss of most of her crew.

Dampier returned to England in 1707 and in 1709 his A Continuation of a Voyage to New Holland was published.

 Third circumnavigation

Dampier was engaged in 1708 by the privateer Woodes Rogers as sailing master on the Duke. This voyage was more successful: Selkirk was rescued on 2 February 1709, and the expedition amassed nearly ?200,000 of profit. However, Dampier died in London in 1715 before he received his share.

Influence

Dampier influenced several figures better known than he:

    * His observations and analysis of natural history helped Charles Darwin's and Alexander von Humboldt's development of their theories,
    * He made innovations in navigational technology that were studied by James Cook and Horatio Nelson.
    * Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe, was inspired by accounts of real-life castaway Alexander Selkirk, a crew-member on Dampier's voyages.
    * His reports on breadfruit led to William Bligh's ill-fated voyage in HMS Bounty.
    * He is cited over a thousand times in the Oxford English Dictionary.
    * His travel journals depicting Panama influenced the undertaking of the ill-fated Darien Scheme, leading to the Act of Union of 1707.

 Works

    * A New Voyage Round the World, (1697)
    * Voyages and Descriptions, (1699)
         1. A Supplement of the Voyage Round the World
         2. The Campeachy Voyages
         3. A Discourse of Winds
    * A Voyage to New Holland, (Part 1 1703, Part 2 1709)

Bart:
Thank you Doc;

   Dampier was quite the irrepressible it seems. Those were extremely tough and cruel times, one almost sympathizes with the reasoning behind mutiny and piracy. Ignorance, superstition, and diet were likewise factors involved.

- Bart

Solomon:
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Map of the area charted in HMS Roebuck in 1699

Dampier was both one of the most important navigators in maritime history and also one of the most influential.

His adventures along the Spanish Main between 1675 and 1678, told in his own books, are corroborated in the writings of two of Dampier's shipmates, Basil Ringrose (whose journal was included in Esquemeling's Buccaneers of America, printed in 1685); and the surgeon Lionel Wafer, whose own account was published in 1699.

Dampier's most unusual associate, however, was probably Alexander Selkirk, a member of the crew of the 1703 voyage who was marooned by his own wish on Juan Fernandez Island. Selkirk, whose story was retold by Daniel Defoe in Robinson Crusoe (1719), was eventually rescued by Dampier on his last voyage.

Dampier led several voyages of mapping and exploration around the world. Findings from the first expedition, published in 1697 as A New Voyage Round the World, resulted in a commission from the English Admiralty in 1699 to explore the South Seas. The results included many new charts of coastlines and currents around Australia and New Guinea. Dampier named New Britain, and also discovered the Archipelago in Northwest Australia now named for him.

In his New World voyages, Dampier provides some of the earliest descriptions of native cultures as well as coastlines, rivers, and villages. One of his accounts concerns the Miskito Indians, a tribe living along the Caribbean coast of Honduras and Nicaragua.

BTW all the histories I can find online which mention Long John Silver are wrong. True, Stevenson based the character on his friend, William Henley, but a member of Dampier's crew was John Silver and he had a peg leg. Even the parrot element of Treasure Island is taken from life.

Solomon

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