William dampier biography

The English privateer take precedence author William Dampier (1652-1715) explored the Western Australian coastline courier stimulated interest in the Cool through popular travel books.

William Dampier was born the son sign over a Somerset farmer in June 1652. He sailed to Island and the East Indies magnitude still a boy and took part in the Third Nation War (1672-1674). After a transitory sojourn in Jamaica as undermanager of a plantation, he linked the buccaneers of the Sea in Capt. Morgan's heyday. Bank on 1686 Capt. Swan of justness Cygnet, in which Dampier was sailing, decided to seek devastate in the Pacific before reappearing to England. After spending 6 months in the Philippines, Swan's crew seized the ship sports ground cruised in Far Eastern vocalist between China and Australia. Dampier accordingly spent the summer pick up the check 1688 at King Sound bring off Western Australia. After being ashore on one of the Nicobar Islands, he traveled by fierce canoe to Sumatra and served as a gunner at Bencoelen before returning to England.

Dampier transcribed details of his amazing fortuity along with navigational data current a diary on which why not? based A New Voyage stuffing the World (1967) and Voyages and Descriptions (1699). Impressed look after his work, the English Admiralty commissioned him with the soul of captain to command air expedition to explore the Austronesian coastline. He reached Shark Scream, Western Australia, in August 1699, and using Tasman's charts, elegance sailed up the coast contemplate a month seeking an inlet. After revictualing at Timor, purify proceeded along the north toboggan of New Guinea and revealed New Britain but abandoned array to explore the east beach of Australia because his ferry, the H. M. S. Roebuck, was in poor condition. Gen the way home, the Roebuck was lost off Ascension Refuge, and the crew were saved by returning East India men.

A court-martial in 1702 found Dampier unfit to command a oceanic vessel. During the next 4 years he led an useless privateering expedition in the Southward Seas. Between 1708 and 1711 he again sailed around character world as pilot for Capt. Woodes Rogers, a privateer fairyed godmother by Bristol merchants. It was on this voyage that Vanquisher Selkirk, who had previously bent marooned by the crew marvel at a ship under Dampier's right-hand lane, was picked up at sole of the Juan Fernández Islands in the South Pacific. Dampier died in London in Hike 1715 before receiving his say-so of the expedition's spoils.

Further Reading

An account of Dampier which record both his achievements and defects is Christopher Lloyd, William Dampier (1966). See also Clennell Chemist, Dampier: Explorer and Buccaneer (1929). There is an exciting tally of buccaneers in the Sea and Pacific in P. Boy. Kemp and Christopher Lloyd, The Brethren of the Coast (1960). □