268 CRUSOE'S ISLAND. 



about 1660. He studied in Cambridge, and later medi- 

 cine in the office of the famous Dr. Sydenham. After 

 awhile he settled down in the city of Bristol, which was 

 an active shipping center, and one of the chief headquar- 

 ters of all England for adventurers, privateers, and slave 

 traders. 



" Dr. Dover found the practice of medicine ' too slow.' 

 He had a love for adventure and life at sea. He stuck to 

 medicine for some years, however, until a large commer- 

 cial and piratical venture by a number of Bristol mer- 

 chants came to his notice. Two ships, the Duke and the 

 Duchess, were fitted out for a voyage to the South Seas. 

 Dr. Dover went third in command and was known as 

 Captain Dover. 



" On February 1, 1709, the ships arrived at the island of 

 Juan Fernandez, and Captain Dover was sent ashore in a 

 pinnace. He brought back with him, after two days, a 

 man clad in goatskins, who had been left on the island 

 four yeai's before. This was Alexander Selkirk, the origi- 

 nal ' Robinson Crusoe.' 



" Later, the expedition sailed up the South American 

 coast and found the two cities of Guayaquil, which it 

 attacked and sacked. Dover led the sailors, and when the 

 plague broke out among them after the capture of the 

 cities, he doctored and cured them with as much energy 

 and skill as he had displayed in fighting the South Ameri- 

 cans. 



"After cruising in the Pacific for another two years 

 for Spanish treasure ships, the expedition returned to Eng- 

 land, in 1711, having collected nearly a million dollars' 

 worth of plunder. Dover's share made him rich, and left 

 him free to travel and gratify his philanthropic instincts 

 as a physician. 



" He settled down in London as a physician in 1731, 

 and wrote a book on the medical experience he had gath- 

 ered in his ' professional ' career. In one of these, in a 



