CHAPTER XVIII 



DAMPIER 



AUTHORITIES : 



DAMPIER'S Voyages, edited by MASEFIELD. 

 CLARK RUSSELL'S Dumpier. 



AGAIN and again people had tried to find in the South Seas 

 something that was worth finding ; and again and again 

 they had failed. The golden continent of the imagination 

 had changed into the Nova Hollandia of fact, eight thousand 

 miles of sheer uselessness. By the middle of the seven- 

 teenth century all hope was abandoned by those who 

 entered Australia. 



And yet it was just at this time that a motive was The new 

 stirring the mind which was destined to accomplish that f^ ie ^ ce a ? 

 in which missionary zeal and commercial push had failed, Society, 

 the motive of scientific curiosity. It was, as Mr. J. R. 

 Green has explained, in the days of the English Restoration 

 that the appeal of Francis Bacon was first heard. With 

 apparent suddenness the reign of Theology ended, and the 

 reign of Science xbegan. The Royal Society was founded, 

 and scientific work was for the first time organised and 

 endowed. And Science could take for its province no 

 region less extensive than the World. The early transac- 

 tions of the Royal Society show an ignorance that would 

 amaze the schoolboy ; but they show also the birth of 

 that determined curiosity which was to launch ships 

 to complete the work of Quiros and of Tasman. And 

 the first representative of this determined curiosity was 

 the pirate Dampier. 



That Dampier was a pirate was an accident. The fact 

 VV.A. 305 u 



