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the Dutch knew about the Philippines, and the Moluccas, 

 and the great dim regions of the South. Returning to 

 England, he soon grew weary of staying ashore, enlisted 

 in the navy, and was present in battles against the Dutch 

 in 1673. 



Then in 1674 Dampier became sub-manager in a Jamaica 

 plantation. Soon, finding himself " clearly out of his 

 element," he went to sea again, and by coasting voyages 

 became acquainted with all the ports and bays about 

 Jamaica. And now his fate was certain. Jamaica was the 

 metropolis of the pirate-world. Every sensible Jamaican 

 seaman was a pirate, and Dampier went with the others. 

 But the pirate-trade was in a bad way. It had been born 

 in war against Spain. But the unforgivable Spaniards 

 had made peace, and the " privateers, who had hitherto 

 lived upon plundering them, were now put to their shifts." 

 The idler sort were content to continue in " the privateer 

 trade," which still went on in a meagre and unsatisfying 

 sort of way. The " more industrious sort " went to cut 

 logwood in the Bay of Campeachy ; but even these 

 " thought it a dry business to toil at cutting wood." In 

 fact the pirate wood-cutter was probably the driest 

 person in history. One of them, named Mr. John Hooker, 

 was once invited into a cabin where a great bowl of punch 

 containing six quarts had been brewed for the entertain- 

 ment of the company. " Mr. Hooker, being drunk to by 

 Captain Rawlings, lifted the bowl to his lips, and pausing 

 a moment to say that he was under an oath to drink 

 but three draughts of strong liquor a day, he swallowed 

 the whole without a breath, and so, making himself drunk, 

 disappointed us of our expectations, till we made another 

 bowl." 



Dampier sailed to Campeachy under a captain who 

 vainly sought to assuage this great dryness by deluges 

 of rum and punch. Dampier himself had no gift in the 

 way of drink, and, as he somewhere says, " abhorred 

 drunkenness." He was in fact an abstemious and meagre 

 student, hardly worth eating, as a fat pirate captain 

 afterwards told him, when there was talk of mutiny and 



