VOYAGE OF THE ROEBUCK 323 



was fairly well in the Latitude of the Spice Islands. Why 

 should it not be made the centre of an English spice trade 

 that should eclipse that of the Dutch ? It was an argument 

 that persisted for a century, and was used by those who, 

 like Sir Joseph Banks and Mr. Matra, urged the foundation 

 of a colony in New South Wales. 1 



Dampier was a man in some ways well qualified to con- Dampier's 

 duct a voyage of curiosity. He was probably the most ^^ ca " 

 curious adult Englishman then alive ; and his curiosity 

 was that of a scientific mind trained by ample experience. 

 He was, moreover, a learned and skilful navigator and 

 Pilot. He had made special study of winds and currents, 

 and was an acknowledged expert in all the arts needed 

 in the navigation of a ship. He had some part of the 

 equipment of a Captain Cook, as well as some part of the 

 equipment of a Sir Joseph Banks. On the other hand, 

 say our modern critics, he lacked the qualities that were 

 necessary to success, the qualities that make a leader 

 of men. And our modern critics are probably right. 



And yet one feels that Dampier had been set a task Difficulties, 

 in which many a leader of men would have failed. The 

 ship that was given him for this voyage of exploration 

 in distant and unknown seas was the Roebuck of 290 tons. 

 On the return journey she "foundered through perfect The ship, 

 age," after an attempt to mend the leak had shown that 

 "the plank was so rotten that it broke away like dirt." 

 The crew that was to sail this aged and rotten ship to the end 

 of the earth and back were men whose morality was probably The crew, 

 as bad as that qf Dampier's pirate comrades, and whose 

 ability was certainly very much less. The seaman of 

 Dampier's day, writes Mr. Clark Russell, after a compliment 

 to that seaman's intrepidity, had the characteristics of 

 the savage. He was " a ruffian in his behaviour ; he 

 was a brute in his tastes ; he conversed in a dialect that 



1 " Part of it (N.S.W.) lies in a climate parallel to the Spice Islands, 

 and is well fitted for the production of that valuable commodity, as 

 well as the sugar cane, tea, coffee, silk, cotton, indigo, tobacco, and the 

 other articles of commerce that have been so advantageous to the 

 maritime powers of Europe," Matra's Proposal, 1783 ; Historical 

 Records of N.S.W. , vol. i. part 2, p. 2. 



