332 



THE DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA 



made to patch the rotten ship for the voyage home. By 

 miracle they got as far as the Island of Ascension, where 

 the ship sprang a leak. Attempts to mend it made it 

 worse, for " the plank was so rotten it broke away like 

 dirt." The ship foundered, but the crew got safely to land, 

 though many of Dampier's precious books and papers 

 were lost. The crew were rescued by British men-of-war 

 that chanced to come that way. 



Dampier's welcome home was a court-martial. The 

 accuser was Lieutenant Fisher, whom Dampier had put 

 in irons, and had left in prison at Bahia in Brazil. Fisher 

 accused Dampier of being a bad navigator, cruel to trust- 

 worthy seamen, and over kind to pirate friends. Dampier 

 accused Fisher of calling him " Old Rogue, Old Dog, 

 Old Cheat," and so incensing the men against their captain. 

 The court-martial, which included Sir George . Rooke 

 and Sir Cloudesley Shovel, gave the verdict " that Captain 

 William Dampier has been guilty of very hard and cruel 

 usage towards Lieutenant Fisher." He was " fined all 

 his pay to the Chest at Chatham." And, further, it was 

 the opinion of the Court that *' the said Captain Dampier 

 is not a fit person to be employed as commander of any 

 of Her Majesty's ships" (June 1702). 



I bow with respect to the verdict of a court-martial. 

 But it seems to me that another court-martial should 

 have been held before Dampier's trial : a court-martial 

 to consider the character of the First Lord of the Admiralty, 

 who had deliberately appointed an ex-pirate to command 

 a ship whose planks were as rotten as dirt, manned 

 by a crew whose morality was in the same condition 

 as the planks. When the crime of the First Lord had been 

 suitably condemned, it might perhaps have sufficed to 

 say to the ex-pirate that he had failed to achieve the 

 impossible, and to congratulate him on his miraculous 

 survival. 



It does not seem, however, that the verdict was taken 

 very seriously. Dampier still retained the reputation, 

 which he did not very well deserve, of being a first-rate 

 pirate chief with a speciality in the South Sea. When, 



