334 THE DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA 



When examined, it was found to resemble a honey-comb ; 

 nowhere was the plank much thicker than an old sixpence ; 

 and you could easily thrust your thumb through it. The 

 carpenter stopped the holes with tallow and charcoal ; 

 but did not dare to drive a nail. At last Dampier took 

 a small Spanish bark, in which he also made the voyage 

 to the East Indies. The Dutch seized the ship, and 

 Dampier Dampier, says an English writer in I744, 1 " returned 

 naked. naked to his owners, with a melancholy relation 

 of his and their misfortunes, occasioned chiefly by his 

 own odd temper, which made him so self-sufficient and 

 overbearing that few or none of his officers could endure 

 him." Dampier may have had an "odd temper" as 

 ship commander ; but, again, there were other reasons 

 for his nakedness. In spite of failure, he was " introduced 

 to the Queen, had the honour to kiss her hand, and to give 

 her some account of the danger he had run through." 



It seems pretty clear that Dampier was a very good 

 Pilot and a very bad Captain. He could not handle 

 the seamen of his period, but he knew as much about 

 navigation as any man living. These facts were recognised 

 The voyage when, in 1708, a syndicate of Bristol merchants sent two 

 ships to wage war on the enemy, and at the same time 

 to earn big dividends for shareholders. The command 

 was given to Woodes Rogers, a friend of Dampier, and 

 an able captain. Dampier was Pilot. It was the business 

 of Rogers to quell the mutinies, and order the battle against 

 the great Spanish treasure-ship. It was the business 

 of Dampier to advise what courses should be taken in 

 the seas he knew so well. They called for refreshment 

 at Juan Fernandez, and " our pinnace returned from the 

 shore, and brought abundance of crayfish, and a man 

 clothed in goat-skins, who looked wilder than the first 

 owners of them." It was Alexander Selkirk, who gave 

 an account of his life more vivid, though less detailed, than 

 that which Defoe wrote in his famous book a few years 

 later. Selkirk, who had been Dampier's friend, joined 

 the ship as mate. The voyage was well-managed, and 



1 Campbell, the editor of the 1744-1748 edition of Harris's Voyages. 



