While he was laid on his back, unable to speak or walk, he had to suffer a further trial of patience in a dispute which arose about the command of their valuable prize on the voyage to the East Indies and homeward, a majority of the council electing Dover to the post. Now Dover, as we have seen, was a doctor, not a seaman, and was absolutely incapable of commanding and navigating a ship upon such a voyage; but, having a large stake in the original venture, he claimed and obtained more consideration than was his due. Probably it was on this account that the gentlemen in Bristol had made him president of the council.
Poor Captain Rogers, chafing on his sick-bed, could only protest vigorously in writing against this proposed arrangement, which was obviously fraught with peril, and his officers supported him; the thing was, in fact, a job, the majority truckling to Dover as a part-owner. The utmost concession Rogers could gain was that two capable officers—Stretton and Frye—should be appointed to act under Dover as navigators and practical seamen, and that he should not interfere with them in their duties as such; and under these conditions the prize—her name conveniently abbreviated from Nostra Seniora de la Incarnacion Disenganio, to Batchelor—was safely conveyed to the East Indies, and thence to England, the cruise terminating on October 14th, 1711.
Captain Rogers recovered from his wounds, and made a good thing out of his cruise. He was subsequently Governor of the Bahamas, where he displayed great moral courage and resource under difficult circumstances; and there he died, on July 16th, 1732.
In a volume entitled "Life aboard a British Privateer in the Reign of Queen Ann"—a sort of running commentary upon Woodes Rogers's account of his cruise—the author, Mr. R.C. Leslie, remarks, after the capture of Guayaquil: "Though Woodes Rogers himself would now rank little above a pious sort of pirate, it is curious to note from what he says here [about the buccaneers] and again after visiting the Galapagos Islands, one of the chief haunts of buccaneers, that he looked upon them as much below him socially."
This is not fair to Rogers; he was entirely within his rights in sacking and ransoming Guayaquil, as a subject of a Power at war with Spain, and armed with a commission from his sovereign. It may not appear to be a very high-class sort of business, but it was conducted in this instance with great humanity, though not probably without some of the "regrettable incidents" which are inseparable from warfare—to adapt the saying of the French general at Balaclava, "Ce n'est pas magnifique, mais c'est la guerre." Rogers does not deserve to be dubbed "pirate," or classed with a gang of cut-throat ruffians like the buccaneers.
William Dampier apparently had no more sea-adventures; he died in London in March 1715.
Alexander Selkirk, returning to Scotland early in 1712, was received by his people with affectionate enthusiasm; but, after a time, he took to living entirely alone, and sometimes broke out in a passion of regret over his island home: "Oh, my beloved island! I wish I had never left thee! I never was before the man I was on thee! I have not been such since I left thee! and, I fear, never can be again!"
One day, in his solitary wanderings, he came across a young girl, seated alone, tending a single cow; their meetings became frequent, and eventually he persuaded her—Sophia Bruce was her name—to elope with him to London. In 1718 he made a will in her favour, under her maiden name, and it is said that, after his death, Sophia Selcraig (for this was the original form of Selkirk's name), represented herself as his widow, but could produce no evidence of marriage; so it is to be feared that she remained Sophia Bruce to the end, while Selkirk married a widow named Candis, to whom he left everything by another will.
He died, a mate on board the Weymouth man-of-war, in 1721. A monument was erected to his memory on Juan Fernandez, in 1868, by Commodore Powell and the officers of the Topaze.
Thus, by a pure accident, he becomes a well-known character and a sort of hero; certainly, he displayed some heroic attributes during his sojourn on Juan Fernandez.