William Dampier

by William Clark Russell

On the vessel's arrival at Port Royal the crew were discharged. Dampier, whose hankering was after the logwood trade, embarked as passenger on board a vessel bound to Campeché, and sailed about the middle of February 1676. He went fully provided for the toilsome work—that is to say, with hatchets, axes, a kind of long knives which he calls “macheats,” saws, wedges, materials for a house, or, as he terms it, a pavilion to sleep in, a gun, ammunition, and so forth. His account of the origin and growth of the business he had now entered upon is interesting. The Spaniards had long known the value of the logwood, and used to cut it down near a river about thirty miles from Campeché, whence they loaded their ships with it. The English, after possessing themselves of Jamaica, whilst cruising about in the Gulf, frequently encountered many vessels freighted with this wood; but being ignorant of the value of such cargoes, they either burnt or sent the ships adrift, preserving only the nails and iron-work. At last one Captain James, having captured a big vessel full of wood, navigated her to England with the intention of fitting her out as a privateer. He valued his prize's cargo so lightly that on the way home he consumed a portion of it as fuel. On his arrival he, to his great surprise, was offered a large sum for the remainder. This being noised about started the trade amongst the English. Of course the Spaniards opposed the cutting down of the trees, and sent soldiers to protect their property; but the English speedily learnt to recognise the timber as it grew, and, hunting for it elsewhere, met with large forests, and so without regard to the Spaniards they settled down to the trade and did pretty well at it. The work previous to the arrival of Dampier employed nearly three hundred men who had originally been privateersmen and gained a living by plundering the Spaniards, but who, on peace being made with Spain, lost their occupation and were driven to logwood-cutting by hunger. But their tastes as pirates remained tenacious, and perhaps by way of keeping their hand in, they formed into little troops, attacked and plundered the adjacent Indian towns, brought away the women and sent the men to Jamaica to be sold as slaves. Dampier further informs us that these privateersmen had not “forgot their old drinking bouts,” but would “still spend thirty or forty pounds at a sitting on board the ships that came hither from Jamaica, carousing and firing off guns three and four days together.” Eventually their evil habits led to their ruin, for the Spaniards finding them nearly continually drunk, fell upon them one by one, seizing them chiefly in their huts, where they lay stupefied with liquor, and carried them to prison or to a servitude harder than slavery. Logwood was then worth fourteen or fifteen pounds a ton. The toil must have been great, for some of the trees were upwards of six feet round, and the labourer had to cut them into logs small enough to enable a man to carry a bundle of them. Dampier speaks also of the bloodwood which fetched thirty pounds a ton, but he does not tell us that he dealt with it. He speedily found employment amongst the logwood-cutters. On his arrival he met with six men who had one hundred tons of the wood ready cut, but not yet removed to the creek side. These fellows offered Dampier pay at the rate of a ton of the wood per month to help them to transport what they had cut to the water. The work was laborious. They had not only to transport the heavy timber, but to make a road to enable them to convey it to the place of shipment. They devoted five days a week to this work, and on Saturdays employed themselves in killing cattle for food. During one of these hunting excursions Dampier came very near to perishing through losing his way. He started out alone with a musket on his shoulder, intending to kill a bullock on his own account, and wandered so far into the woods that he lost himself. After much roaming he sat down to wait till the sun should decline, that he might know by the course it took how to direct his steps. The wild pines appeased his craving for drink, otherwise he must have perished of thirst. At sunset he started afresh, but the night, coming down dark, forced him to stop. He lay on the grass at some distance from the woods, in the hope that the breeze of wind that was blowing would keep the mosquitoes from him; “but in vain,” says he, “for in less than an Hour's time I was so persecuted, that though I endeavoured to keep them off by fanning myself with boughs and shifting my Quarters 3 or 4 times; yet still they haunted me so that I could get no Sleep.” At daybreak he struck onwards, and after walking a considerable distance, to his great joy saw a pole with a hat upon it, and a little farther on another. These were to let him know that his companions understood that he was lost, and that at sunrise they would be out seeking him. So he sat down to wait for them; for though by water the distance to the settlement was only nine miles, the road by land was impracticable by reason of the dense growths coming down to the very side of the creek where Dampier sat waiting. Within half an hour after his arrival at the poles with the hats upon them, “his Consorts came,” he says, “bringing every Man his Bottle of Water, and his Gun, both to hunt for Game and to give me notice by Firing that I might hear them; but I have known several Men lost in the like manner and never heard of afterwards.” At the expiration of the month's agreement he received his ton of logwood, and was made free of the little colony of cutters. Some of the men, quitting the timber-cutting, went over to Beef Island to kill bullocks for their hides, but Dampier remained behind with a few others to cut more logwood. He worked laboriously, but his career in this line of business was ended not long afterwards by the most violent storm “that,” he says, “was ever known in those Parts.” He has described this storm in his Discourse of Winds. He there says: “The Flood still increased and ran faster up the Creek than ever I saw it do in the greatest Spring Tide, which was somewhat strange, because the wind was at South, which is right off the Shore on this Coast. Neither did the Rain anything abate, and by 10 a Clock in the Morning the Banks of the Creeks were all overflowing. About 12 at Noon we brought our Canao to the side of our Hut and fastened it to the Stump of a Tree that stood by it; that being the only refuge that we could now expect; for the Land a little way within the Banks of the Creek is much lower than where we were: so that there was no walking through the Woods because of the Water. Besides the Trees were torn up by the Roots and tumbled so strangely across each other that it was almost impossible to pass through them.” Their huts were demolished, their provisions ruined. It was in vain to stay, so the four men who formed Dampier's party embarked in their canoe and rowed over to One-Bush-Key, about sixteen miles from the creek. There had been four ships riding off that key when the storm began, but only one remained, and from her they could obtain no refreshment of any kind, though they were liberal in their offers of money. So they steered away for Beef Island, and on approaching it observed a ship blown ashore amongst the trees with her flag flying over the branches. Her people were in her, and Dampier and his companions were kindly received by them. Whilst on Beef Island he was nearly devoured by an alligator. He and his comrades started to kill a bullock. In passing through a small savannah they detected the presence of an alligator by the strong, peculiar scent which the huge reptile throws upon the air, and on a sudden Dampier stumbled against the beast and fell over it. He shouted for help, but his comrades took to their heels. He succeeded in regaining his legs, then stumbled and fell over the animal a second time; “and a third time also,” he says, “expecting still when I fell down to be devoured.” He contrived to escape at last, but he was so terrified that he tells us he never cared for going through the water again so long as he was in the Bay.

Much of his narrative here is devoted to accurate and well-written descriptions of the character of the country, and of its animals, reptiles, and the like. There is an amusing quaintness in some of his little pictures, as, for instance: “The Squash is a four-footed Beast, bigger than a Cat: Its Head is much like a Foxes; with short Ears and a long Nose. It has pretty short Legs and sharp Claws; by which it will run up trees like a Cat. The skin is covered with short, fine Yellowish Hair. The flesh is good, sweet, wholesome Meat. We commonly skin and roast it; and then we call it pig; and I think it eats as well. It feeds on nothing but good Fruit; therefore we find them most among the Sapadillo-Trees. This Creature never rambles very far: and being taken young, will become as tame as a Dog; and be as roguish as a Monkey.”

The minuteness of his observation is exhibited in a high degree in his account of the beasts, birds, and fish of Campeché and the district. He uses no learned terms. A child might get to know more from him about the thing he describes than from a dozen pages of modern writing on the subject supplemented even by illustrations. It was wonderland to him, as it had been to other plain and sagacious sailors before him. His accounts remind us again and again of the exquisitely naïve but admirably faithful descriptions of beasts and fish by the navigators whose voyages are found in the collections of Hackluyt and Purchas.

It is not very long after he had quitted Campeché that we find him associating with privateers, and becoming one of their number. He writes of this in a half-apologetic manner, complaining of failure through a violent storm and of a futile cruise lasting for several months, and talks of having been driven at last to seek subsistence by turning pirate. There is no hint in his previous narrative of any leanings this way. Probably thoughts of the golden chances of the rover might have been put into his head by chats with the logwood-cutters. The Spaniard had long been the freebooter's quarry. His carracks and galleons, laden almost to their ways with the treasure of New Spain, had handsomely lined the pockets of the marauding rogues, and such was the value of the booty that scores of them might have set up as fine gentlemen in their own country on their shares but for their trick of squandering in a night what they had taken months to gain at the hazard of their lives. The temptation was too much for Dampier; besides, he was already seasoned to hardships of even a severer kind than was promised by a life of piracy. For, as we have seen, he had out-weathered the bitter cold of Newfoundland, he had worked as a common sailor before the mast, he had served against the Dutch, he had knocked about in Mexican waters in a vessel as commodious and seaworthy as a Thames barge, and he was now fresh from the severe discipline of the logwood trade. His associates consisted of sixty men, who were divided between two vessels. Their first step was to attack the fort of Alvarado, in which enterprise they lost ten or eleven of their company. The inhabitants, who had plenty of boats and canoes, carried away their money and effects before the fort yielded, and as it was too dark to pursue them, the buccaneers were satisfied to rest quietly during the night. Next morning they were surprised by the sight of seven ships which had been sent from Vera Cruz. They got under-weigh and cleared for action. But they had no heart to fight; which is intelligible enough when we learn that the Spanish admiral's ship mounted ten guns and carried a hundred men; that another had four guns and eighty men; the rest sixty or seventy men apiece, well armed, whilst the bulwarks of the ships were protected with bulls' hides breast-high. Fortunately for them, the Spaniards had no mind to fight either. Some shots were exchanged, and presently the Spanish squadron edged away towards the shore, “and we,” says Dampier, “glad of the deliverance, went away to the eastward.” How long he remained with the pirates he does not say. Apparently he could not find his account with them. He left them to return to the logwood trade, at which he continued for about twelve more months. He then tells us that he resolved to pay a visit to England with a design of returning again to wood-cutting, which no doubt was proving profitable to him, and accordingly set sail for Jamaica in April 1678. After remaining for a short time at that island he embarked for England, and arrived at the beginning of August.

He did not remain long at home. In the beginning of the year 1679 he sailed for Jamaica in a vessel named the Loyal Merchant. He shipped as a passenger, intending when he arrived at Jamaica to proceed to the Bay of Campeché, and there pursue the employment of logwood-cutting. But on his arrival at Port Royal in Jamaica in April 1679, after a good deal of consideration, he made up his mind to delay or abandon his wood-cutting scheme, for he tells us that he remained in that island for the rest of the year in expectation of some other business. Whatever his hopes were they could not have been greatly disappointed, for we read of him as having, whilst in Jamaica, purchased a small estate in Dorsetshire from a person whose title to it he was well assured of. He was then, it now being about Christmas, 1679, about to sail again for England, when a Mr. Hobby persuaded him to venture on a short trading voyage to what was then termed the country of the Mosquitoes, a little nation which he describes as composed of not more than a hundred men inhabiting the mainland between Honduras and Nicaragua. Dampier consented; he and Mr. Hobby set out, and presently dropped anchor in a bay at the west end of Jamaica, where they found a number of privateersmen, including Captains Coxon, Sawkins, and Sharp. These men were maturing the scheme of an expedition of so tempting a character that the whole of Mr. Hobby's men quitted him and went over to the pirates. Dampier stayed with his companion for three or four days, and then joined the pirates also. What became of Mr. Hobby he does not say. There is here a shamefacedness in his avowal not hard to distinguish. Perhaps as he sits writing this narrative he wonders at the irresolution he exhibited, and his curious caprices of decision. He starts for Jamaica to cut logwood at Campeché; on his arrival he changes his mind and prepares for his return; he is then diverted from his intention by Mr. Hobby, with whom he embarks on a well-considered adventure, which he relinquishes to become pirate before his associate's ship has fairly got away from Jamaica! It is these sudden changes of front, however, and the unexpected turns of fortune which they produced, which keeps Dampier's narrative sweet with fresh and ever-flowing interest.

His adventures from the date of his leaving Mr. Hobby down to the month of April 1681 he dismisses in a couple of pages. Ringrose, however, has written very fully of the expedition in which Dampier apparently served as a foremast hand, and to the pages of his work it is necessary to turn to obtain the information which Dampier omits. [7] The fleet of the privateers consisted of nine vessels; the largest of them, commanded by Captain Harris, was of the burden of one hundred and fifty tons, mounted twenty-five guns, and carried one hundred and seven men; whilst the smallest, commanded by Captain Macket, was of fourteen tons, her crew consisting of twenty men. They sailed on March 23rd, 1679, for the province of Darien, their designs being, as Ringrose candidly admits, to pillage and plunder in those parts. But they do not appear to have arrived off the coast until April 1680, this being the date given by Ringrose, who says that there they landed three hundred and thirty-one men, leaving a party of sailors behind them to guard their ships. They marched in companies; Captain Bartholomew Sharp's (in whose troop, I take it, was Dampier) carried a red flag, with a bunch of white and green ribands; Captain Richard Sawkins's company exhibited a red flag striped with yellow; the third and fourth, commanded by Captain Peter Harris, bore two cream-coloured flags; the fifth and sixth a red flag each; and the seventh a red colour with yellow stripes, and a hand and sword thereon by way of a device. “All or most of them,” adds Ringrose, “were armed with Fuzee, Pistol, and Hanger.” This is a description that brings the picture before us. We see these troops of sailors carrying banners, dressed as merchant seamen always were, and still are, in twenty different costumes, lurching along under the broiling equatorial sun, through forests, rivers, and bogs, trusting to luck for a drink of water, and with no better victuals than cakes of bread (four to a man), called by Ringrose “dough-boys,” a name that survives to this day, animated to the support of the most extraordinary fatigues, the most venomous country, and the deadliest climate in the world, by dreams of more gold than they would be able to carry away with them.

But the whole undertaking was a failure. They attacked and took the town of Santa Maria, and found the place to consist of a few houses built of cane, with not so much as the value of a single ducat anywhere to be met with. Their disappointment was rendered the keener by the news that three days before their arrival several hundred-weight of gold had been sent away to Panama in one of those ships which were commonly despatched two or three times a year from that city to convey the treasure brought to Santa Maria from the mountains. Their ill-luck, however, hardened them in their resolution to attack Panama. The city was a sort of New Jerusalem to the imaginations of these men, who thought of it as half-formed of storehouses filled to their roofs with plate, jewels, and gold. They stayed two days at Santa Maria, and then on April 17th, 1680, embarked in thirty-five canoes and a periagua, and rowed down the river in quest of the South Sea, upon which, as Ringrose puts it, Panama is seated. Their adventures were many; their hardships and distresses such as rendered their energy and fortitude phenomenal even amongst a community who were incomparably gifted with these qualities. Ringrose, whose narrative I follow, was wrecked in the river by the oversetting of his canoe, and came very near to perishing along with a number of his comrades. He fell into the hands of some Spaniards, with whom, as they understood neither English nor French, whilst he was equally ignorant of their tongue, he was obliged to converse in Latin!—a language in which, I suspect, not many mariners of to-day could communicate their distresses. He and his shipmates narrowly escaped torture and a miserable death, and eventually recovering their canoe, they started afresh on their voyage, and were fortunate enough next morning to fall in with the rest of the buccaneers, who had anchored during the night in a deep bay.

Trifling as these incidents are, it is proper to relate them as examples of the life and experiences of Dampier during this period of his career. Unfortunately, until one opens his own books one does not know where to look for him. In whose troop he marched, in whose canoe he sat, in what special adventures he was concerned, whether he was favoured for his intelligence above the others by the commanders of the expedition, cannot be ascertained. When Ringrose wrote, Dampier was still a mere privateersman, a foremast hand, a man without individuality enough to arrest the attention of the sturdy, plain, and honest historian of the voyage in which they both took part. Indeed, there is no reason to suppose that Dampier at this time was regarded by his fellows as better than the humblest of the shaggy, sun-blackened men who, with fuzees on their shoulders and pistols in their girdles, tramped in little troops through the swamps and creeks and over the swelling lands of the Isthmus, or who in their deep and narrow canoes floated silent and grim upon the hot and creeping river in search of the unexpectant Don and his almost fabulous wealth.

Dampier introduces a curious story in connection with Panama and the South Seas in his first volume. He says that when he was on board Captain Coxon's ship, there being three or four privateers in company, they captured a despatch boat bound to Cartagena from Porto Bello. They opened many of the letters, and were struck by observing that several of the merchants who wrote from Old Spain exhorted their correspondents at Panama to bear in mind a certain prophecy that had been current in Madrid and other centres for some months past, the tenor of which was—That there would be English privateers that year in the West Indies, who would make such great discoveries as to open a door into the South Seas. This door, Dampier says, was the passage overland to Darien through the country of the Indians, a people who had quarrelled with the Spaniards and professed a friendship for the English. At all events, these Indians had been for some time inviting the privateers to march across their territory and fall upon the Spaniards in the South Seas. Hence when the letters came into their hands they grew disposed to entertain the Indians' proposal in good earnest, and finally made those attempts to which I have referred in quoting from the pages of Ringrose. The cause of the friendship between the English buccaneers and the Darien Indians is a story of some interest. About fifteen years before Dampier crossed the Isthmus a certain Captain Wright, who was cruising in those waters, met with a young Indian lad paddling about in a canoe. He took him aboard his ship, clothed him, and, with the idea of making an Englishman of him, gave him the name of John Gret. Some Mosquito Indians, however, begged the boy from Captain Wright, who gave him to them. They carried him into their own country, and by and by he married a wife from among them. Through the agency of this John Gret, who always preserved an affection for the English, a friendship was established between the buccaneers and the Indians. Presents were made on each side, and a certain secret signal was concerted whereby the Indians might recognise their English friends. It happened that there was a Frenchman among one of the buccaneering captain's crew. He was artful enough to commit this signal, whatever it was, to memory, and on his arrival at Petit Guavres he communicated what he knew to his countrymen there, and represented the facility with which the South Seas might be entered now that he had the secret of winning over the Indians to help him. On this one hundred and twenty Frenchmen formed themselves into a troop, with the buccaneer, whom Dampier calls Mr. la Sound, as their captain, and marched against Cheapo, an attempt that proved unsuccessful, though the simple Indians, believing them to be English, gave them all the assistance that was in their power. “From such small beginnings,” adds Dampier, “arose those great stirs that have been since made in the South Seas, viz.: from the Letters we took and from the Friendship contracted with these Indians by means of John Gret. Yet this Friendship had like to have been stifled in its Infancy; for within few months after an English trading Sloop came on this Coast from Jamaica, and John Gret, who by this time had advanced himself as a Grandee amongst these Indians, together with 5 or 6 more of that quality, went off to the Sloop in their long Gowns, as the custom is for such to wear among them. Being received aboard, they expected to find everything friendly, and John Gret talkt to them in English; but these English Men having no knowledge at all of what had happened, endeavoured to make them Slaves (as is commonly done), for upon carrying them to Jamaica they could have sold them for 10 or 12 Pound apiece. But John Gret and the rest perceiving this, leapt all overboard, and were by the others killed every one of them in the Water. The Indians on Shoar never came to the knowledge of it; if they had it would have endangered our Correspondence.”