Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 14.djvu/9

 Panama—were on the muzzles of their guns. Dampier's position remained quite subordinate. During this most remarkable adventure they crossed the isthmus, sacked Santa Marta, seized on a number of Spanish ships, and, sacking, plundering, and burning as they went, got as far southward as the island of Juan Fernandez. Having quitted it, they attacked Arica on 30 Jan. 1681, but were repulsed with great loss, and drew back discontented, and quarrelling among themselves. The quarrel ended in a break-up of the party; and off the Plata, or Drake's Island, some fifty of them, including Dampier, separated from the others, fetched the Gulf of San Miguel, and after many hardships succeeded in crossing over the isthmus and making their way to the neighbourhood of Point San Blas, where, among the Mulatas, or, as they were then called, the Samballoes, they found a French ship cruising ‘on the account.’ With these pirates Dampier continued for about a year, and in July 1682 went with nineteen others to Virginia.

Here he remained till August 1683, when he and the whole party joined a vessel commanded by one Cook, who had been in the former expedition in the South Sea and had returned across the isthmus in company with Dampier. This vessel was bound on a cruise round Cape Horn into the Pacific, and came to Virginia for no apparent reason except to pick up these nineteen men. When they put to sea, they found their ship too small, and decided to look along the coast of Africa in hopes of finding one better suited for their purpose. At Sierra Leone they found a Danish ship mounting thirty-six guns, which they promptly laid aboard, carried, and took to sea (Brit. Mus. Sloane MS. 54). Dampier says not a word of this, nor indeed much of any of their piratical exploits; and the voyage, if we were to judge solely from Dampier's narrative, might be thought mainly one of discovery. It was, in fact, one of ordinary piratical adventure.

After leaving Sierra Leone, the pirates resolved to carry out their original design, and, steering southwards, doubled Cape Horn; they then touched at Juan Fernandez, where they found a Mosquito Indian who had been left there by Dampier's friends three years before. From Juan Fernandez they passed on to the Galapagos and the coast of New Spain. In July 1684, being then off Cape Blanco, their captain, Cook, died, and was succeeded in the command by Edward Davis [q. v.], who, in company with several other free cruisers, more especially Eaton and Swan, scourged the coast of South America for the next twelve months; their fleet mustering sometimes as many as ten sail, with nearly a thousand men, English and French. Swan, in a ship named the Cygnet, had been with Davis nearly the whole time till 27 Aug. 1685, when the two parted, Davis resolving to stay on the coast of Peru, while Swan wished to go on the Mexican coast, and afterwards westwards across the Pacific. ‘Till this time,’ writes Dampier, ‘I had been with Captain Davis, but now left him and went aboard of Captain Swan. It was not from any dislike to my old captain, but to get some knowledge of the northern parts of this continent of Mexico; and I knew that Captain Swan determined to coast it as far north as he thought convenient, and then pass over for the East Indies, which was a way very agreeable to my inclination.’ After a cruise of some months on the coast of Mexico, and finding that he was too late for the Manila ship of the year, Swan proposed to go to the East Indies. ‘Many,’ says Dampier, ‘were well pleased with the voyage, but some thought, such was their ignorance, that he would carry them out of the world.’ They consented at last, the more readily, it would appear, from their bad success on the coast of Mexico, where the very rich commerce of the country was carried on almost wholly by land. Accordingly, they set out from Cape Corrientes on 31 March 1686, and after a voyage of great hardship, reached Guam on 20 May. ‘It was well for Captain Swan,’ Dampier says, ‘that we got sight of it before our provision was spent, of which we had but enough for three days more; for as I was afterwards informed, the men had contrived first to kill Captain Swan and eat him when the victuals was gone, and after him all of us who were accessory in promoting the undertaking this voyage. This made Captain Swan say to me after our arrival at Guam, “Ah! Dampier, you would have made them but a poor meal;” for I was as lean as the captain was lusty and fleshy.’ After twelve days' stay among the Ladrones, they pushed on to the Philippine Islands, which they reached on 21 June. At Mindanao they remained for six months, recompensing themselves for their severe privations by excessive drunkenness and debauchery, ‘which disorderly actions,’ says Dampier, ‘deterred me from going aboard, for I did ever abhor drunkenness.’ He, however, went on board in January, when the men, weary of doing nothing and being desirous of change, left Captain Swan and thirty-six of their fellows on shore and put to sea. Dampier says that he endeavoured to persuade his shipmates to return and pick up Swan, but they refused to do so; and he continued with them, ‘knowing that the further