Background
William Dampier was born the son of a Somerset farmer. He was baptised on 5 September 1651.
( It was William Dampier's passion to see the world that ...)
It was William Dampier's passion to see the world that turned him into a buccaneer. He possessed remarkable powers of observation and analysis, and his life as a seventeenth-century navigator aboard pirate and privateering ships is brilliantly detailed in his journal. Throughout his travels of Central and South America and the East Indies, Dampier provides riveting accounts of sea battles against Spanish treasure ships, as well as pirate life, lore, and customs. Originally published in 1697 as the New Voyage, his journal became an instant success, and has been read ever since as one of the greatest travel and adventure accounts ever written. But Memoirs of a Buccaneer is far more than historical adventure. Dampier was a man of intelligence and education with a strong naturalist's urge, and his book quickly became a vital source of information on the geology, biology, zoology, and peoples of the lands he visited. His descriptions of the West Indian manatee, booby birds, cacao, and mangrove treesflora and fauna never before heard of in England and the Continentare incredibly accurate. His notes on the produce of Guam and Mindanaococonuts, vanilla beans, bananas, breadfruit, and moreexerted a powerful influence on Britain's explorations and colonizations. And his depictions of Central America's Mosquito Indians and the natives of Mindanao proved to be highly reliable. The influence of this classic book on the work of later travelers is incalculable, leading writers such as Defoe, Swift, and Coleridge to borrow both facts and literary style from it. It continues to inspire readers today.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0486457265/?tag=2022091-20
(William Dampier 1651-1715 is the most remarkable seaman t...)
William Dampier 1651-1715 is the most remarkable seaman that England produced in the century and a half between Drake and Captain Cook. They each circumnavigated the world once; Dampier did so three times. He commanded the first government-funded voyage of discovery with a specific mission to report on matters of government and science. A good seaman, but a bad commander, he spent most of his life as a privateer, buccaneer, or pirate, and his career culminated in the capture of the great treasure galleon sent each year from the New World to Spain. But he was also a great writer, author of the first major English travel book, A New Voyage Round the World, and of scientific treatises and descriptions of natural history. His expedition to Australia was in many ways disastrous, with his ships being lost; but the book that came out of it, A Voyage to New Holland, is rich in evocative accounts of the peoples and places he had found or visited. He was not afraid to record things he could not explain, for 'better qualified persons who shall come after me', and his books were reference works used extensively not only by subsequent voyagers but by modern scientists who continue to cite his observations. This edited account of his voyages gives an admirable picture of this fascinating and unorthodox figure in his own words.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1843833646/?tag=2022091-20
(A New Voyage Round the World by William Dampier - with an...)
A New Voyage Round the World by William Dampier - with an introduction by Sir Albert Gray William Dampier (baptised 5 September 1651; died March 1715) was the first Englishman to explore parts of what is today Australia, and the first person to circumnavigate the world three times. He has also been described as Australia's first natural historian, as well as one of the most important British explorers of the period between Sir Walter Raleigh and James Cook. After impressing the British Admiralty with his book, A New Voyage Round the World, Dampier was given command of a Royal Navy ship and made important discoveries in western Australia, but was court-martialled for cruelty. On a later voyage, he rescued Alexander Selkirk, a former crewmate who may have inspired Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. Others influenced by Dampier include James Cook, Lord Nelson, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1534722173/?tag=2022091-20
William Dampier was born the son of a Somerset farmer. He was baptised on 5 September 1651.
William Dampier was educated at King's School, Bruton.
William Dampier sailed to Newfoundland and the East Indies while still a boy and took part in the Third Dutch War (1672 - 1674). After a brief sojourn in Jamaica as undermanager of a plantation, he joined the buccaneers of the Caribbean in Capt. Morgan's heyday.
In 1686 Capt. Swan of the Cygnet, in which Dampier was sailing, decided to seek prizes in the Pacific before returning to England. After spending 6 months in the Philippines, Swan's crew seized the ship and cruised in Far Eastern waters between China and Australia. Dampier accordingly spent the summer of 1688 at King Sound in Western Australia. After being marooned on one of the Nicobar Islands, he traveled by native canoe to Sumatra and served as a gunner at Bencoelen before returning to England.
Dampier recorded details of his amazing adventures along with navigational data in a diary on which he based A New Voyage round the World (1697) and Voyages and Descriptions (1699).
Impressed with his work, the English Admiralty commissioned him with the rank of captain to command an expedition to explore the Australian coastline. He reached Shark Bay, Western Australia, in August 1699, and using Tasman's charts, he sailed up the coast for a month seeking an estuary.
After revictualing at Timor, he proceeded along the north coast of New Guinea and discovered New Britain but abandoned plans to explore the east coast of Australia because his ship, the H. M. S. Roebuck, was in poor condition. On the way home, the Roebuck was lost off Ascension Island, and the crew were rescued by returning East India men.
A court-martial in 1702 found Dampier unfit to command a naval vessel. During the next 4 years he led an unsuccessful privateering expedition in the South Seas. Between 1708 and 1711 he again sailed around the world as pilot for Capt. Woodes Rogers, a privateer sponsored by Bristol merchants. It was on this voyage that Alexander Selkirk, who had previously been marooned by the crew of a ship under Dampier's command, was picked up at one of the Juan Fernández Islands in the South Pacific.
Dampier died in London in March 1715 before receiving his share of the expedition's spoils.
( The Complete Works of William Dampier: Containing Parti...)
(A New Voyage Round the World by William Dampier - with an...)
(William Dampier 1651-1715 is the most remarkable seaman t...)
( It was William Dampier's passion to see the world that ...)
(London published Exploration)
William Dampier The English privateer and author William Dampier explored the Western Australian coastline and stimulated interest in the Pacific through popular travel books.
William Dampier married Judith around 1679.