we went, the more knowledge and experience I should get, which was the main thing that I regarded.’ They cruised from China to New Holland for the next eighteen months, at the end of which time Dampier made up his mind to desert or to ‘escape;’ and after some difference of opinion with his companions, he and three others, with a few native prisoners, were put ashore, 16 May 1688, on Nicobar Island, from which, it was thought, they would be unable to escape. They succeeded, however, in making friends with the natives, bought a canoe, provisioned it with breadfruit, and on the 15th put to sea, trusting to Dampier's experience as a navigator, and to his pocket compass. The boat was but ill calculated for a long voyage. A terrible storm threatened to overwhelm them, and, for the time being, wakened Dampier's conscience to a sense of the wickedness of his course of life. ‘I had been,’ he says, ‘in many imminent dangers before now, but the worst of them all was but a play-game in comparison with this. I must confess that I was in great conflicts of mind at this time. Other dangers came not upon me with such a leisurely and dreadful solemnity. … I made very sad reflections on my former life, and looked back with horror and detestation on actions which before I disliked, but now I trembled at the remembrance of.’ As the storm passed off, they reached Sumatra, all utterly exhausted. Two of the party died; possibly, also, some of the Malays, who were lost sight of; Dampier himself was very seriously ill. ‘I found my fever to increase,’ he says, ‘and my head so distempered that I could scarce stand, therefore I whetted and sharpened my penknife in order to let myself blood, but I could not, for my knife was too blunt.’ Eventually he got to Acheen, where he recovered; and for the next two years he was employed in the local trade, making voyages to Tonquin, Madras, and other places; then, coming to Bencoolen, he was appointed master-gunner of the fort, and was detained there somewhat against his will. He managed at last to escape on board the Defence, Indiaman (2 Jan. 1691), and after many hardships finally arrived in the Downs on 16 Sept., having been absent for upwards of twelve years. The only property which he had brought home consisted of a so-called Indian prince, a Menangis islander, curiously tattooed, out of whom he hoped to make money in the way of an exhibition. He was forced, however, by urgent need, to sell his ‘amiable savage,’ who shortly afterwards caught small-pox and died at Oxford (cf. Evelyn, Diary, Bohn's edit. ii. 363).
Of Dampier's life during the next six years we have no account. In 1697 he published the account of his ‘Voyage round the World,’ in 1 vol. 8vo, with a dedication to Charles Montague [q. v.], afterwards Earl of Halifax, but at this time chancellor of the exchequer, president of the Royal Society, and the avowed patron of letters and science. The book had an immediate success, running through four editions within two years. This prompted the author to bring out a second volume, containing the accounts of his voyages from Acheen to Tonquin and Madras, which had been omitted from the first volume; the account of his early adventures with the logwood cutters in the Bay of Campeachy, and ‘A Discourse of Winds,’ which is one of the most valuable of all the ‘pre-scientific’ essays on meteorological geography, and is even now deserving of close study. This was published in 1699, with a dedication to the Earl of Orford, at that time first lord of the admiralty, to whom Dampier had been recommended by Montague as a man qualified to take command of an exploring voyage which the government resolved to fit out after the conclusion of the peace in 1697. Dampier was accordingly directed to draw up a proposal for such a voyage, and suggested that, as little was known of the Terra Australis, a voyage in that neighbourhood would be of the best advantage, and suited to his previous experience. In another letter he proposes to fill up with provisions at Madagascar and ‘run over directly from thence to the northernmost part of New Holland, where I would water if I had occasion, and from thence I would range towards New Guinea. There are many islands in that sea between New Holland and New Guinea … and it is probable that we may light on some or other that are not without spice. Should I meet with nothing on any of these islands, I would range along the main of New Guinea, to see what that afforded; and from thence I would cross over to the island Gilolo, where I may be informed of the state of those parts by the natives who speak the Malayan language. From Gilolo I would range away to the eastward of New Guinea, and so direct my course southerly, coasting by the land; and where I found a harbour or river I would land and seek about for men and other animals, vegetables, minerals, &c., and having made what discovery I could, I would return home by the way of Tierra del Fuego.’
Dampier was appointed, by order of 25 March 1698, to command the Jolly Prize ‘when fitted out’ (Admiralty Minute); but on his reporting (30 June and 6 July) that the Jolly Prize was ‘altogether unfit for the designed voyage,’ he was appointed to the
