flesh of the animals which they killed, became a formidable body. Many of them, tired of the miserable life which they led on shore, embarked in vessels, and sought a desperate but congenial occupation in attacking and plundering the richly-laden ships which were constantly sailing from the Spanish colonies to the mother-country. Allured by the charms of this lawless mode of life, fresh adventurers arrived from France and England in ships fitted out for the purpose, with the permission of the French and English governments, both of which were eager to damage the Spanish interests; and thus, towards the conclusion of the seventeenth century, the West Indian Archipelago and the shores of South America swarmed with crews of pirates, who, under the name of privateers, chased every merchantvessel that made its appearance. When they came up with such a vessel quitting an American harbour, they boarded her with the most reckless audacity, either murdered the sailors and passengers, or made them prisoners, and shared the cargo according to their own rules of equity. In consequence of their ravages, the Spanish colonists in the New World became less and less disposed to risk their property in commerce, and the intercourse which had hitherto been kept up between the colonies and the mother-country was greatly interrupted. Disappointed of prizes at sea, the buccaneers did not hesitate to make up for the loss by storming and plundering the Spanish settlements on the American coasts. Landing in the night-time on the beach, close by some ill-guarded town or village, they would surprise the inhabitants while asleep, and either carry off all the wealth they could find, or sell back their own property to the wretched inhabitants for a heavy ransom. The buccaneers were, in fact, a floating nation of robbers; a revival in more modern times of the Norwegian sea-kings. They had their own rude notions of justice; they even professed religion in the midst of their licentiousness; and many of them never gave chase to a flag without falling on their knees on the deck to pray God that he would grant them the victory and a valuable cargo. The more respectable among them defended their mode of life, by saying that the injuries they perpetrated upon the Spaniards were a just retribution upon that nation for their cruelties to the Indians, or sought shelter under the general usage of the time, which authorised the various governments of Europe to grant licenses to private adventurers to harass and destroy the ships and ports belonging to nations with which they were at war. These excuses, joined with the love of adventure and the desire of wealth, the prospect of attaining which was so great in the buccaneering mode of life, operated as motives sufficient to induce a number of persons belonging to families of good repute to engage in the trade; nor did they incur disgrace by so doing. As we have already seen, young Selkirk, although he was the son of a stanch Scottish Presbyterian, and had been subject from his infancy to the wholesome impressions of respectable society, had

not scrupled to join the rovers of the South Seas. His experience of the toils and dangers of such a life had not cured him of his propensity to adventure; and now, for the second time, he leaves his father's house to become a privateer.

William Dampier, the originator and commander of the expedition which Selkirk now joined, was an Englishman, who had gone to sea at an early age, and for upwards of thirty years had been enduring the innumerable hardships and vicissitudes incident to the life of a sailor in those times. He was a man of ardent mind and great abilities, as the accounts of his voyages which he has left testify; and he had gained more knowledge of the South Seas than any man then living. He had not, however, with all his energy and skill, been very successful in improving his own fortunes; and now, at the age of fifty years, he was planning another expedition, which he hoped would issue in the acquisition of immense riches for all concerned. He found little difficulty in persuading some merchants to fit out two vessels, the St George and the Fame, each of twentysix guns, the former to be commanded by himself, the latter by a Captain Pulling; and as war had just been declared against France and Spain, in consequence of a dispute regarding the succession to the crown of the latter, in which Great Britain, Holland, and several other countries ranged themselves against France, he easily obtained the necessary commissions from Prince George, then High Admiral of England, authorising the crews of the two ships to attack and plunder the French and Spaniards for their own profit. Thus entitled, so far as the Lord High Admiral's warrant could entitle them, to grow rich by robbing Frenchmen and Spaniards all over the world, the adventurers listened eagerly to the plans which Dampier proposed as most sure to succeed. The first of these was, that they should sail to the south-eastern coast of South America, proceed up the river La Plata as far as Buenos Ayres, and earn £600,000 at one stroke by capturing the Spanish galleons usually stationed there. Should this plan fail, they were to sail round Cape Horn, and make a privateering cruise as far as the coast of Peru, where they would be likely to fall in with some valuable prizes; and should they fail also in this, they could still find profitable occupation in plundering the Spanish towns along the western coast of South America, waiting for the ship which periodically sailed from the Mexican port of Acapulco, and which would be a splendid capture. Such were the hopes which Dampier held out to the crews. The vessels were victualled for nine months; and the articles of agreement were no purchase, no pay; or, in other words, the merchants risked the vessels, and the crews their limbs and lives.'*

All was prepared for sailing, and the vessels were already in the Downs, when, in consequence of a quarrel between Dampier and

*Howell's Life of Alexander Selkirk.

Pulling, the latter went off alone, intending, he said, to make for the Canary Islands. Neither he nor the ship was ever heard of afterwards. Dampier, on Pulling's departure, lost no time in procuring the equipment of another vessel instead of the Fame. The name of the new vessel was the Cinque Ports, of about ninety tons burden, with a crew of sixty-three, and carrying sixteen guns. This ship joined the St George in the Bay of Kinsale, on the Irish coast, on the 18th of May 1703, and made all haste to proceed on their voyage. Still it was not till the 11th of September that they left Kinsale. The following is the list of the officers of the ships respectively as given by Mr Howell: In the St George-William Dampier, captain; John Clipperton, chief-mate; William Funnel, secondmate; and John Ballet, surgeon. In the Cinque Ports-Charles Pickering, captain; Thomas Stradling, lieutenant; and Alexander Selkirk, sailing-master. The appointment of our hero to so responsible a situation as that of sailing-master indicates considerable confidence in his abilities and seamanship.

On the 25th of September the vessels reached Madeira, and here Dampier had the disappointment of learning that his delay, in consequence of Pulling's desertion, had deprived them of the chance of capturing the galleons in the La Plata river, these ships having already arrived at Teneriffe. The crews then resolved to trust to the chances which the other plans proposed by Dampier might afford. Accordingly, they made straight for the South American coast. The only incident of consequence on the way was the disagreement of Captain Dampier with some of his crew. On the 2d of November they passed the equator, and on the 8th they saw the coast of Brazil.

On the 24th of November they anchored at the island Le Grand, in lat. 23° 30′ S. 'It produces,' says William Funnel, the second-mate of the St George, who wrote a Narrative of the voyage, 'rum, sugar, and several kinds of fruit, but all very dear, on account of supplying the inland town of St Paul with necessaries. Here we wooded, watered, and refitted our ships; and nine of our men falling out with Captain Dampier, left us, and went ashore.' Another incident which happened at Le Grand, and which exercised a bad effect on the remainder of the expedition, was the death of Captain Pickering of the Cinque Ports, who was succeeded by his lieutenant, Stradling, a man of ferocious and quarrelsome temper. The death of Pickering, the appointment of Stradling, the frequent altercations between Dampier and his crew, the difference of views which began to be manifested among the sailors as to the best plan for rendering the rest of the voyage successful, all preyed upon the mind of Selkirk to such a degree as to render him disgusted with his situation. He had a dream, it is said, off the coast of Le Grand, which left the firm impression on his mind that the expedition was to be disastrous, and that he ought to take the first opportunity

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of giving up all connection with it. It was not till some time afterwards, however, that he resolved finally to do so.

Leaving Le Grand on the 28th, the vessels continued their voyage southwards; passed the Falkland Isles on the 29th of December, and were encountered by such a storm in rounding Cape Horn, that they lost sight of each other on the 4th of January 1704. They did not fall in with each other again till the 10th of February, when the St George, anchoring at the island of Juan Fernandez, after a tedious voyage along the coasts of Patagonia and Chili, found that the Cinque Ports had been waiting there for her three days. 'We anchored,' says Funnel, 'in the great bay, in thirty-five fathoms. At this island we wooded, watered, and refitted our ships, giving them a heel, to clean their sides as low as we could, which took up much time, and occasioned both companies to be much on shore. In this island there are abundance of cabbage-trees, which are excellent, though small. The cabbage-tree, which is a species of palm, has a small straight stem, often ninety or a hundred feet long, with many knots or joints, about four inches asunder, like a bamboo cane. It has no leaves, except at the top, in the midst of which the substance called cabbage is contained. The branches of this tree are commonly twelve or thirteen feet in length; and at about a foot and a half from the tree the leaves begin, which are about four feet long, and an inch and a half broad-the leaves growing so regularly that the whole branch seems one entire leaf. The cabbage when cut out from among the roots of the branches, is usually a foot long, and six inches in diameter, and as white as milk. From the bottom of the cabbage there spring out several large bunches of berries, like grapes, each bunch being five or six pounds weight. The berries are red, and about the size of cherries, each having a large stone in the middle, and the pulp tastes like that of haws. On the island we saw also the sea-lion, which is so called, as I suppose, because he roars somewhat like a lion, and his head has also some resemblance to that animal, having four large teeth in front, all the rest being short, thick, and stubbed. Instead of feet and legs, he has four fins, the two foremost serving him, when he goes ashore, to raise the fore-part of the body, and he then draws the hind-part after him. The two hinder fins are of no use on land, but only in the water. The animal is very fat; for which reason we killed several of them, from which we made a tun of oil for our lamps, and while at this island, made use of it also for frying our fish. They have short light-coloured hair when young, becoming sandy when old. Their food is fish, and they prey altogether in the water, but come on land to sleep, when five, six, or more of them huddle together like swine, and will often lie still three or four days if not molested. They are much afraid of men, and make off as fast as they can into the water. If hard pressed, they will turn about, raising their bodies on their fore-fins, and face you with their mouths

wide open; so that we used to clap a pistol to their mouths and fire down their throats. Sometimes five or six of us would surround one of these monsters, each having half a pike, and so prick him dead, which commonly was the sport of two or three hours.'* Selkirk little thought, while cutting the branches of the cabbage-trees, and hunting sea-lions with Funnel and the other sailors on the beach of Juan Fernandez, that in a short time this island was to be his solitary home.

The life of comparative idleness which the crews of the two ships were leading on the island was not favourable to good-humour or harmony, especially as, hitherto, they had not succeeded in attaining the object of their expedition. The sailors of the Cinque Ports quarrelled with their captain, Stradling; and the dispute at length ran so high, that forty-two men, or more than two-thirds of the crew, went ashore, and threatened to remain. Whether Selkirk, who, as sailing-master, was next in rank to Stradling on board the Cinque Ports, was one of those who revolted, is not ascertained; but the sequel renders it probable that he was. At length Dampier succeeded in reconciling the sailors with their captain, order was restored, and matters went on as usual.

On the 29th of February, the idle crews were roused to activity by the sight of a sail. In their hurry to give chase, they left behind them one of their boats, their anchors, a quantity of oil, and other materials, and, what was more alarming, five sailors and a negro, who happened to be straggling in a part of the island distant from the beach at the time when the sail was seen. Bearing out to sea, they found the strange ship to be a Frenchman of thirty guns. After a long pursuit they came up with her next day, and engaged her very close, the St George keeping her broadside to broadside for seven hours. A gale then sprang up, and the Frenchman escaped, disappointing the privateers of their expected booty. Nine of the St George's men had been killed, and many more wounded in the action. The crews were, nevertheless, exceedingly anxious to continue the chase; but Dampier opposed them, saying it was not worth while, and 'they did not need to care for merchantmen, as he could get them a prize of £500,000 any day of the year.' They therefore returned, in no very good humour, to Juan Fernandez, which they came in sight of on the 3d of March. To their surprise, they found two French vessels at anchor off the island, each of thirty-six guns: a sight which made them glad to sheer off, leaving the boat, the anchors, the oil, and the six sailors to their fate. afterwards appeared that the Frenchmen, on landing, had taken possession of all the stores they found on the island, and made prisoners of four of the six men, the other two managing to conceal themselves.

It

*Funnel's Narrative.