After Selling Their Wines And Other
Goods, They Purchased Provisions, Naval Stores, And Every Thing Else
That Might Be Wanted During A Long Voyage, And Fitted Out Their Prize
Ship As A Privateer, Naming Her The Revenge.
According to the narrative
of Cowley, she carried eight guns and 52 men, while Dampier gives her 18
guns and 70 men.[146]
[Footnote 146: This difference, at least in regard to the size and force
of the ship, will be found explained in the sequel, as they took a
larger ship on the coast of Africa, which they used during the voyage,
and named the Revenge after their own ship. The additional number of men
mentioned by Dampier is not accounted for. - E.]
Before proceeding to the narratives of this voyage, it is proper to give
a concise account of Captain William Dampier, extracted from his own
works, being an extraordinary character and an eminent navigator, whose
many discoveries ought to recommend his memory to posterity, as a man of
infinite industry, and of a most laudable public spirit. Captain William
Dampier was descended of a very respectable family in the county of
Somerset, where he was born in 1652. During the life of his father and
mother, he had such education as was thought requisite to fit him for
trade; but losing his parents while very young, and being of a roving
disposition, which strongly incited him to the sea, those who now had
the care of him resolved to comply with his humour, and bound him about
1669 to the master of a ship who lived at Weymouth, in Dorsetshire. With
this master he made a voyage to France that year, and in the next went
to Newfoundland; but was so pinched by the severity of that climate,
that on his return he went home to his friends, almost tired of the sea.
Soon after his return, however, hearing of a ship bound for the East
Indies from London, he went there in 1670, and entered before the mast
in the John and Martha, in which he made a voyage to Bantam.
He returned to England in January, 1672, and retired to the house of his
brother in Somersetshire, where he remained all the ensuing summer. In
1673, he entered on board the Prince Royal, commanded by the famous Sir
Edward Spragge, and was in two engagements that summer against the
Dutch. He afterwards returned to his brother's house, where he met with
one Colonel Hellier, who had a large estate in Jamaica, and who
persuaded him to go over to that island, where he was some time employed
in the management of that gentleman's plantation. Not liking the life of
a planter, which he continued somewhat more than a year, he engaged
among the logwood cutters, and embarked from Jamaica for Campeachy, in
August 1675, but returned to Jamaica in the end of that year. In
February 1676, he went again to Campeachy, where he acquainted himself
thoroughly with the business of logwood cutting, in which he proposed to
advance his fortune; for which purpose he returned to England in 1678.
While in Campeachy, he became acquainted with some Buccaneers, who gave
him an inclination for that kind of life, in which he was afterwards
engaged, but of which in the sequel he became much ashamed.
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