THE VOYAGE OF WOODES ROGERS—DESERTION CHECKED BY A NOVEL CIRCUMSTANCE—A LIGHT SEEN UPON THE ISLAND OF JUAN FERNANDEZ—A BOAT SENT TO RECONNOITRE—ALEXANDER SELKIRK DISCOVERED—HIS HISTORY AND ADVENTURES—HIS DRESS, FOOD, AND OCCUPATIONS—HE SHIPS WITH ROGERS AS SECOND MATE—TURTLES AND TORTOISES—FIGHT WITH A SPANISH TREASURE-SHIP—PROFITS OF THE VOYAGE—THE SOUTH SEA BUBBLE—ITS INFLATION AND COLLAPSE—MEASURES OF RELIEF.

A company of merchants of Bristol fitted out two ships in 1708—the Duke and Duchess—to cruise against the Spaniards in the South Sea. The Duke was commanded by Woodes Rogers, the Duchess by Stephen Courtney. William Dampier, whose name had long been a terror to the Spaniards, was pilot to the larger ship. They left Bristol on the 14th of July, with fifty-six guns and three hundred and thirty-three men, and with double the usual number of officers, in order to prevent the mutinies so common in privateers.

Nothing of moment occurred till the vessels anchored at Isola Grande, off the coast of Brazil. Here two men deserted, but were so frightened in the night by tigers, as they supposed, but in reality by monkeys and baboons, that they took refuge in the sea and shouted till they were taken on board. The two ships passed through Lemaire's Strait and doubled Cape Horn, and, on the 31st of January, 1709, made the island of Juan Fernandez. During the night a light was observed on shore, and Captain Rogers made up his mind that a French fleet was riding at anchor, and ordered the decks to be cleared for action. At daylight the vessels stood in towards the land; but no French fleet—not even a single sail—was to be seen. A yawl was sent forward to reconnoitre. As it drew near, a man was seen upon the shore waving a white flag; and, on its nearer approach, he directed the sailors, in the English language, to a spot where they could best effect a landing. He was clad in goat-skins, and appeared more wild and ragged than the original owners of his apparel. His name has long been known throughout the inhabited world, and his story is familiar in every language. We need hardly say that his name was Alexander Selkirk, and that his adventures furnished the basis of the romance of Robinson Crusoe.

Alexander Selkirk was a Scotchman, and had been left upon the island by Captain Stradling, of the Cinqueports, four years and four months before. During his stay he had seen several ships pass by, but only two came to anchor at the island. They were Spaniards, and fired at him; but he escaped into the woods. He said he would have surrendered to them had they been French; but he chose to run the risk of dying alone upon the island rather than fall into the hands of Spaniards, as he feared they would either put him to death or make him a slave in their mines. "He told us," says Rogers, "that he was born in Largo, in the county of Fife, and was bred a sailor from his youth. The reason of his being left here was a difference with his captain, which, together with the fact that the ship was leaky, made him willing to stay behind; but when at last he was inclined to go with the ship the captain would not receive him. He took with him his clothes and bedding, with a firelock and some powder and bullets, some tobacco, a knife, a kettle, a Bible, with other books, and his mathematical instruments. He diverted himself and provided for his sustenance as well as he could, but had much ado to bear up against melancholy for the first eight months, and was sore distressed at being left alone in so desolate a place. He built himself two huts of pimento-trees, thatched with long grass and lined with goat-skins,—killing goats as he needed them with his gun, as long as his powder lasted. When that was all spent, he procured fire by rubbing two sticks of pimento wood together. He slept in his large hut and cooked his victuals in the smaller, and employed himself in reading, praying, and singing psalms,—so that, he said he was a better Christian during his solitude than he had ever been before, or than, he was afraid, he should ever be again.

"At first he never ate but when constrained by hunger,—partly from grief, and partly for want of bread and salt. Neither did he go to bed till he could watch no longer,—the pimento wood serving him both for fire and candle, as it burned very clear and refreshed him by its fragrant smell. His fish he sometimes boiled, and at other times broiled, as he did his goats' flesh, of which he made good broth; for they are not as rank as our goats. Having kept an account, he said he had killed five hundred goats while on the island, besides having caught as many more, which he marked on the ear and let them go. When his powder failed, he ran them down by speed of foot; for his mode of living, with continual exercise of walking and running, cleared him of all gross humors, so that he could run with wonderful swiftness through the woods and up the hills and rocks.

"He came at length to relish his meat well enough without salt. In the proper season he had plenty of good turnips, which had been sowed there by the crew of the ship and had now spread over several acres of ground. The cabbage-palm furnished him with cabbage in abundance, and the fruit of the pimento—the same as Jamaica pepper—with a pleasant seasoning for his food. He soon wore out his shoes and other clothes by running in the woods; and, being forced to shift without, his feet became so hard that he ran about everywhere without inconvenience, and could not again wear shoes without suffering from swelled feet. After he had got the better of his melancholy, he sometimes amused himself with carving his name on the trees, together with the date of his arrival and the duration of his solitude. At first he was much pestered with cats and rats, which had bred there in great numbers from some of each species which had got on shore from ships that had wooded and watered at the island. The rats gnawed his feet and clothes when he was asleep, which obliged him to cherish the cats, by feeding them with goats' flesh, so that many of them became so tame that they used to lie beside him in hundreds, and soon delivered him from the rats. He also tamed some kids, and, for his diversion, would sometimes sing and dance with them and his cats. So that by the favor of Providence and the vigor of youth—for he was now only thirty years of age—he came at length to conquer all the inconveniences of his solitude, and to be quite easy in his mind.

"When his clothes were worn out, he made himself a coat and a cap of goat-skins, which he stitched together with thongs of the same cut out with his knife,—using a nail by way of a needle or awl. When his knife was worn out, he made others as well as he could of old hoops that had been left upon the shore, which he beat out thin between two stones and grinded to an edge on a smooth stone. Having some linen cloth, he sewed himself some shirts by means of a nail for a needle, stitching them with worsted which he pulled out from his old stockings; and he had the last of his shirts on when we found him. At his first coming on board, he had so much forgotten his language, for want of use, that we could scarcely understand him, as he seemed to speak his words only by halves. We offered him a dram, which he refused, having drunk nothing but water all the time he had been upon the island; and it was some time before he could relish our provisions. He had seen no venomous or savage creature on the island, nor any other animal than goats, bred there from a few brought by Juan Fernandez, a Spaniard who settled there with a few families till the opposite continent of Chili began to submit to the Spaniards, when they removed there as more profitable."

Captain Rogers remained here a fortnight, refitting his ship. The "governor," as his men called Selkirk, never failed to procure two or three goats a day for the sick. They boiled up and refined eighty gallons of seal-oil, in order to save their candles. On the 13th of February, it was determined that two men from the Duke should sail on board the Duchess, and two from the Duchess on board the Duke, to see that justice was reciprocally done by each ship's company to the other in the division of prizes; and on the 14th the anchors were weighed, Alexander Selkirk shipping on board the Duke as second mate.

When off the Lobos Islands, they took a prize, which they named The Beginning. They learned from their prisoners that the widow of the late Viceroy of Peru was soon to embark at Callao for Acapulco, with her family and riches; and they determined to lie in wait for her. In the mean time they landed and took the town of Guayaquil, but consented to its ransom for thirty thousand dollars. They also seized thirteen small vessels, from which they took meal, onions, quinces, pomegranates, oil, indigo, pitch, sugar, gunpowder, and rice.

At the Gallapagos Islands they laid in a large stock of sea-turtles and land-tortoises, some of the former weighing four hundred pounds, while the latter laid eggs in profusion upon the decks. Some of the men affirmed that they had seen one four feet high, that two of their party had mounted on its back, and that it easily carried them at its usual slow pace, not appearing to regard their weight. This monster was supposed to weigh seven hundred pounds at least.

Having made the coast of Mexico, and having determined to wait only eight days either for the Manilla galleon or the ship of the viceroy's widow, they were rejoiced to descry, on the morning of the 22d of December, the Spanish treasure-ship on the weather bow. Preparations were made for action, and a large kettle of chocolate was boiled for the crew in lieu of spirituous liquor. Prayers were then said, but were interrupted, before they were concluded, by a shot from the enemy. She had barrels hung at her yard-arm, which seemed to warn the English of an explosion if they attempted to board. The engagement commenced at eight, and lasted an hour, after which she struck and surrendered. She bore the imposing name of Nuestra SeÑora de la EncarnaÇion Disenganio, and mounted twenty guns. Nine of her men were killed and nine wounded. Of the men of the Duke—the only ship of Rogers' fleet engaged—but two were wounded, Captain Rogers himself, who lost a portion of his upper jaw and two of his teeth, being one. The name of the prize was changed from Our Lady, &c. to The Bachelor, and she was equipped as a member of the squadron, which now sailed immediately for the Ladrone Islands.

They arrived at Guam on the 10th of March, 1710, where their wants were amply supplied, cocoanuts being furnished in abundance at the rate of one dollar a hundred. Captain Rogers bought one of the sailing proas of the islanders, which he had seen sail at the rate of twenty miles an hour. He carried it to England, intending to put it in the canal at St. James' Park as a curiosity. At the Cape of Good Hope they joined a number of homeward-bound ships, and sailed in company, early in April, forming a fleet of sixteen Dutch and nine English ships. Rogers and his consorts anchored at Erith, in the Thames, on the 14th of October.

This voyage is the last in which Dampier is known to have been engaged, and what became of him afterwards has never been ascertained. It would not be easy to name, before the time of Cook, a navigator to whom the merchant and mariner are so much indebted. His style was unassuming, as free from affectation as was the narrative itself from invention. Dean Swift made Captain Lemuel Gulliver hail Dampier as cousin.

The outfit of this voyage amounted to £15,000, and the gross profits to £170,000. One third of this, or £57,000, was divided among the officers and seamen. In view of this enormous return for a two years' voyage, we can hardly wonder at the fact that in this age, and during a long succeeding period, nearly all navigation was privateering, and that all ventures upon the seas appear to the reader of the present day as little better than the marauding excursions of corsairs and buccaneers.

This is the proper place for speaking of the famous Company formed for carrying on trade with the Spanish possessions in the Pacific, which received, upon its calamitous failure, the name of South Sea Bubble. This Company was formed, chartered, and prospered and fell, soon after the return of Rogers and Dampier. It originated in 1711, with Harley, the Lord Treasurer, his object being to improve public credit, and to provide for the payment of the floating debt, amounting to £10,000,000. He allured the nation's creditors by promising them the monopoly of trade with the Spanish coast in America. They greedily swallowed the glittering bait, and dreamed of El Dorado and Peruvian Golcondas. This spirit spread throughout the nation, and, in 1719, rose to a fever heat of speculation. Sir John Blunt, once a scrivener, now a prominent South Sea Director, conceived the idea of consolidating all the public funds into one, and made the proposal to the Government. The Bank of England and the South Sea Company displayed the utmost eagerness to outbid each other in the offers made for this magnificent privilege. The South Sea Company finally bid seven millions and a half, and the bill then passed the two houses of Parliament triumphantly. The Directors immediately opened a subscription of a million, and then a second, both of which were eagerly filled. Every engine was set at work to delude the public: mysterious rumors were rife of secret treasures in America, of overtures made to Stanhope to exchange Gibraltar for a diamond-mine in Peru, and of inexhaustible piles of wealth which were only waiting to be snatched up by the fortunate subscribers to the South Sea stock. The Directors began to quote dividends of twenty, thirty, fifty per cent. They claimed that, being the only national creditor, they could soon dictate to Parliament and rule the country. The stock rose from one hundred and twenty-six to one thousand. The mania was universal,—statesmen, washerwomen, Churchmen, Dissenters, ladies of high and low degree, being all smitten alike.

Other bubbles were started by other companies, some of them for the most extravagant objects, such as The Company to make Salt Water Fresh, to Build Hospitals for Bastards, to Obtain Silver from Lead, to Extract Oil from the Seeds of Sunflowers, to Import Jackasses from Spain and thus improve the Breed of English Mules, to Trade in Human Hair, and for a multitude of other equally absurd purposes. The subscriptions thus opened amounted at one period to no less than three hundred millions sterling.

These projects, which rose rapidly one after another and danced in prismatic radiance before the public view, were regarded with jealous eyes by the South Sea Directors, who wished to have a monopoly of the trade in public credulity. They therefore applied for writs of "scire facias" against their managers, and, by showing them to be frauds, suppressed them. But in thus destroying the national confidence in bubbles generally they seriously undermined that enjoyed by their own. Distrust was now excited, and every one became anxious to convert his bonds into money; and then the enormous disproportion between the promises to pay on paper and the means to redeem in coin became evident to all. The stock fell at once, as the basis which sustained it was proved to be altogether imaginary. Thousands of families were reduced to beggary, and the rage, resentment, and disappointment were bitter and universal. The Company sank into nothingness as rapidly as it had risen to notoriety. Parliament passed a bill by which public confidence was in a measure restored, while the estates of the Directors and officers were confiscated and applied to the relief of the sufferers. The proposed commerce with the Spanish American provinces was naturally never opened, and the next expedition of the English to that quarter, so far from being a voyage for trade, was a very formidable excursion for plunder,—that of Lord Anson, in 1740. We shall refer to this at length in its proper place.