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...

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William Dampier was a buccaneer, an explorer and a naturalist. He was the first person to circumnavigate the world three times and the first Englishman to map parts of Australia and New Guinea. He was a celebrated and best-selling travel writer and achieved wide fame for his vivid descriptions of the various lands and people he encountered. In 1699 Dampier was offered the command of an expedition aimed at proving that New Holland was a continent on its own and not connected to Asia or the Americas. Sailing from England in the Roebuck, Dampier touched at Bahia in Brazil before rounding the...