Setting the Scene – The first Englishman
William Dampier was if nothing else, a man of reputation. Like most reputations, some of it was probably exaggerated. Painted by history as a buccaneer, adventurer, explorer, writer, plunderer and soldier-Dampier may have been all of these things, more or less. His main claim to fame though, is that he was the first recorded Englishman to set foot in Australia. Apart from this, he was not a great explorer. He discovered little more than the Dutch had already found, and his attempt to map the East Coast was a failure. He was however, a great seaman and navigator, and the first man to sail around the globe three times. His accounts of his travels were also best sellers, relating descriptions on flora and fauna, and mapping tides and currents. He was among the first to describe the vast and little known Pacific Ocean region.
Born in Somerset England in 1652, he was at sea while still a teenager, making voyages to Newfoundland and to Java. At the onset of war with Holland in 1672, he joined the Navy and served on the Royal Prince, was wounded in action and hospitalized for some time.
In 1674, Dampier went to the West Indies (Jamaica) to work as agent for a Colonel Helyar, who owned a plantation there. He soon left and joined a ship bound for the Honduras, where there was a profitable timber trade. Here Dampier soon came into contact with the many privateers and pirates, that frequented the West Indies maze of islands. He went into business as a merchant, but returned to England in 1676 after losing everything in a hurricane.
He married and bought some land in Dorset in an apparent attempt to settle down, but in 1679 he was at sea again, returning to the West Indies. Once again he ran across privateers that were plundering Spanish possessions in the region, and joined them in an attack on Porto Bello that realised little profit. He was then involved on a failed attack on Panama City, but they did capture a Spanish ship, in which he and his party pirated along the coast of South America, but once again with little real success.
Dampier formed a number of these liaisons over the next few years, most notably with Charles Swan in the 'Cygnet', where once again they raided Spanish towns, but once again, with no real reward. In 1686 they sailed from Central America, bound for the Philippines. They were however poorly provisioned and stopped at the island of Guam, where they found some unexpectedly friendly Spanish garrison men and natives. It was here that Dampier first encountered Breadfruit, the plant that was to later launch another dramatic maritime episode, with the expedition of Captain Bligh and the Bounty. Dampier and wrote a lucid description of the plant:
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