William Dampier

MARITIME Exploration West Australiana

• 164 p., [5] p. of plates : ill., maps, port. ; 21 cm. First Edition. #260824
• He reaches the West Indies
• He joins the buccaneers
• The isthmus of Darien and the South Seas
• His first voyage round the world
• Success
• The voyage to New Holland
• The voyage of the St. George
• His last voyage
• The final account.
• Review: A readable and engaging history of English seafaring. In the 1500 and 1600s the European nations were discovering and rediscovering a world that seems to have been lost for 400 years. Seeking knowledge and spice, explorers and traders started to reach into tropical Asia.

  Australia was shown on maps of that time as “Terra Incognita” but as traders started sailing around the Cape of Good Hope heading for Batavia (in modern Indonesia) their inability to calculate longitude caused ships using the Roaring Forties’ route to run into the west coast of New Holland.

  Western Australia’s early history was littered with shipwrecks and death.
  1606 Janzoon (Dutch East India Company) land on Cape York; and Torres sailed between Australia and New Guinea.
  1616 Hartogh lands at Shark Bay (becoming the first European to land in Australia)
  1619 Houtman sailed to the Swan River (site on Perth)
  1622 the Tryall (English) was wrecked on the Montebello Islands
  1629 The Batavia was wrecked on the Abrolhos Islands with bloody consequences
  1656 the Gilt Dragon sank off Ledge Point
  1688 Dampier spent months repairing the Cygnet at King Bay

  Back to Dampier! What a life. His adventures became best sellers of the day and he moved between the world of piracy, farming, and the Royal Navy. He sailed with the A list of pirates and even returned Alexander Selkirk (Robinson Caruso) to the world. 

  Lloyd’s book is an easy, engaging read and it enables the readers to experience the growth of English sea power in a newly discovered world.