3 119 1676.] MANNER OF CUTTING AND SHIPPING LOGWOOD. and marched in by paths back to La | This wood lay all in the circumference Vera Cruz, and [were] by the Flota conveyed to Spain, and so to England. I have spoken with many of them since, who told me that none of them were sent to the silver mines to work, but kept in or near the city, and never suffered to go with their caravans to New Mexico or that way. I relate this, because it is generally suggested that the Spaniards commonly send their prisoners thither, and use them very barbarously; but I could never learn that any European has been thus served; whether for fear of discovering their weakness, or for any other reason, I know not. But to proceed: it is most certain that the logwood cutters that were in the Bay when I was there were all routed or taken; a thing I ever feared; and that was the reason that moved me at last to come away, although at a place where a man might have gotten an estate. Though I was a stranger to their employment and manner of living, as being known but to those few only of whom we bought our wood in my former voyage hither, yet that little acquaintance I then got encouraged me to visit them after my second arrival here, being in hopes to strike in to work with them. There were six in company, who had a hundred tons ready cut, logged, and chipped, but not brought to the creek's side; and they expected a ship from New England in a month or two, to fetch it away. When I came thither they were beginning to bring it to the creek; and because the carriage is the hardest work, they hired me to help them, at the rate of a ton of wood per month; promising me that after this carriage was over I should strike in to work with them, for they were all obliged in bonds to procure this 100 tons jointly together, but for no more. 1 An explanation of the terms Armada and Flota will be found in Chapter VII. of the Voyage: see page 189; and the Flota is described on next page. 2 Enriched himself. of 500 or 600 yards, and about 300 [By and by, two of the company, Scotsmen, get tired of the work and go away, the third-a Welshman, Price Morris by name, though the author calls him a Scotsman also proves lazy and self-indulgent; and Dampier "keeps to his work by himself." He is hindered, however, by a growth of worms in his leg; afterward a great storm makes the region so uninhabitable, that with some other cutters he takes his departure for One Bush Key, and finding little aid from the ships there, themselves sufficiently distressed, goes to Beef Island, to hunt cattle for the sake of their hides. Dampier describes very minutely the features, peoples, and products of the southern and western coasts of the Bay of Campeachy; incidentally, in his mention of Vera Cruz, giving the following account of the Spanish West Indian squadrons :] 3 Broad. The Flota comes hither every three years from Old Spain; and besides goods of the product of the country, and what is brought from the East Indies [across New Spain from the port of Neapulco] and shipped aboard them, the King's plate that is gathered in this kingdom, together with what belongs to the merchants, amounts to a vast sum. Here also comes every year the Barralaventa Fleet in October or November, and stays till March. This is a small squadron, consisting of six or seven sail of stout ships, from 20 to 50 guns. These are ordered to visit all the Spanish seaport towns once every year, chiefly to hinder foreigners from trading, and to suppress Privateers. If they meet with any English or Dutch trading-sloops, they chase and take them, if they are not too nimble for them; the Privateers keep out of their way, having always intelligence where they are. [The personal narrative is resumed and concluded thus:] The account I have given of the Campeachy rivers, &c., was the result of the particular observations I made in cruising about that coast, in which I spent eleven or twelve months. For when the violent storm before-mentioned took us, I was but just settling to work; and not having a stock of wood to purchase such provision as was sent from Jamaica, as the old standards had, I, with many more in my circumstances, was forced to range about to seek a subsistence in company of some Privateers then in the Bay. In which rambles we visited all the rivers, from Trist to Alvarado; and made many descents into the country among the villages there, where we got Indian corn to eat with the beef and other flesh that we got by the way, or manatee,1 and turtle, which was also a great support to us. Alvarado was the westernmost place I was at. Thither we went in two barks with thirty men in each, and had ten or eleven men killed and desperately 1 Described in Voyage, Chapter III. page 139. wounded in taking the fort; being four or five hours engaged in that service, in which time the inhabitants, having plenty of boats and canoes, carried all their riches and best movables away. It was after sunset before the fort yielded; and growing dark, we could not pursue them, but restel quietly that night; the next day we killed, salted, and sent aboard twenty or thirty beeves, and a good quantity of salt fish, and Indian corn, as much as we could stow away. Here were but few hogs, and those ate very fishy; therefore we did not much esteem them, but of cocks, hens, and ducks were sent aboard in abundance. So that, with provision chests, hencoops, and parrot-cages, our ships were full of lumber, with which we intended to sail; but the second day after we took the fort, having had a westerly wind all the morning, with rain, seven armadilloes that were sent from La Vera Cruz appeared in sight, within a mile of the bar, coming in with full sail. But they could scarce stem the current of the river; which was very well for us, for we were not a little surprised. Yet we got under sail, in order to meet them; and clearing our decks by heaving all the lumber overboard, we drove out over the bar, before they reached it: but they being to windward, forced us to exchange a few shot with them. Their admiral was called the Toro; she had 10 guns and 100 men; another had 4 guns and 80 men: the rest, having no great guns, had only 60 or 70 men a piece, armed with muskets, and the vessels barricaded round with bullhides breast high. We had not above 50 men in both ships, 6 guns in one and 2 in the other. As soon as we were over the bar, we got our larboard tacks aboard and stood to the eastward, as nigh the wind as we could lie. The Spaniards came away quartering on us; and, our ship being the headmost, the Toro came directly towards us, designing to board us. We kept firing at her, in hopes to have lamed either mast or yard; but failing, just as she was sheering aboard, we gave her a good volley, and pre 1676-79.] THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY. 121 sently clapped the helm a-weather, | amongst the rest fell to work in the wore our ship, and got our starboard east lagoon, where I remained till my tacks aboard, and stood to the west- departure for Jamaica.. After ward and so left the Toro, but were saluted by all the small craft as we pass ed by them, who stood to the eastward, after the Toro, that was now in pursuit [of] and close by our consort. We stood to the westward till we were against the river's mouth; then we tacked, and by the help of a current that came out of the river, we were near a mile to windward of them all: then we made sail to assist our consort, who was hard put to it; but on our approach the Toro edged away towards the shore, as did all the rest, and stood away for Alvarado; and we, glad of the deliverance, went away to the eastward, and visited all the rivers in our return again to Trist. . . . And now the effects of the late storm being almost forgot, the lagoon men settled again to their employments; and I I had spent about ten or twelve months at the logwood trade, and was grown pretty well acquainted with the way of traffic here, I left the employment; yet with a design to return hither after I had been in England; and accordingly went from hence with Captain Chambers of London, bound to Jamaica. We sailed from Trist the beginning of April 1678, and arrived at Jamaica in May, where I remained a small time, and then returned for England with Captain Loader of London. I arrived there the beginning of August the same year; and at the beginning of the following year I set out again for Jamaica, in order to have gone thence to Campeachy: but it proved to be a Voyage round the World. MR WILLIAM DAMPIER'S VOYAGE ROUND THE TERRESTRIAL GLOBE. THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE CHARLES MOUNTAGUE, Esq., President of the Royal Society, One of the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, &c. SIR,-May it please you to pardon the boldness of a stranger to your person, if upon the encouragement of common fame he presumes so much upon your candour, as to lay before you this Account of his Travels. As the scene of them is not only remote, but for the most part little frequented also, so there may be some things in them new even to you, and some, possibly, not altogether unuseful to the public: And that just veneration which the world pays, as to your general worth, so especially to that zeal for the advancement of knowledge and the interest of your country which you express upon all occasions, gives you a particular right to whatever may any way tend to the promoting these interests, as an offering due to your merit. I have not so much of the vanity of a traveller, as to be fond of telling stories, especially of this kind; nor can I think this plain piece of mine deserves a place among your more curious collections, much less have I the arrogance to use your name by way of patronage for the too obvious faults both of the Author and the Work. Yet dare I avow, according to my narrow sphere and poor abilities, a heavy zeal for the promoting of useful knowledge, and of any thing that may never so remotely tend to my country's advantage; and I must own an ambition of transmitting to the public through your hands these essays I have made toward those great ends of which you are so deservedly esteemed the patron. This hath been my design in this publication, being desirous to bring in my glean ings here and there in remote regions, to that general magazine of the knowledge of foreign parts which the Royal Society thought you most worthy the custody of when they chose you for their President; and if in perusing these papers your goodness shall so far distinguish the experience of the Author from his faults, as to judge him capable of serving his country either immediately, or by serving you, he will endeavour by some real proofs to show himself, Sir, Your most Faithful, THE PREFACE. BEFORE the Reader proceeds any further in the perusal of this Work, I must bespeak a little of his patience here, to take along with him this short account of it. It is composed of a mixed relation of places and actions, in the same order of time in which they occurred; for which end I kept a Journal of every day's observations. In the description of places, their produce, &c., I have endeavoured to give what satisfaction I could to my countrymen; though possibly to the describing several things that may have been much better accounted for cular than might be needful with by others; choosing to be more partirespect to the intelligent Reader, rather than to omit what I thought might tend to the information of persons no less sensible and inquisitive, though not so learned or experienced. For which reason my chief care hath been to be as particular as was consistent with my intended brevity in setting down such observables1 as I met with, nor have I given myself any great trouble since my return to compare my discoveries with those of others; the rather, because, should it so happen that I have described some places or things which others have done before me, yet in different accounts, be but there will be some new light even of the same things, it can hardly afforded by each of them. But after all, considering that the main of this voyage hath its scene laid in long tracts of the remoter parts both of the East and West Indies, some of which men, and others as rarely by any are very seldom visited by EnglishEuropeans, I may without vanity encourage the Reader to expect many things wholly new to him, and many others more fully described than he may have seen elsewhere; for which not only this Voyage, though itself of many years' continuance, but also several former long and distant voyages, have qualified me. As for the actions of the company among whom I made the greatest part of this Voyage, a thread of which I have carried on through it, it is not to divert the Reader with them that I mention them, much less that I take any pleasure in relating them, but for method's sake, and for the Reader's satis. faction, who could not so well acquiesce in my description of places, &c., without 1 Notable things or incidents. AUTHOR'S PREFACE AND INTRODUCTION. knowing the particular traverses I made among them; nor in these, without an account of the concomitant circumstances; besides that I would not prejudice the truth and sincerity of my relation, though by omissions only. And as for the traverses them selves, they make for the Reader's advantage, how little soever for mine, since thereby I have been the better enabled to gratify his curiosity; as one who rambles about a country can give usually a better account of it, than a carrier who jogs on to his inn without ever going out of his road. As to my style, it cannot be expected that a seaman should affect politeness; for were I able to do it, yet I think I should be little solicitous about it in a work of this nature. I have frequently indeed divested myself of seaphrases to gratify the land Reader; for which the seamen will hardly forgive me; and yet possibly I shall not seem complacent enough to the other; because I still retain the use of so many sea-terms. I confess I have not been at all scrupulous in this matter, either as to the one or the other of these; for I am persuaded, that if what I say be intelligible, it matters not greatly in what words it is expressed. For the same reason I have not been curious as to the spelling of the names of places, plants, fruits, animals, &c., which in many of these remoter parts are given at the pleasure of travellers, and vary according to their different humours: neither have I confined myself to such names as are given by learned authors, or so much as inquired after many of them. I write for my countrymen; and have therefore for the most part used such names as are familiar to our English seamen, and those of our colonies abroad, yet without neglecting others that occurred. And it may suffice me to have given such names and descriptions as I could: I shall leave to those of more leisure and opportunity the trouble of comparing these with those which other authors have designed. 123 I have nothing more to add, but that there are here and there some mistakes made, as to expression and the like, which will need a favourable correction as they occur upon reading. For instance, the log of wood lying out at some distance from [the] sides of the boats described at Guam, and parallel to their keel, which for distinction's sake I have called the little boat, might more clearly and properly have been called the side-log, or by some such name; for though [it is] fashioned at the bottom and ends boatwise, yet [it] is not hollow at top, but solid throughout. In other places also I may not have expressed myself so fully as I ought: but any considerable omission that I shall recollect, or be informed of, I shall endeavour to make up in these accounts I have yet to publish; and for any faults I leave the Reader to the joint use of his judgment and candour. THE INTRODUCTION. I FIRST set out of England on this voyage at the beginning of the year 1679, in the Loyal Merchant of London, bound for Jamaica, Captain Knapman, commander. I went a passenger, designing when I came thither to go from thence to the Bay of Campeachy, in the Gulf of Mexico, to cut logwood; where in a former voyage I had spent about three years in that employ, and so was well acquainted with the place and the work. We sailed with a prosperous gale, without any impediment or remarkable passage in our voyage: unless that, when we came in sight of the Island of Hispaniola, and were coasting along on the south side of it. by the little Isles of Vacca, or Ash,3 I which refer to the Appendices already noticed, and to the "maps and draughts" that illustrated the earlier editions of the work. 2 Chapter X., page 225. 3 La Vache is a small island at the 1 Two paragraphs are omitted here, south-west end of Hayti; in Dam |
