Selkirk's Island by Diana Souhami (best color ebook reader txt) 📕

Nine men from the St George were killed, more were injured. The French ship was badly damaged. Its casualties were high with many dead and thirty-two men wounded, each having lost a leg, an arm or an eye.

Dampier dismissed this battle as ‘an Insignificant Attempt’. He had not, he said, ‘come thither to fight ffrenchmen’.† He ‘called out to make Sail, for Fear the Enemy should clap us on Board and take us’. According to John Welbe that was the only command he gave during the whole battle.

Squalling winds separated the ships and put an end to cannon fire. The men feared the frustration of all their hopes if this ship went free. It would head for Lima. Its captain would tell the Spanish authorities about them. Merchant ships, rich with plunder, would then be diverted from the South American coast.

When the wind dropped, the men wanted to continue the fight. Dampier would not have it. They rounded on him ‘very much dissatisfied to suffer ourselves to be so baffled in our first Attempt’. He bragged ‘that he knew where to go and could not fail of taking to the value of £500,000 any Day in the year’.† He was not believed. This captain, when it came to action, hid behind a mattress and gave no orders. He was cowardly, incompetent and usually drunk.

Dampier reassured them that he had a strategy. Sails, boats and men had been left on The Island. They must first return and collect these. Then they would head toward Lima. In that busy stretch of sea they would seize ships without risk, replenish their stores, add to their fleet, take prisoners for whom they could exact ransom. Then under cover of night they would raid the town of Santa Maria where gold was stockpiled from the nearby mines.

Again the two ships headed back to The Island. As they approached, the wind dropped, the sea was calm, and they were forced to row toward the Great Bay. Anchored there were two large French warships. They fired at the Cinque Ports, then gave chase.

It occurred to the men that with officers like Dampier and Stradling, no treasure would come their way. As they headed north for the coast of Peru mutiny stirred. Selkirk, Welbe and Clift complained of all the capricious changes of plan. Despite assurances, no council meetings were held. Dampier, Stradling and Morgan made decisions ‘hugger mugger’ between themselves.

And now there were no spare sails, cables or anchors, no boats, and scarce water and food. Without boats or cables they could not tow their ships if the wind dropped or sails were torn. They could not go ashore in shallow water, or land without being seen at night. Without water they could not cook their scant rations and without cables and anchors they could not moor.

1704 No Small Presumption

THE DEAD were food for creatures of the sea. The injured turned for help to their surgeons. In a small space below the gun deck John Ballett tied splints to fractured bones, raked out bullets embedded in flesh, stitched gunshot wounds, treated burns with quinces and purslain, cracked dislocations more or less back to place and amputated shattered feet and hands.

Ballett thought it wise to amputate in the mornings but never at full moon. His dismembering saws were kept well-filed, clean and in oiled cloths to protect them from rust. He had an assortment of knives, mallets, chisels and stitching needles, some strong waxed thread, rolls of crude cotton and large bowls filled with ashes to catch blood.

The amputee had to give consent and was told that he might die. ‘It is no small presumption to dismember the Image of God.’† Two strong men held the patient down. The instruments were kept from his view. Ballett, ‘with a steady hand and good speed, cut off Flesh, Sinewes and all to the Bone’. He left flaps of skin. He then sawed through the bone, sewed the flaps, stemmed the bleeding with cotton and propped the stump up high with a pillow under it. There was a vessel for amputated limbs ‘till you have opportunity to heave them Overboard’.

Even if only the foot was crushed the surgeons took off most of the leg, ‘the Paine is all one, and it is most profitable to the Patient, for a long Stumpe were but troublesome’. There were dismembering nippers for amputating fingers and toes.

1704 A Private Consideration

THE PRIVATEERS then lay in wait near Callao, the port that served Lima, capital City of Peru. They furled their sails so as not to be seen. The intention was to attack any vessel going in or out of the harbour.

On 22 March two ships headed in. One was the same French galleon they had fought at such cost but failed to take. The men saw this as an opportunity to complete unfinished business. Stradling proposed that the St George chase it while the Cinque Ports pursued the other smaller ship. Dampier overruled him.

Upon which one of our Men told him to his Face, he was a Coward, and ask’d him, Whether he came to these Parts of the World to fight, or not? And he reply’d, He did not come to fight; for he knew where to make a Voyage, without fighting.†

Prizes such as these, Dampier boasted, were ‘inconsiderable gains’. The risks and dangers of such skirmishes were not worth the reward. Only the lack of boats, he said, kept him from putting a fortune into the crew’s hands.

Only the lack of boats kept the crew from mutiny. Sea water had tainted their food supplies. They were desperate for fresh water, food, action and gold. Without much to do they feuded, and split into gangs. There were violent quarrels and fights, particularly between seamen and landmen. Ralph Clift blamed these fights on Dampier’s ‘misgovernment’:

it was his Duty & in his power to have hindred such Quarrels & ffightings but he only heard the Complaints on one side & the other & never took any Care