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

theirs. The Marquess had three and a half feet of seawater in its hold, ‘wch we soon stopd’ Edward Cooke wrote, ‘and freed our selves and Knotted and Splised our Rigging and was bearing downe againe to the Enemy when we saw the Duke with a Signall out to speak with us.’

He immediately went with Stephen Courtney in a pinnace and boarded the Duke:

where we found Capt. Rogers wounded in ye foot by a Splinter with severall of his Men blowne up with the powder and his Main mast Shot through and found them all desirous not to engage the Enemy any farther and we not being able to Engage her by our Selves so left off the Chase … we having 27 Men killed and wounded and our Foremast shot through the heart in four places our Mainmast shot through in 2 places, our Mizen mast shot through in 2 places, the whole of our foretopmast shot away with our foretrestle trees and our Main yard Shot through &c.

‘We might as well’ he wrote, ‘have fought a Castle of 50 Guns as this Ship.’

So the Manila galleon sailed on to Acapulco its masts standing, its guns still out, its treasure defended and flying the Armada battle flag. The privateers had to make do with the smaller ship, the lesser prize. Rogers, shot to pieces, doubted if it was all worth the cost: ‘This Prize is very Rich but that nor anything else comes near the Unknown Risques and many Inconveniences we have and must Endure.’

They renamed their prize the Batchelor, after John Batchelor, a Bristol Alderman and linen draper, one of the owners. The officers quarrelled over who should command it on the journey home. Rogers opposed the election of Thomas Dover as its captain: ‘His Temper is so violent, that capable Men cannot well act under him, and himself is uncapable’ he wrote† Dover, in retaliation, called Rogers a dead weight, scornful, belligerent and swelled with pride. ‘His Sole Business has been to promote discord amongst us. But what can be Expected from a man yt will begin & drink ye Popes health.’†

Selkirk was appointed the Batchelor’s Master. He had proved himself a capable man and would navigate the ship of fortune on its 19,000-mile voyage home. He did not provoke these fractious captains who blamed each other but not themselves. The value of the plunder would not be known until it was sorted in London. He, like Dampier, supposed it to be a million pounds. He was entitled to a two and a half share. Enough to give him cloths of gold. The Island without men and money was gone from sight. The unheard echoes in its mountains. The unseen shadows of evening. He had moved from that invisible world to victory in battle, rank on board ship and to the promise of material wealth, and all that such wealth entailed.

1710 The Journey Home

AND SO BEGAN the long haul home. There was no delight now in moonlit nights or white sails filled with a gentle wind. The adventure was over. The sea was a tedious desert of water. Day after day after day. The men wanted comfort, and their share of the booty. ‘Itt went very hard with many of us for want of Provisions’ Woodes Rogers wrote.

The Manila Galleon though stuffed with riches was scant on stores. Supplies on all ships were rationed: a pound and a half of flour between five men if they were white, or between six if they were black. The men traded rats among themselves for fourpence or sixpence depending on size ‘and eat them very savourly’. When Pieces of Pork were stolen, the thieves were thrashed with a cat o’ nine-tails. ‘A Negro we named Deptford’ died of his punishment. Life was no better than death and one man’s demise was another’s bread.

On the 18th [January] we threw a Negro overboard, who died of a Consumption and Want together… On the 25th Thomas Williams, a Welch Taylor, died; he was shot in the Leg at engaging the 2nd Manila Ship, and being of a weak Constitution, fell into a Dysentery, which kill’d him… The Spanish Pilot we took in the Batchelor died; we kept him, thinking he might be of use to us, if he recover’d of his Wounds; but he was shot in the Throat with a Musket-ball which lodg’d so deep, the Doctors could not come at it… On March the 3rd we buried a Negro call’d Augustine, who died of the Scurvy and Dropsy.

And so it went on. The Duke ‘began to make much Water’ which had constantly to be pumped. Rogers could not walk because of his injuries, and had to be hoicked around in a chair. Dampier was vague about the route, and had forgotten landmarks.

They reached the island of Guam on 11 March. It looked green and pleasant. The Spaniards had planted it with melons, oranges and coconuts. Rogers, Courtney and Cooke sent the Governor a letter asking to buy ‘Provisions and Refreshments’ and promising, were their request refused, ‘such Military Treatment as we are with ease able to give you’.

The Governor complied. In exchange for twenty yards of scarlet cloth, six pieces of cambric, nails, religious artefacts and two Negro Boys dress’d in Liveries, he parted with eight calves and cows, four bullocks, sixty pigs, ninety-nine chickens, twenty-four baskets of corn, fourteen bags of rice, forty-four baskets of yams, eight hundred coconuts and an unspecified number of limes and oranges. His superiors in Manila, when they heard of his hospitality, viewed it as treachery, and put him in prison.

From Guam to the East Indies was another four long months. The going was slow and tedious and the men were again soon thirsty and hungry, Rogers was thin and in crippling pain, the Duke leaked non stop, the pumps were continually manned, an April gale damaged all ships, and Dampier did not know the way between the myriad islands of the Moluccas.

On 20 June