Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Dampier's arrival at the East India Company's Achin depot
marked his return to respectability. He had, at last, turned his back
on the buccaneering life. However, he did seek out information about
his erstwhile companions during his subsequent voyaging. Gradu-
ally he was able to piece together the story of Captain Read and his
men. It was a story of continuing squabbles and desertions. Some
men left the ship to take service with the Great Mogul of India. Oth-
ers, like himself, escaped to East India Company factories. A few
linked up with various pirate bands. The
Cygnet
spent several
months cruising back and forth across the Indian Ocean but the pick-
ings were not good, probably because the region was dominated
by Arab pirates operating out of Persian Gulf ports. At last Captain
Swan's ship was scuttled in a Madagascar harbour.
The officials at Achin asked few questions about Dampier's pre-
vious nefarious activities. It was more important to them that they
had in their midst an experienced mariner and navigator. On a sta-
tion where climate and disease took a terrible toll of the men sent
out from England that was important. Doubtless this was why they
went to such lengths to try to nurse the new arrivals back to health.
After recovering, Dampier received several offers from captains and
merchants. Over the next couple of years he made three merchant
voyages which took him as far afield as Madras in the west and the
Gulf of Tonkin in the east.
In July 1690 he was appointed master gunner at Bengkulu, an
English fort on the south-west coast of Sumatra. At the same time he
acquired half shares in two people. These were a young man called
Jeoly and his mother, and they came from an island to the south-east
of Mindanao. Their story is a sad one. They had been taken prisoner
in a raid by the sultan of Mindanao and subsequently sold to an Eng-
lish merchant named Moody. He had taken them to Madras, which
was where Dampier first encountered them. Moody and his slaves
travelled to Bengkulu on the same ship as Dampier and there the
