A Brief History of Circumnavigators

by Derek Wilson

  In the midst of the captain’s difficulties there came what must have been for him a welcome diversion. One of the crew was caught stealing. Lawless men often seem to have an obsession with the formalities and rituals of the law – witness the drumhead tribunals and ‘people’s courts’ beloved of terrorist groups. Thus, this wretch had to be properly arraigned and condemned by due process of law. He was sentenced to receive three lashes from each member of the crew. There were one hundred men aboard the Cygnet. This was savage even by the standards of the day. Regulations in the Royal Navy limited the maximum sentence that could be handed out by a commander on his own authority. A court martial could and frequently did impose stiffer sentences but three hundred lashes seems to have been the normal limit and that was for serious crime, such as desertion. It was common practice on a man-of-war to involve the crew in the punishment of minor offenders. It was felt to be fitting that, if a man had offended against his comrades, they should have a hand in exacting retribution. The normal penalty for petty theft was running (or, more accurately, ‘walking’) the gauntlet. The culprit made his way between two lines of seamen, who belaboured him with knotted ropes, while two marines walked with drawn swords, one before and one behind, to prevent him running or ducking his punishment. The treatment of the thief aboard the Cygnet, thus, seems to have combined the most extreme elements of contemporary practice. This and the bland way in which Dampier records it shows just how brutish life was among these piratical riff-raff. Many seamen who went ‘on the account’ did so partly in the hope of getting rich quick and partly to escape what they regarded as the cruel, class-based tyranny prevalent on naval and even merchant vessels. What they frequently discovered was that life among the ‘brotherhood’ was even more violent.

  Stories of keel-hauling, flogging with the ‘cat’ and hanging from the yardarm inevitably sicken the twenty-first century reader. Yet it is important to reflect on how difficult it must have been to maintain order on a sailing ship. The conditions were just about the worst imaginable for good discipline: a hundred or more men (most of them rough-and-ready, if not actually criminal), confined in a cramped and smelly space, with no opportunity to escape from each other for weeks on end is a state of affairs which breeds tensions. Most officers could maintain authority only by brutality and fear. That was why naval and merchant captains had extensive powers. When those powers were surrendered or made subject to common consent, as was the case on buccaneering and privateering voyages, good order – and therefore the smooth running of the ship – usually suffered.

  Most modern yachtsmen who have experienced long periods at sea have stories to tell of how strains, tensions and personality clashes almost inevitably arise. John Ridgway, for example, during the 1977–8 Whitbread Race had difficulties on the Cape to Auckland leg:

  ‘F’ troop under Bob are another handicap; as the oldest watch they could have set an example, but instead they’re a divisive influence. Forty days is a long time at sea in such a small, cramped, confined space.

  Tom is trying to keep communications open with Bob, Noel, Roger and J. C. There are mumblings that they will all get off at Auckland. I would be delighted if I never had to see any of them again.

  [After arriving at Auckland] Noel and Roger jumped off the boat on to ADC Accutrac as soon as we were alongside, and hardly had their feet touched the deck than they started chain-smoking.

  I can well understand how Sir Francis Drake came to execute his best friend on his voyage round the world!12

  It was on 20 May, when there were three days’ provisions left in the barrels, that Swan’s men sighted Guam. Swan had been lucky: the fresh ENE trades had brought his ships across the Pacific in fifty days. It was one of the best crossings made up till that time.

  Dampier kept a careful log, noting the daily course, the distance travelled and latitude (calculated by astronomical observation or dead reckoning). The conclusions he drew only serve to show how inaccurate were the navigational methods available to seventeenth century mariners:

  . . . the South Sea must be of a greater breadth by 25 degrees than it’s commonly reckoned by hydrographers, who make it only about 100, more or less. For, since we found . . . the distance from Guam to the eastern parts of Asia, to be much the same with the common reckoning, it follows by way of necessary consequence from hence that the 25 degrees of longitude, or thereabouts, which are under-reckoned in the distance between America and the East Indies westward are over-reckoned in the breadth of Asia and Africa, the Atlantic Sea, or the America continent, or all together . . .13

  Dampier was absolutely right in his general thesis but wrong in his calculations. The distance from Cape Corrientes (the Cygnet’s point of departure from Mexico) to Guam was underestimated on all existing charts. It is not 100° of longitude. But neither is it 125°, as Dampier suggested. It is, in fact, 110°18′. Yet such an over-adjustment should not obscure the achievement of this self-taught navigator. Few contemporaries mastered the techniques of astronomical observation and course-plotting more thoroughly. Transoceanic navigation was still in its infancy. A further ninety years were to pass before the width of the Pacific was accurately calculated and then it would take a trained astronomer to arrive at the correct figures.

  Guam had a small garrison which was maintained by the Spaniards for the benefit of their ships passing between Mexico and the Philippines. How was Swan to persuade them to give him supplies? His men counselled force but that did not at all suit the captain’s book. If he was to escape the clutches of the pirates he might, at some point, need the goodwill of the Spaniards. As it happened, fortune favoured him once again. His ships arrived at dusk at the principal anchorage on the south-west side of the island. Soon after dark a boat came alongside with a friar aboard demanding that the newcomers identify themselves. One of the pirates, who knew some Spanish, called out in that language that they were of the same nation, en route from Mexico to Manila. While this exchange was going on some sailors slipped over the side and took command of the boat. The priest was taken to the great cabin, where Swan informed him that he was now a hostage. No ill would befall him as long as the governor satisfied their reasonable demands.

  Whether or not the governor was worried about the fate of the priest, he was in no position to refuse Swan provisions. He had a garrison of only twenty or thirty soldiers and was faced by two shiploads of well-armed buccaneers. Such men had never before broken through the barrier of the Pacific and their arrival now was a considerable shock. Furthermore, any conflict with these other white men would almost certainly spark off a revolt among the islanders, who were only with difficulty kept in subjection. Thus, all the voyagers’ needs were met and they passed an agreeable twelve days on Guam. Dampier spent every possible moment ashore making notes of everything he saw. Here are his observations about bread fruit:

  The bread-fruit (as we call it) grows on a large tree, as big and high as our largest apple trees. It has a spreading head full of branches, and dark leaves. The fruit grows on the boughs like apples: it is as big as a penny loaf, when wheat is at five shillings the bushel. It is of a round shape, and has a thick tough rind. When the fruit is ripe, it is yellow and soft; and the taste is sweet and pleasant. The natives of this island use it for bread: they gather it when full grown, while it is green and hard; then they bake it in an oven, which scorcheth the rind and makes it black: but they scrape off the outside black crust, and there remains a tender thin crust, and the inside is soft, tender and white, like the crumb of a penny loaf. There is neither seed nor stone in the inside, but all is of a pure substance like bread: it must be eaten new, for if it is kept above 24 hours, it becomes dry, and eats harsh and choaky; but ’tis very pleasant before it is too stale. This fruit lasts in season eight months in the year; during which time the natives eat no other sort of food of bread kind. I did never see this fruit anywhere but here. The natives told us that there is plenty of this fruit growing on the rest of the Ladrone Islands; and I never heard of it an
ywhere else.14

  Swan had to weather another crisis during the stay at Guam. An argosy from Acapulco approached the harbour but was warned off by the governor, who sent a canoe out to tell the captain about the pirates. In trying to get away the Spaniard managed to wedge his vessel on the reef, where she stuck for three days before floating free. For three days, therefore, she was a helpless prey and the men of the Cygnet, naturally, wanted to capture her. Swan refused, determined to abandon his life of crime and not to give unnecessary offence to the Spaniards. What arguments he used Dampier does not tell us. Now that he had reached the safety of Asian waters he had become more authoritarian. A few weeks later Dampier noted that he ‘had his men as much under command as if he had been in a king’s ship’.15 At Guam and, later, Mindanao he enjoyed hobnobbing with the local rulers and the gap between him and his crew steadily widened. If he could maintain control all would be well for him but if he pushed the men too far there could only be trouble ahead. He had persuaded them to cross the Pacific with promises of rich prizes. Letting the Acapulco ship slip from his clutches could only sow mistrust and anger among his followers.

  On 2 June the Cygnet and her consort sailed for the Philippines. Swan chose the southern island of Mindanao rather than Manila because the Spaniards had given up all pretence of control and the Dutch had failed to extend their rule there. According to information gained in Guam, the people of Mindanao were warmly welcoming of any Europeans who did not come from Spain or Holland. So it proved: the Englishmen were well received and spent six months at Mindanao.

  The island was divided into a number of Muslim sultanates. The one the visitors had dealings with was centred on the city of Mindanao (Davao) in the south. Dampier had plenty of opportunity to observe its social and political structure. He found it a poor community ruled over by a despot who had the power of life and death over his subjects. The sultan, a little man in his fifties, lived in an impressive palace on 180 poles, well defended with cannon, and only went among his people carried in a palanquin, surrounded by bodyguards. His need for protection was obvious, for he exploited the people mercilessly:

  If the sultan understands that any man has money, if it be but twenty dollars . . . he will send to borrow so much money, pretending urgent occasions for it, and they dare not deny him. Sometimes he will send to sell one thing or another that he hath to dispose of to such whom he knows to have money, and they must buy it and give him his price. And if, afterwards, he hath occasion for the same thing, he must have it if he send for it . . . 16

  Dampier found the citizens very lazy but this, he assumed, was the result, not of inbred idleness, but of the disincentives of the system. There was little point in a man earning more than a bare subsistence if the sultan was likely to relieve him of his spare cash.

  Mindanao’s principal exports were tobacco, beeswax and rice and its main customers were the Dutch, who were welcomed but also viewed with suspicion. The sultan was well aware of how the foreigners had come to dominate the Spice Islands and he was determined to preserve his independence. That was why he made much of his English visitors and pressed them to stay. There were exchanges of presents, and feasts, and ceremonial visits to the Cygnet and colourful festivals in honour of the Englishmen. Dampier was particularly captivated by the gorgeously-arrayed dancing women whose sinuous movements were quite unlike anything he had seen before:

  Their feet and legs are but little employed, except sometimes to turn round very gently. But their hands, arms, head and body are in continued motion, especially their arms which they turn and twist so strangely, that you would think them to be made without bones.17

  Dampier was the first Englishman to describe this art form which is now more associated with Bali and other parts of Indonesia. On another occasion, he described with fascinated attention to detail the ceremonies accompanying the Muslim circumcision rite:

  . . . most of the men, both in city and country being in arms before the house, begin to act as if they were engaged with an enemy, having such arms as I described. Only one acts at a time, the rest make a great ring of 200 or 300 yards round about him. He that is to exercise comes into the ring with a great shriek or two, and a horrid look; then he fetches two or three large stately strides, and falls to work. He holds his broad sword in one hand, and his lance in the other, and traverses his ground, leaping from one side of the ring to the other; and in a menacing posture and look, bids defiance to the enemy, whom his fancy frames to him; for there is nothing but air to oppose him. Then he stamps and shakes his head, and grinning with his teeth makes many rueful faces. Then he throws his lance, and nimbly snatches out his cresset [i.e. creese, a dagger], with which he hacks and hews the air like a madman, often shrieking. At last, being almost tired with motion, he flies to the middle of the ring, where he seems to have his enemy at his mercy, and with two or three blows cuts on the ground as if he was cutting off his enemy’s head. By this time he is all of a sweat, and withdraws triumphantly out of the ring, and presently another enters with the like shrieks and gestures. Thus they continue combating their imaginary enemy all the rest of the day . . .18

  The sultan and his leading men gave every inducement to Swan and his crew to stay. Embassies from nearby islands also came to offer the sovereignty of their sultanates to these foreigners with the big ships and powerful guns. Some of the men were very attracted by the prospect of becoming oriental princes, attended by harems of dusky Filipinos. Some of them simply deserted and disappeared into the forest. But Swan gave no clear lead.

  He was rapidly letting the situation slip out of his control. Flattered by the attentions of his hosts, enjoying the sultan’s lavish hospitality, he spent all his time ashore and neglected his men. The crew split into two factions; those who could afford to live in the city and were in no hurry to leave, and those who remained on board, being too poor to enjoy the delights of Mindanao and therefore anxious to resume the voyage. Friction between these groups became worse when Swan subordinated the dignity of his own company to the demands of the islanders. When a crew member was found guilty of some minor offence against one of the locals, the captain had him flogged in front of the natives. A few weeks later the pirates’ second ship, the barque, was found to be so wormy as to be of no more use. How long would it be, the men grumbled, before the Cygnet also had to be scuttled and with her their last chance of reaching home? The final coal laid upon the smouldering fire of discontent was the discovery of Swan’s journal. It was kept inside his locked cabin but when he sent a man aboard to fetch something, one of the crew slipped in and appropriated the book which contained the captain’s private thoughts and plans. It was inflammatory reading. Swan’s opinions of his piratical shipmates and his determination to ditch them at the earliest opportunity were read aloud to everyone on board.

  Nothing could now stop a mutiny. Captain Teat took over the Cygnet. He sent boats ashore to round up all those who wished to sail. Swan made no attempt to regain the initiative. Instead of returning to his ship he sent threatening and cajoling messages by subordinates. On 14 January 1687, the Cygnet sailed away from Mindanao, leaving behind Swan and thirty-six others. The ex-captain’s temper was not improved by this incident. Dampier later discovered that he had fallen out with his hosts, although he stayed at Mindanao for several months or years after most of his companions had died or left. At last he decided to take passage on a Dutch ship but, while he was being rowed out to it, his boat was intercepted by two canoes of warriors who hacked him to death.

  From the time of the departure from Mindanao the piratical cruise disintegrated into factionalism and conflicting objectives. Teat was soon displaced as captain by a rival. Some of the crew wanted to set course for Europe. Others were for lingering in the Philippines until the Manila galleon set sail for Mexico laden with porcelain, silk, spices and other rich oriental wares. Dampier who, by his own account, had been opposed to deserting Swan, was increasingly disenchanted with his companions. He tells us that he asked them to ret
urn for the deposed captain and that, having failed in this, he looked for an opportunity to leave the ship. He recorded his disapproval of his colleagues’ frequent drunkenness and noted, with prudish satisfaction, how some of them had been poisoned in Mindanao for making too free with the local women. Whether or not this high moral tone was for the benefit of his readers in England we cannot know. Certainly, for some eighteen months he was content to stay aboard the Cygnet, his justification being that ‘the farther we went, the more knowledge and experience I should get, which was the main thing that I regarded’.

  Those eighteen months certainly enabled him to fill his journal with a catalogue of novelties and strange events. For an aimless set of buccaneers the men of the Cygnet made a remarkable tour which took them across the South China Sea to Canton, into the Gulf of Siam for a brief stay on the Cambodian coast, to the Spice Islands, and, through the dangerous channels around Celebes, southwards to the shores of Australia. Everywhere the fascinated chronicler went he made notes of what he saw: a man buried alive for theft in Formosa; the brilliant cockatoos and parakeets of Pulau Butung; a waterspout off Celebes; a boy with four rows of teeth on Butung; the Australian aborigines – ‘the miserablest people in the world’. Within the space of a few months Dampier encountered representatives of one of the world’s oldest civilisations and also the Stone Age aboriginal culture. He bought dishes of tea from silk-robed ladies in the streets of Canton and admired exquisite Chinese lacquer work. He ate roasted locusts in Bashi (south of Formosa). He visited ancient temples. He was particularly interested in the customs of the Chinese, or, at least, he devoted several pages of his memoir to them. Europe was currently in the grip of the chinoiserie craze. Fashion decreed that furniture, wall-hangings and tableware should reflect oriental influence. East-Indiamen brought home lacquered cabinets and fine porcelain for wealthy customers. For those whose pockets were not so deep, factories at Delft, Bristol, Lambeth and other provincial centres produced passable imitations. Dampier pandered to this fascination with all things Chinese by describing in detail their dress, their junks, their manners and such curiosities as the way the women bound their daughters’ feet to keep them small and dainty. Nor was he above exaggeration: