William Dampier | A New Voyage Round the World

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. William Dampier was an English explorer, navigator, and naturalist. Like his predecessors Sir Walter Raleigh and Samuel Purchas, he was a pirate supported by the British crown and Royal Navy. He became famous as the first person ever to circumnavigate the world three times. In 1697, he wrote and published A New Voyage Round the World which was his autobiography in which he described his journeys around the world. He described his exploration of Australia in this book and impressed the Admiralty. After the success of A New Voyage Round the World, he gained the command of a British Royal Navy ship and made further voyages to Australia while making some important discoveries in Western Australia. He was a naturalist who liked to explore the flora and fauna of the new lands. He was amongst the first Britishers to use the terms like barbecue, avocado, and chopsticks. He names many plants that were not known to English people before.

In 1704, an English naval person Alexander Selkirk became a castaway after being marooned by his captain, initially at his request, on an uninhabited island in the South Pacific Ocean. He was under the command of William Dampier. He was rescued by William Dampier in 1709 after he had spent 5 years on that uninhabited island alone. By the time he was rescued, Selkirk had become adept at hunting and making use of the resources that he found on the island. He was the crew member of William Dampier and later became the inspiration for Daniel Dafoe’s fictional character Robinson Crusoe in his novel The Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe which was published in 1719. Dafoe was inspired by A New Voyage Round the World written by William Dampier. Dampier also inspired Jonathan Swift who wrote Gulliver’s Travels in 1726. Swift mentioned Dampier in his book as a mariner comparable to Lemuel Gulliver. Swift parodied Dampier’s ‘A New Voyage Round the World’ at many places in his satirical novel.

William Dampier was a keen observer and he used to note down the new species of plants and animals that he observed on the new lands he explored. Charles Darwin also made use of his book A New Voyage Round the World and quoted Dampier's observations on the behavior of turtle doves in the Galapagos Islands as "Dampier also, in the same year (1684), says that a man in a morning's walk might kill six or seven dozen of these doves."

Along with A New Voyage, Dampier wrote some other books in which he continued describing his new voyages.

So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the History of English literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards.