ys, "the most miserable people
in the world. The Hodmadods" (Hottentots) "of Monomatapa, though a nasty
people, yet for wealth are gentlemen to these." He gives an accurate
description of the country so far as he saw it, and asserts that "New
Holland is a very large tract of land. It is not yet determined whether it
is an island or a main continent; but I am certain that it joins neither
Asia, Africa, nor America."

While the ship was being overhauled under the sweltering rays of a
tropical sun, the men lived on shore in a tent, and Dampier, who was tired
of the voyage, probably because there were no Spaniards to fight and no
prizes to be made, endeavoured to persuade his companions to shape their
next course for some port where was an English factory; but they would
not listen to him, and for his pains he was threatened that when the ship
was ready for sea he should be landed and left behind.

Evelyn tells us that in 1698 Dampier was going abroad again by the King's
commission, and this second voyage of the ex-buccaneer to the South Seas,
although of small importance to geographers, is noteworthy, inasmuch as
Dampier's was the first visit of a ship of the English royal navy to
Australian seas.

To understand what sort of an expedition was this of two hundred years
ago, how Dampier was equipped and what manner of ship and company he
commanded, it will not be out of place to give some account of the navy at
that time. When James II. abdicated in 1688, according to Pepys, the royal
navy was made up of 173 ships of 101,892 tons, an armament of 6930 guns,
and 42,003 men. William died in 1702, and the number of ships had then
increased to 272, and the tonnage to 159,020 tons.

The permanent navy, begun by Henry VIII. and given its first system of
regular warfare by the Duke of York in 1665, had become well established,
and trading vessels had ceased to form a part of the regular
establishment. King William III., although not so good a friend to the
service as his predecessor, and anything but a sailor, like the fourth
William, did not altogether neglect it. In the Introduction to James'
_Naval History_ we are told that between the years 1689 and 1697 the navy
lost by capture alone 50 vessels, and it is probable that an equal number
fell by the perils of the sea. King William meantime added 30 ships, and
half that number were captured from the French, while several 20 and
30-gun ships were besides taken from the enemy.