o treated them with perfect
confidence and supplied them with provisions, they in return
entertaining him and his officers on board, while the English were
courteously received on shore. Thence they sailed by the north of
Gilolo, stopping at Bouton to take in provisions and water, till they
reached Batavia. Here the surgeon and several other persons died of
fever, contracted on shore. The _Marquis_ was found to be so rotten
that her goods were transferred to the other two vessels, and she was
sold.

At the end of October they left Java, and putting into the Cape, waited
there for the homeward-bound fleet, in company with which--twenty-five
sail in all, Dutch and English--after passing round to the north of
Shetland, they anchored in the Texel in July of the following year.

Here they had to wait for some time for a convoy, but at length, on the
14th of October, the two ships came to an anchor off Erith, thus ending
their long and perilous voyage.

Their skilful and talented pilot probably landed here, but from that day
forward nothing of his history is known. Owing to the falsehoods and
misstatements published by Clipperton and Funnell, his character has
been much maligned. He, too, probably died in poverty, as he was
already advanced in life on his return from his last voyage; and the
prize money obtained was not distributed until eight or nine years
afterwards.

He bitterly repented of his early life among the buccaneers; even when
with them his conduct was always humane; and he was induced to remain in
their company more for the sake of adventure than for obtaining booty.
He at all events escaped from that hardness of moral feeling which is
too generally the consequence of associating with abandoned companions.

Few voyagers have added so much to our knowledge of distant parts of the
world, and the accuracy of his remarks has been acknowledged by all
those who have visited the countries he describes.

His conduct must not be judged by the opinions of the present day, when
even privateering is looked down upon and condemned by all right
thinking men. Whatever his countrymen may have thought of him, foreign
voyagers speak of him in the highest terms. Humboldt says that no
navigator could be compared to him. Malte-Bran terms him the learned
Dampier, and French and Dutch discoverers style him the incomparable,
the eminent, the skilful, the exact Dampier.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

ANSON'S VOYAGE TO THE