ne speculation. Had these
indulgences been captured by Yankees, they would have contrived to
barter them away at a profit; or had the captors been good Catholics,
they might have ravaged the whole continent with very quiet consciences,
having the Pope's pardon already in their pockets.[B]

It is a curious fact, not, I believe, very extensively understood, that
the great English circumnavigator Dampier was for a considerable period
connected with the buccaneers after the flight of Morgan. Dampier found
himself among them at first by accident, having gone ashore on the
Spanish main in great distress to procure provisions. Falling in with a
party of the marauders, he was induced to join them. He was at the
taking of Porto Bello; and afterward crossed the Isthmus of Darien with
Sawkins, Sharp, and others. Sawkins, the commander, was killed in an
attack on Puebla Nova in 1679. Dampier, in his 'Voyages,' gives an
interesting account of their subsequent course along the coasts, and
among the islands of the Pacific, which was rather disastrous. A mutiny,
however, occurring among those of the buccaneers engaged in the
expedition, Dampier returned across the Isthmus and came to Virginia in
July, 1682, where, after he and his companions had dissipated all their
wealth, they fitted out another piratical expedition for the South seas,
doubling Cape Horn in the spring of 1684. Proceeding northward to
Panama, Dampier's party were joined by large numbers of buccaneers who
had just crossed the Isthmus; and obtaining a number of additional
vessels, they prepared to intercept the Plate fleet on its departure
from Lima for Spain. After a few successes, and several disasters,
Dampier and his companions sailed to the Philippine Islands in 1686; and
subsequently visited most of the islands in the Pacific, sometimes
rioting in luxury, and at others brought to the verge of starvation.
Dampier quitted the buccaneers at the island of Nicoba, in the spring of
1688. Subsequently, however, he again joined them, as the commander of a
fine vessel; but the treachery of his officers and crew defeated the
objects of the cruise. Returning from this bootless voyage, he was
presented to Queen Anne, and well received. He subsequently made a
fourth voyage to the Pacific, during which he discovered and took from
the island of Juan Fernandez the celebrated Alexander Selkirk, the hero
of De Foe's Robinson Crusoe--a story ever delightful and ever new to
readers o