William Cecil Dampier (1652?-1715) was an English buccaneer, and the first Englishman to visit Australia.Differently from other pirates, Dampier's main reason for joining the profession was not a desire to get wealth, but simple curiosity. He already had joined in several buccaneering expeditions, when in 1686 he crossed the Pacific under captain Charles Swain on the Cygnet, after a period of roaming the South American west coast with little success. They reached Guam, then stayed for six months on Mindanao, in the Philippines. There the captain and several men were left behind in a mutiny. Dampier and the rest of the pirates sailed south to New Holland, as Australia was known at the time. They sighted land on 3 January 1688, and remained there for a few weeks. After he had returned to England in 1691, Dampier started writing about his adventures in ten years of piratehood, In 1697 his book A New Voyage Round the World appeared, and it became an immediate success, and especially New Holland drew the interest of the English.
In 1698, Dampier was sent out to lead an expedition to New Holland and Terra Australis (the supposed continent in the south), organized by the British Admiralty. Unfortunately for him, he got only a single, barely seaworthy ship, and a crew of which some men were wholly incompetent, and others unwilling to serve under a former pirate. Dampier sailed to Australia and followed the northwest coast, studying the country, then went north to New Guinea because scurvy threatened to break out. He visited New Britain and discovered Dampier Strait between New Britain and New Ireland. Travelling back to England, his ship finally sunk on Ascension. One month later, he was picked up by another British ship, and was back in England in August 1701.
Back in England, he found himself court-martialed, based on testimony from George Fisher, a member of his crew who he had ordered imprisoned in Brasil during the outward voyage. He was found guilty, did not receive his pay for the voyage and was forbidden to serve for the Navy again. Dampier wrote another book, Voyage to New Holland, went back to privateering and later retired.
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