Finding, however, all his efforts vain, he and Captain Schouten, with some of their people, embarked on board the _Amsterdam_ on the 14th of December, 1616, and others on board the _Zealand_, while the rest entered the service of the company. On the 31st of the same month poor Jacques Le Maire died, chiefly of grief and vexation at the failure of the enterprise, which had been so successful until the arrest of the ship and cargo. He had kept a journal with great care during the voyage, and he left an earnest request that it should be published, that the world might know and judge of the usage he and his companions had received. The voyagers arrived on the 1st of July, 1617, in Holland, from which they had been absent, during their circumnavigation of the globe, two years and seventeen days. CHAPTER TWENTY ONE. VOYAGES AND ADVENTURES OF WILLIAM DAMPIER--FROM A.D. 1674. His parentage--Early voyages--Sails for Jamaica as a planter--Visits Bay of Campeachy--Turns logwood-cutter--His adventures--Joins the buccaneers--Succeeds--Returns to England--Marries--Again goes to Jamaica--Captured by buccaneers, and takes part in several expeditions in the South Sea--Recrosses the Isthmus of Darien, and reaches the Samballas Islands--Joins Captain Tristan--The prizes sold to the Dutch-- Goes to Virginia--Joins the _Revenge_--Captain Cook sails for the South Seas--Puts into the Sherbro' River--Cook treacherously captures a Dane-- The name of the _Bachelor's Delight_ given to her--Cape Horn doubled-- Steers for Juan Fernandez--Falls in with the _Nicholas_--Meeting of the Mosquito Indians, Will and Robin, at Juan Fernandez--Several vessels captured on the coast--A design on Truxillo abandoned--Death of Cook-- Buried on shore--Narrow escape of the party on shore--Davis elected captain--Transactions at Amapalla--Eaton and Davis separate--Davis joined by other pirates--Paita attacked and burnt--Attempt on Guayaquil abandoned--A packet-boat captured--Hear of the sailing of the Plata fleet--Lay in wait for it off New Panama--Attempts of the Spaniards with a fire-ship--Large parties of pirates unite--Plan to attack Panama-- Encounters a Spanish fleet--Stratagem of the Spaniards to place the pirates in a disadvantageous position--The Spanish fleet escapes--Lexa and Leon plundered--Swan proposes to cross the Pacific--Santa Pecaque plundered--A large body of the rovers massacred--The prisoners set on shore on a desert island--The _Cygnet_ prepared for crossing the Pacific--Dampier cured of a dropsy. Few British seamen have seen so much of the world, or have gone through more remarkable adventures, with the power of describing them, than William Dampier. He was born in 1652, near Yeovil, in Somersetshire, on the farm of his father, a well-to-do yeoman, who sent him at an early age to a good school, where he acquired some classical knowledge. He was afterwards removed to another, where he learned writing and arithmetic.