On his return to England he was charged by his officers and men with cruelty, and was found guilty of this charge by a court of enquiry, who decided he was not a fit person to command a king's ship, and fined him all his pay. There must have been some truth in these charges, and friction between him and his men was probably the reason why Dampier ceased his explorations after rounding New Britain. But he soon afterwards obtained the command of a ship belonging to a company of merchants, and in this he made his way back to the Pacific Ocean round Cape Horn. This ship was little else than a pirate vessel, which, under the guise of privateering in the French wars, was sent out to prey on foreign commerce off the west coast of South America. They met with varying fortunes after calling at the island of Juan Fernandez, and Dampier quarrelled with his officers and men, some of whom deserted him. Dampier eventually made his way back across the Pacific Ocean to the Dutch East Indies, where he was imprisoned for some months. But in 1707 he got back to England and attempted to vindicate himself from the further charges brought against him by members of his crew, who had reached England after deserting him. In 1708 he obtained a position as pilot on another privateer, and this voyage stands out in history from the interesting fact that the captain under whom he sailed (Woodes-Rogers) called at the island of Juan Fernandez, and there took away the celebrated Alexander Selkirk, who had been landed on that island more than four years previously, and had lived there, like Robinson Crusoe, in solitude. [Illustration: DAMPIER AND HIS CREW WATCHING A VOLCANIC ERUPTION] The two privateers, on one of which Dampier made this voyage, were very successful in preying on Spanish shipping and plundering the rich towns on the west coast of South America, so that when Dampier returned to England, in 1711, he probably obtained, as an advance of his share in the profits, enough money on which to subsist for the remainder of his life, which terminated in London in 1715. For the age in which he lived he was--as his most recent biographer (Mr. John Masefield) points out--a very remarkable man. Although his life was spent amongst pirates, semi-savage mahogany cutters, drunken and ignorant sailors, he was temperate and refined, with a passionate love of the wild nature around him, never failing to observe the flowers, the fish, the birds, or the beasts of the strange countries he visited. His descriptions of native manners and customs are remarkably accurate, and he has been the first to record the existence of many a strange beast and bird, such as the Mountain Tapir of Tropical America (which he thought was a kind of hippopotamus) and the Victoria Crowned Pigeon of New Guinea. CHAPTER VI James Cook's First Voyage