Dampier was for ever making plans which held out the prospect of wealth, but had not the courage to follow them up. Alarmed at the sight of two French ships as they returned to Juan Fernandez, he sheered off, leaving a quantity of stores, and six men who had secreted themselves on the island. When at length they were in great straits for food, they captured a large Spanish ship laden with provisions; over this capture there was a final rupture between Dampier and Stradling, and they parted for good. They took two or three small vessels also, of no value, which only facilitated the defection of Dampier's followers. One of them Stradling had appropriated; in the other two, first John Clipperton, Dampier's mate, and then William Funnell, his steward, decamped, each with a party of men. The _St. George_ was too rotten to venture in any longer, and eventually, after plundering a small Spanish town, Dampier seized a brigantine, and sailed for the East Indies, only to be taken and imprisoned in a Dutch factory for some months. At last he arrived in England, towards the end of 1707, to find that William Funnell--who represented himself as Dampier's mate--had published an account of the cruise, in which Dampier was belittled and held up to ridicule. Dampier immediately set to work and wrote a vindication of his conduct during the cruise--an angry and incoherent tirade, which probably convinced no one, and was answered shortly afterwards by one George Welbe, one of his former officers, in a pamphlet which was also a wordy and violent assault; but the impression finally left upon the mind of the reader is that Dampier was a very fine navigator and amateur scientist, but a very bad commander. We shall hear of him again very shortly, in a more subordinate capacity. In connection with this luckless cruise, there is one incident of considerable interest, which should not be overlooked. The _Cinque Ports_ carried as sailing master one Alexander Selkirk, of Scotch extraction. Obviously, he must have been a seaman of considerable experience and capacity, to have been selected for this post; and presumably he would have knowledge of the navigation of the South Seas. He had, in fact, quitted his home in Scotland at the age of eighteen, and been absent for six years, during part of which time he is believed to have been with the buccaneers. When Captain Pickering died Selkirk viewed with great dissatisfaction the prospect of sailing under his successor, Stradling, whom he hated; and on the return of the _Cinque Ports_ to Juan Fernandez, after parting from Dampier, he took occasion of a violent quarrel with Stradling to carry out a mad project which he had formed some time previously--to desert the vessel and fend for himself on this or some other island. Stradling took him at his word, and, when on the point of sailing, conveyed Selkirk, with all his traps, on shore and "dumped" him on the beach.