In describing his adventures and emotions, Selkirk attributed his eventual contentment in his solitude to his religious training. He appears to have possessed in full measure the deep, emotional religious temperament of the Scots, and this in all probability saved his reason, and certainly deterred him from suicide, which at one time presented itself as the only possible release from acute mental suffering. He used to recite his prayers and sing familiar hymns aloud, and it is easy to understand what an immense solace such exercises were to him. Learning from Dover and his companions that William Dampier was with the expedition, Selkirk demurred at once to going on board. Not that he had any personal quarrel with Dampier, but he had a most vivid recollection of the hopeless mismanagement of that cruise under his command; of the futile delays, half-fought actions, hastily abandoned plans which promised some measure of success; and he declined to enlist again under such an incompetent chief. This extreme reluctance on Selkirk's part to sail again under the famous navigator constitutes a very strong indictment against Dampier as commander of a privateer; nothing, indeed, could well be stronger. When a man says practically, "I prefer to remain alone on an island to sailing under him," there appears to be little more to be said. Understanding, however, that Dampier occupied a subordinate position as pilot, he was ready enough to accompany his rescuers; and so presented himself to the "admiring" gaze--using the term as it was frequently used in those days--of the crew of the _Duke_. Whatever Selkirk may have thought of Dampier, the latter, recognising him as the former sailing-master of the _Cinque Ports_, gave him the highest character, declaring that he was the best man on board Stradling's ship; upon which Rogers at once engaged him as a mate on the _Duke_, in which capacity he was, we are told, greatly respected, "as well on account of his singular adventure as of his skill and good conduct; for, having had his books with him, he had improved himself much in navigation during his solitude." Such application appears, under the circumstances, almost heroic; there are probably few men so situated who would have had recourse to it. It was long before Selkirk began to throw off the reserve which was the natural outcome of his solitude, and it is said that the expression of his face was fixed and sedate even after his return to England; nothing, indeed, could ever efface the recollection of those years of absolute loneliness, the grim lessons of self-restraint, endurance, and resignation, so hardly learned.