“And there is little wonder that they thought him insane. Imagine a lone ship—and a half-burned, far from seaworthy galleon at that—going pirating in the Pacific where every town, every man, every ship was an enemy; where there was not a friendly harbor in which to lie; where Spanish warships were numerous; where there was no buccaneers’ lair in which to refit or provision and secure men, and where the buccaneers were completely cut off, separated by thousands of miles, from their own countrymen. And then, even if the ship and its crew survived, think of the thousands of perils to be faced at every turn in attempting to navigate the almost unknown Antarctic seas and to round South America and sail for thousands of miles across the Atlantic to the West Indies. It was a scheme so wild, so dangerous and so unheard of that nearly one-third of the men refused to stand by Sharp, and nearly seventy men declared their intention of braving the perils and hardships of a return march through the jungles of Darien rather than attempt the voyage. Among these deserters was Dampier; Wafer, the surgeon; Jobson of the Greek Testament, and others. Ringrose himself freely admits in his ‘log’ that he was minded to accompany them and would have done so had he not been more afraid of the jungle and the Indians than of the proposed voyage. It is fortunate for us that he stuck to the ship, for otherwise we would have no record of that marvelous cruise. “And the deserters had anything but an easy time of it, and often, ere they reached the Caribbean and their own ships, they heartily wished that they had remained with Captain Sharp.