on the way to call at Batavia to careen and doctor his crazy ship for the long voyage to England. When clear of the straits a vessel hove in sight at dusk, and as her manœuvrings were puzzling they loaded their guns, lighted the matches, and made ready to fight her. She sheered off, but was in sight at daybreak, and then proved to be nothing more dangerous than a Chinese junk laden with tea, porcelain, and other commodities, and bound for Amboyna. The _Roebuck's_ progress was very slow; she was coated with weeds and barnacles, and in a sea-way her timbers worked like a basket. It was not until June 23rd that they arrived at the Straits of Sunda, and at the close of the month they dropped anchor off Batavia. Here Dampier stayed for three months whilst his ship was careened and repaired. Her condition was such that one can only wonder that he and his crew ventured to sail home in her. We might scarcely credit that Dampier's patrons honestly felt much faith in his representations, and in the hopes he held out of vast and important discoveries, when we find them putting him and his crew of boys into a ship which time had made rotten probably some years before she was equipped for this voyage, if it were not that the later experiences of Anson exhibit the same profound departmental indifference and neglect on an occasion which we may assume was regarded as far more significant than Dampier's expedition. Of all the wonderful accomplishments of the English sailor, nothing to my mind is so amazing as the triumphs with which he crowns the cause of his country in defiance of the miserable indifference of the British Admiralty to him and to his labours. The best that Dampier could do with his ship was so to patch her up as to enable her to carry her people home with the pumps going day and night. They sailed from Batavia on October 17th, arrived at the Cape of Good Hope on December 30th, and brought up at the island of Ascension in a sinking condition on February 21st, 1701. Even whilst Ascension was in sight the _Roebuck_ had sprung a fresh leak, and when she anchored both hand and chain pumps were going. There was still a long stretch of ocean for them to traverse, and a ship like a sieve to measure it with. The tinkering of the carpenters apparently increased the mischief, and whilst Dampier was waiting below to receive the news of the leak being stopped, the boatswain arrived with a long face to tell him that the vessel was sinking. “The plank was so rotten,” says Dampier, “it broke away like Dirt, and now it was impossible to save the Ship; for they could not come at the Leak because the water in the run was got above it. I worked myself to encourage my Men, who were very diligent, but the Water still increased, and we now thought of nothing but saving our lives: Wherefore I hoisted out the boat that if the Ship should sink we might be saved; and in the Morning we weighed our anchor and Warped