in nearer the shore, tho' we did but little good.” The men with their clothes and bedding were sent ashore on rafts; the sails were unbent and converted into tents for the use of Dampier and his officers; fresh water and rice had been landed for the use of all, “but,” writes the unfortunate commander, “great part of it was stolen away before I came ashore, and many of my books and papers lost.” Luckily there was no lack of turtle, but those who have visited Ascension will understand the distresses of a numerous crew cast away upon an uninhabited island of cinders and volcanic cones, with one green hill only far away in the middle of the calcined heap for the eye to find refreshment in. They were fortunate enough to discover a spring of fresh water; the men carried their beds into the hollows of the rocks, and perhaps thought themselves better off than in the wet, dark, half-drowned, cockroach-laden forecastle of the _Roebuck_. Moreover, in addition to turtle there were crabs, goats'-flesh, and sea-birds for food; and as the air of Ascension is about the sweetest and most wholesome in the world, the castaways kept their health and spirits, and managed on the whole very well indeed. Their imprisonment did not last long. On April 3rd four vessels hove in sight, and in the course of the day anchored off the island. Three of them proved English men-of-war—the _Anglesea_, _Hastings_, and _Lizard_; the fourth was an East Indiaman named the _Canterbury_. Dampier went on board the _Anglesea_ with thirty-five of his crew, and the remainder were divided between the other men-of-war. The ships proceeded to Barbadoes, but Dampier, with a keen sense of his misfortunes, and anxious to justify himself to his patrons, accepted an offer to return to England in the _Canterbury_. “The same earnest desire,” he says, “to clear up Mistakes, to do myself Justice in the opinion of the World, and to set the Discoveries made in this unfortunate voyage in their proper Light, that it may be of use to the World, how unlucky soever it proved to me, is the reason that induced me to publish it; And I persuade myself that such as are proper Judges of these sort of Performances will allow that I have Delivered many things new in themselves, capable of affording much Instruction to such as meditate future Discoveries, and which in other respects may be of great utility to the present age and to posterity.” CHAPTER V 1702—1706-7 THE VOYAGE OF THE “ST. GEORGE”