observations. He was now going abroad again by the King's
encouragement, who furnished a ship of 290 tons. He seemed a more
modest man than one would imagine by the relation of the crew he
had consorted with. He brought a map of his observations of the
course of the winds of the South Sea, and assured us that the maps
hitherto extant were all false as to the Pacific Sea, which he
makes on the south of the line, that on the north and running by
the coast of Peru being I exceedingly tempestuous."

Thus wrote John Evelyn on August 6th, 1698.

Of the adventurous career of Dampier prior to this date too much fiction
and quite enough history has already been written; but we cannot omit a
short account of the buccaneer's life up to the time of his receiving King
William's commission.

Dampier was born in 1652 at East Coker, [Sidenote: 1673-1698]
Somersetshire. Of his parents he tells us that "they did not originally
design me for the sea, but bred me at school till I came of years fit for
a trade. But upon the death of my mother they who had the disposal of me
took other measures, and, having removed me from the Latin school to learn
writing and arithmetic, they soon placed me with a master of a ship at
Weymouth, complying with the inclinations I had very early of seeing the
world."

Dampier made several voyages in merchantmen; then he shipped as able
seaman on the _Royal Prince_, Captain Sir Edward Spragge, and served under
him till the death of that commander at the end of the Dutch war in 1673.
Soon after he made a voyage to the West Indies; then began an adventurous
life--ashore cutting logwood in the Bay of Campeachy when not fighting;