Selkirk's Island, Diana Souhami [the best books to read TXT] 📗

100, 111; sexual practices, 106–7, 201; injured in fall, 108, 172; makes and keeps fire, 108–9, 117; flees from Spaniards on Island, 116–17, 172; possessions destroyed, 117; signals to rescue ships, 129–31; found and rescued, 132–6; leaves Island, 138; as Master of Increase, 139, 147, 149, 153; in plunder of Guayaquil, 144–5; clears superfluous prisoners from ships, 152; as Master of Batchelor, 158, 166; returns to England, 166; Cooke writes on in Voyage, 170–2; popular interest in, 171; Rogers writes on, 174; Steele writes on, 176–8; claims share of plunder, 178, 180; testifies against Dampier, 181–3; relations with Katherine Mason, 182; on 1712 expedition, 183–4; charged with assaults, 184, 191; drinking, 184, 190–1, 201–2; returns to Largo, 184, 189–90; marriage to Sophia Bruce, 190–3, 201, 207–8; leaves Largo for London, 191–2; first will in favour of Sophia Bruce, 192; naval service, 192–3, 201–3; inspires Robinson Crusoe, 194–6; marriage to Frances Candis (Hall), 202–3, 206–9; second will, 202–3; death and burial at sea, 205; wills contested, 206–10

Selkirk’s Cave (Juan Fernandez), 22n, 216

Selkirk’s Lookout (Juan Fernandez), 23

Serrano, Pedro de, 93

sex: sailors’, 35, 40, 107; Selkirk’s on Island, 106–7, 201

Sharp, Captain Bartholomew, 30n, 39–40

Sheltram, William, 114–15, 183–4

shipboard life, 46–8, 56, 60–3, 65–6, 147–9, 151, 160; see also scurvy

shipworms (Teredo navalis), 83–4 & n, 100–1, 122, 161, 182

Shuter, Christopher, 122

Sidirie, Jaimie, 107n

Skottsberg, Carl, 21n, 219

Sotomayor, Don Alonso de, 43

South Sea Company, 165, 184–6

Spain: monopoly on trade in South Seas, 30–1, 115, 122; war with Britain, 32, 115; closes South Sea ports to foreigners, 46; opposes Scots Darien scheme, 51–2; sailors land on Island, 116; on Guam, 160; threat to Batchelor on return voyage, 163; peace settlements with Britain, (1712), 184; (1748), 214; and Chilean independence, 215

Spectator (journal), 170

Speedwell (privateer), 214

Starkey, David J.: British Privateering Enterprise in the Eighteenth Century, 179n

Steele, Sir Richard: Rogers meets and consults on return, 170, 173–4; physical condition, 173 & n; Selkirk meets, 173–4, 189; debts, 175–6, 194; journalism, 176; writes on Selkirk, 176–8; home life, 177–8

Stradling, Thomas: sails on Cinque Ports, 48; and Dampier’s quarrel with Huxford, 60; takes command of Cinque Ports, 63–4; secretiveness, 65; at Island, 67–8; criticised and mistrusted by crew, 67, 72; in attack on Santa Maria, 77–9; quarrel with and separation from Dampier, 80–2; captures and burns Manta de Cristo, 81–2; returns to Island for repairs, 82; quarrels with and abandons Selkirk on Island, 83–4, 90, 94–5, 129, 134, 136; escapes from sinking Cinque Ports, 101; imprisonment, escape and return to Britain, 101–2, 150n; Selkirk condemns, 182

Stretton, Lieut. William, 127, 146

Swift, Jonathan, 36, 176

Tatler (journal), 176n

tattoos, 36–8

Tenerife, 126

Texel, 164, 166

tortoises, giant, 150–1

Trinity (ship), 39, 41, 51

UNESCO, 220–1

Unicorn (ship), 52–4

Utrecht, Treaty of (1712), 185

Valparaiso, 43, 93, 130, 217–18

Vanbrugh, Carleton: sails on 1708/9 expedition, 123; detained in Tenerife, 126; hostility with Rogers, 127, 162; shoots and kills slave, 128; at rescue of Selkirk, 134; Rogers accuses of cowardice at Guayaquil, 147; burned in attack on Begona, 157; on quarrels among officers, 162; death, 163

Vera Cruz, Mexico, 31

Vos, Admiral Pieter de, 164

Wafer, Lionel, 51–3

Waghenaer, L.J., 30n

Wasse, James, 123, 146, 148; death, 163

Watling, John, 40–1

Welbe, John: on Dampier’s quarrels with Huxford, 59–60; and Dampier’s attack on French merchantman, 71; complains of Dampier and Stradling, 72; on Dampier’s egotism, 77; in fight against Spanish warship, 103; in attack on Rosario, 104–5; deserts Dampier, 112

Weymouth, HMS, 201, 203–8

Whetstone, Admiral William, 122, 173

Will (Miskito Indian), 40–2, 93, 130

Woolf, Virginia, 199

Acknowledgments

ALL THANKS to Peter Campbell for his illumining design, to Rebecca Wilson at Weidenfeld for her publishing skills, and to my agent Georgina Capel for her acumen and watchful eye. Thanks, too, to Pat Chetwyn for copy editing the manuscript, and to Douglas Matthews, who compiled the index.

I am indebted to Peter LeFevre for rescuing me in the archives of the Public Record Office at Kew. He steered me through ships’ logs, muster rolls, depositions, Letters of Marque and worse. And when I struggled with seemingly illegible manuscripts, he deciphered them with ease.

I have pillaged from the faultless scholarship of the maritime historian Glyn Williams, author of The Great South Sea and The Prize of All the Oceans. I am grateful for essential help to librarians at the Wellcome Institute, the Royal Geographical Society, the London Library, the British Library and the Natural History Museum, and to Brian Thynne, Curator of Hydrography at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, for making eighteenth-century charts and sailing directions available to me.

On the island I thank Pedro and Fabiana Niada for guided treks over impossible terrain, and for a memorable millennium-eve party; Manolo Chamorro for renting me a log cabin that looked out over the Pacific Ocean at the point where Selkirk was abandoned and rescued; Jaimie Sidirie who became my protector and translator; the painter Valeria Saltzman for her profound conversations; Ilke Paulentz for taking me on a terrifying journey in a small boat on Christmas Day to The Island’s seal colonies; Ivan Leiva Silva at CONAF for explaining conservation issues to me; Oscar the chivalrous cook on the supply ship Navarino for looking after me on a two-day voyage to remote parts of the archipelago; Diamante at the Café Remo for cooking me so many fishes, and her husband for mixing those amazing pisco sours.

Back home, my deep thanks to Sheila Owen-Jones for rescuing me from the island when I felt powerless to leave, and for encouraging me through dark times as well as good. And once more and of course, for her unstinting kindness, my heartfelt thanks to Naomi Narod, my best friend for is it really thirty-four years.

Footnotes of passing interest are marked with an asterisk and appear on the text pages. References are marked with a dagger and appear as endnotes, beginning on page 223. Most of the engravings are taken from A Voyage Round the World by William Funnell (1707).

About the Author

Diana Souhami is the author of many highly acclaimed books: Selkirk’s Island, winner of the 2001 Whitbread Biography Award; The Trials of Radclyffe Hall, shortlisted for the James Tait