1709 - Commerce

Commerce

English privateer Woodes Rogers, 29, embarks aboard the ship Duke on an expedition against foreign privateers in the South Pacific. A onetime poacher who turned gamekeeper before going to sea, Rogers has been engaged by some Bristol merchants to attack the pirates who have been looting their vessels. He reaches the Juan Fernández Islands in the South Pacific, where Thomas Dover, 49, his second captain, picks up sailor Alexander Selkirk February 1. Having lived alone for 4 years and 4 months, Selkirk is dressed in goatskins and has a waist-long beard (see 1704); he helps Rogers make a raid on the Spanish town of Guayaquil, Ecuador, and capture the Manila-bound galleon Lisbon loaded with gold and jewels (the Spaniards strike their colors after a 1½-hour battle December 21; William Dampier, now 57, serves as pilot for the expedition and participates in the capture). Rogers is shot in the face and his jaw is shattered, but he puts Selkirk in charge of the vessel and proceeds on the voyage of privateering that will take him around the world (see 1711).