William Dampier Circumnavigation William Dampier was a naval
officer as well as being a buccaneer and a scientific observer
who wrote for his audience. Dampier's book which was published
in 1697 was the first world-wide travelogue in English. William
Dampier was the first man to sail around the world three times.
In the summer of 1863 Dampier was in Virginia and signed on with
a Captain Cook who was going privateering to the South Seas.
Their first stop was the Cape Verde Islands where the ship was
careened for a good scraping. Dampier kept a record of
everything he saw and his journal was intended as an
entertainment for his shipmates as well as those who loved to
hear stories of far off lands. The pirates captured a 36 gun
Danish ship and put to sea again in early 1684 but straight away
were stuck in the Doldrums. They finally shook them off and
sailed for Magellan Straits. When they got there the westerlies
did not allow them to enter the Straits and they had to go down
to sixty degrees south and tack nort