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Piracy and the Production of Knowledge in the Travels of William Dampier, C.1679-1688

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Piracy and the Production of Knowledge in the Travels of William Dampier, C.1679-1688 Journal of Historical Geography 37 (2011) 40e54 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Historical Geography journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jhg Piracy and the production of knowledge in the travels of William Dampier, c.1679e1688 William Hasty Department of Geographical and Earth Sciences, East Quadrangle, University Avenue, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK Abstract Despite its centrality to the production of knowledge in the early modern period, the ship remains a rather marginal site in the work of historians of science. Accounts of ‘floating universities’ and ‘laboratories at sea’ abound, but little is said of the countless other ships, and their crews, involved in the production of knowledge through maritime exploration and travel. The central concern of the paper is the life and work of William Dampier (1651e1715), a seventeenth-century mariner who sailed as a pirate and authored genre-defining and well received scientific travel narratives. The thesis presented here is that the ‘way of life’ encouraged among the crews of the pirate ships aboard which Dampier travelled rendered him well-placed to gather the ‘useful’ knowledge and experiences which made his scientific name. Understanding this juxtaposition requires a focus which moves beyond the materiality of the ship, and which ultimately brings into view some of the social and epistemic geographies which took shape in and beyond the ship. Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: William Dampier; Piracy; Ship; Mobilities; History of science; Seventeenth century I dined with Mr. Pepys, where was Captain Dampier, who had months earlier.2 As the proposer of useful knowledge and a former been a famous buccaneer had brought hither the painted sea-bandit, Dampier was something of a paradox even to his Prince Job, and printed a relation of his very strange adven- contemporaries, or as Evelyn puts it, ‘a more modest [in the sense of ture, and his observations. He was now going abroad again by respectable] man than one would imagine by the relation of the crew the King’s encouragement, who furnished a ship of 290 tons. he had assorted with.’ In this moment Dampier’sstockwasashighas He seemed a more modest man than one would imagine by it would ever be, with a Royal commission in the offing, a widely read the relation of the crew he had assorted with. He brought book in print, and, only shortly after his dinner with Pepys, a sitting a map of his observations of the course of the winds in the with Thomas Murray, portraitist to royalty, at the expense of Sir Hans South Seas, and assured us that the maps hitherto extant Sloane (1660e1753) (see Fig. 1). Circulating among the chattering were all false as to the Pacific Sea, which he makes on the classes of London, Dampier the natural philosopher and author was, south of the line, that on the north end running by the coast for the moment, seemingly a long way from Dampier the ‘buccaneer’, of Peru being extremely tempestuous.1 the violent raider of coastal towns and taker of ships. In Evelyn’s remarks we can read this uncertain subject, a man who is the trusted With these words, marking the events of August 6th 1697 in his diary, observer of patterns of winds and currents and at the same time John Evelyn (1620e1706) records a significant moment in the life of marked by the fact that such respectability should come as a surprise William Dampier (1651e1715), when the formerly ‘famous bucca- given his past, given his somewhat regrettable associations. neer’ regaled the guests at Samuel Pepys’ dinner table with ‘his very Drawn to this intriguing mix of intellectual endeavour and strange adventure, and his observations’, the substance of which had piratical adventure, a rich literature has developed around Dampier: appeared in print as ANewVoyageRoundtheWorldsome seven biographies abound, and historians and literary scholars have found E-mail address: [email protected] 1 A. Dobson (Ed.), The Diary of John Evelyn, London, 1908, 445. 2 W. Dampier, A New Voyage Round the World, London, 1697. 0305-7488/$ e see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jhg.2010.08.017 W. Hasty / Journal of Historical Geography 37 (2011) 40e54 41 Fig. 1. ‘William Dampier’ by Thomas Murray, oil on canvas, circa 1697e1698. Ó National Portrait Gallery, London. in him much purchase for their work on piracy, exploration, travel his Englishness, to make the transition from stateless outlaw to narrative and natural history, among other things.3 On the scope of settled citizen. The publication, Neill suggests, should be read as this literature little can be said here. Neill’s recent study of Dampier a ‘narrative of reformation’ in which a ‘pirate savage’ becomes a ‘man and his work within the broader context of the rise of global of science’.5 The Dampier with whom readers of New Voyage became commerce and the role of travel literature therein, however, acquainted, the man of virtue in spite of his associations with vice, is deserves particular attention.4 Neill’s thesis, put simply, is that the a construction, and it is possible, Neill argues, to witness the crafting of New Voyage marks an attempt by Dampier to (re)establish unfolding of this construction and gaze upon another Dampier, to be 3 The most comprehensive biographical studies of Dampier are A. Gill, The Devil’s Mariner: William Dampier, Pirate and Explorer, London, 1997 and D. Preston and M. Preston, A Pirate of Exquisite Mind: The Life of William Dampier, Explorer, Naturalist and Buccaneer, London, 2004. Historians and literary scholars interested in piracy or seafaring during the seventeenth and eighteenth century often draw on Dampier, but studies wherein his life and work are central include: J.H. Bennett, William Dampier: buccaneer and planter, History Today 14 (1964) 469e477; P. Edwards, The Story of the Voyage: Sea-Narratives in Eighteenth-Century England, Cambridge, 1994; J.H. Baer, William Dampier at the crossroads: new light on the ‘missing years’, 1691e1697, International Journal of Maritime History 8 (1996) 97e117; A. Neill, British Discovery Literature and the Rise of Global Commerce, London, 2002; G. Barnes and A. Mitchell, Measuring the marvellous: science and the exotic in William Dampier, Eighteenth Century Life 26 (2002) 45e57; J.H. Baer, Pirates of the British Isles, Gloucestershire, 2005; A. Mitchell, William Dampier’s unaccepted life, in: R. Bedford, Lloyd Davis, Philippa Kelly (Eds), Early Modern Autobiography: Theories, Genres, Practices, Ann Arbor, 2006; G. Barnes, Curiosity, wonder, and William Dampier’s painted prince, The Journal of Early Modern Cultural Studies 6 (2006) 31e50. 4 Neill, British Discovery Literature (note 3). 5 Neill, British Discovery Literature (note 3), 183. 42 W. Hasty / Journal of Historical Geography 37 (2011) 40e54 found in an earlier draft of his journal (see Fig. 2).6 In the process of history of science.12 The notable exception to this trend is Sorren- writing up his journal for publication, piratical acts made way for son’s insightful exposition of the ‘ship as a scientific instrument’ in natural philosophy, New Voyage became a narrative of scientific the eighteenth century.13 Though useful in many ways, Sorrenson’s discovery as well as adventure, with the former taking centre stage singular focus on ships fitted-out out for scientific expedition, so- and the latter becoming auxiliary, retained but without the emphasis called ‘floating universities’ like Nicolas Baudin’s Geographe and apparent, Neill argues, in the manuscript. Naturaliste (1800) or James Cook’s Endeavour (1768e1771), neglects The thesis presented here seeks not to contend Neill’s analysis of the vast range of other ships and other sailors involved in the Dampier’s designs on Englishness as such, but to offer a different production of knowledge.14 Considering the role of the pirate ship reading of the situation which adds another layer to the narrative. in the production of Dampier’s knowledge begins to address this This layer is spatially figured, involving an attention to the geog- lacuna.15 Through an attention to Dampier’s own writings as well as raphies obfuscated in the creation of New Voyage, to the places of contemporary documents written by, for, and about his fellow his scientific practice. For while it holds that Dampier’s obfuscation seafarers, it will be argued that his scientific knowledge was inev- of his piratical past represents an attempt to re-establish his citi- itably and irrevocably bound in various ways to the ship-centred zenship, it is also true that it functioned as a means of establishing geography of its production. Rather than focusing on the ship as scientific credibility, trustworthiness and authority. This was an material instrument as such (though this function could never be increasingly essential undertaking when formally presenting ignored), the thesis advanced in this paper foregrounds two distinct scientific knowledge towards the end of the seventeenth century, but ultimately inseparable contentions regarding what could be since, Shapin argues, being thought of as reliable was to demon- conceived of as the more subtle geographies of the pirate ship. The strate that you were ‘doing the proper thing in the proper setting’.7 first is that Dampier’s piratical existence endowed him with Among the members of the ‘Republic of Letters’, Goldgar confirms, a certain geographic privilege, an almost unrivalled mobility across ‘behaviour preceded and underlay all their other activities.’8 While space, facilitating experience and encounter, the ‘bread and butter’ Dampier was certainly doing many of the proper things for a field- of the seventeenth-century field-scientist. The second contention scientist of the age, his claims to have been doing these things in centres on temporal liberty, a feature of many maritime employ- the proper settings were less secure, ultimately lacking what Sha- ments e but acutely so among pirates e which enabled Dampier’s pin has termed ‘epistemological decorum’.9 Given the extent of his characteristic intrepid, observational practice.
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