Memo+30+Describing+Events+To+Make+an+Analytic+Point

Description of an Event: William Dampier's journal publication and subsequent appointment to the //Roebuck//

In 1691 William Dampier returned to England, where he set about publishing the journals that he had kept over the course of his voyages. These journals, titled the New Voyage Round the World, discussed Dampier's years as a buccaneer and first trip and discoviers in what we now know as Australias and were a major catalyst for Dampier's sanctioned career as a naturalist and explorer. Upon publication in 1697, the journal became a popular sensation, sparking the interest of the British Admiralty. In1699 Dampier was given the command of British ship Roebuck with a commission to explore the East coast of New Holland, or what is now known as Australia. Upon landing, he began producing the first known detailed record of Australian flora and fauna, and continued to record and collect specimens all along the coast. During this trip Dampier charted the Australian coast, the southeastern coasts of New Hanover, New Ireland and New Britain, and the Dampier Strait between those islands (now the Bismarck Islands) and New Guinea. His documentation of natural history helped Charles Darwin's and Alexander von Humboldt's development of their theories; he made innovations in navigation technology that were studied by James Cook and Horatio Nelson; his charts were used by the Royal Navy until the 1940s; and his notes on the fauna and flora of northwestern Australia were studied by naturalist and scientist Joseph Banks, who continued these studies with Captain Cook's first voyage. This study contributed to the naming of and colonization of Botany Bay and the colonization of modern Australia. Following the //Roebuck's// return to England, however, Dampier was court martialed for cruelty. Loosing his commission from the Royal Navy, Dampier was once again no longer a privateer, and simply a pirate.