Woodes Rogers ( – 15 July 1732) was an English sea captain, privateer and colonial administrator who served as the governor of the Bahamas from 1718 to 1721 and again from 1728 to 1732. He is remembered as the captain of the vessel that rescued marooned Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk, whose plight is generally believed to have inspired Daniel Defoe's novel Robinson Crusoe. Rogers came from an experienced seafaring family, grew up in Poole and Bristol, and served a marine apprenticeship to a Bristol sea captain. His father, who held shares in many ships, died when Rogers was in his mid-twenties, leaving Rogers in control of the family shipping business.
In 1707, Rogers was approached by Captain William Dampier, who sought support for a privateering voyage against the Spanish, with whom the British were at war. Rogers led the expedition, which consisted of two well-armed ships, Duke and Duchess, and was the captain of Duke. In three years, Rogers and his men went around the world, capturing several ships in the Pacific Ocean.Donald Jones, Captain Woodes Rogers' Voyage Round the World 1708–1711 (Bristol Historical Association pamphlets, no. 79, 1992) En route, the expedition rescued Selkirk, finding him on Juan Fernández Island on 1 February 1709. When the expedition returned to England in October 1711, Rogers had circumnavigated the globe, while retaining his original ships and most of his men, and the investors in the expedition doubled their money.
The expedition made Rogers a national hero, but his brother was killed and Rogers was badly wounded in fights in the Pacific. On his return, he was sued by his crew on the grounds that they had not received their fair share of the expedition profits, and Rogers was forced into bankruptcy. He wrote of his maritime experiences in the book A Cruising Voyage Round the World, which sold well, in part due to public fascination at Selkirk's rescue. Rogers was twice appointed Governor of the Bahamas, where he succeeded in warding off threats from the Spanish, and in ridding the colony of pirates. His first term as governor was financially ruinous, and on his return to England, he was imprisoned for debt. During his second term as governor, Rogers died in Nassau, aged about 53.
Early life Woodes Rogers was the eldest son and heir of Woods Rogers, a successful merchant captain. Woodes Rogers spent part of his childhood in Poole, England, where he likely attended the local school; his father, who owned shares in many ships, was often away nine months of the year with the Newfoundland fishing fleet. Sometime between 1690 and 1696, Captain Rogers moved his family to Bristol. In November 1697, Woodes Rogers was apprenticed to Bristol mariner John Yeamans, to learn the profession of a sailor. At 18, Rogers was somewhat old to be starting a seven-year apprenticeship. His biographer, Brian Little, suggests that this might have been a way for the newcomers to become part of Bristol maritime society, as well as making it possible for Woodes Rogers to become a freeman, or voting citizen, of the city. Little also suggests that it is likely that Rogers gained his maritime experience with Yeamans's ship on the Newfoundland fleet.
Rogers completed his apprenticeship in November 1704. The following January, Rogers married Sarah Whetstone, daughter of Rear Admiral Sir William Whetstone. In 1706, the elder Captain Rogers died at sea, leaving his ships and business to his son Woodes. Between 1706 and the end of 1708, Woodes and Sarah Rogers had a son and two daughters.
Privateering expedition
Preparation and early voyage
The War of the Spanish Succession started in 1702, during which England's main maritime foes were France and Spain, and a number of Bristol ships were given letters of marque, allowing them to strike against enemy shipping. At least four vessels in which Rogers had an ownership interest were granted the letters. One, Whetstone Galley, named for Rogers's father-in-law, received the letters before being sent to Africa to begin a voyage in the Atlantic slave trade (Rogers would continue to engage in slave trading for the rest of his life).: "Rogers was an active slave trader throughout his life." The ship did not reach Africa, but was captured by the French. Rogers suffered other losses against the French, although he does not record their extent in his book. He turned to privateering as a means of recouping these losses.
In late 1707, Rogers was approached by William Dampier, a navigator and friend of Rogers's father, who proposed a privateering expedition against the Spanish. This was a desperate move on the part of Captain Dampier to save his career. Dampier had recently returned from leading a two-ship privateering expedition into the Pacific, which culminated in a series of mutinies before both ships finally sank due to Dampier's error in not having the hulls properly protected against worms before leaving port. Unaware of this, Rogers agreed. Financing was provided by many in the Bristol community, including Thomas Goldney II of the Quaker Goldney family and Thomas Dover, who would become president of the voyage council and Rogers's father in law. Commanding two frigates, Duke and Duchess, and captaining the first, Rogers spent three years circumnavigating the globe. The ships departed Bristol on 1 August 1708. Dampier was aboard as Rogers's sailing master.
Rogers encountered various problems along the way. Forty of the Bristol crew deserted or were dismissed, and he spent a month in Ireland recruiting replacements and having the vessels prepared for sea. Many crew members were Dutch, Danish, or other foreigners. Some of the crew mutinied after Rogers refused to let them plunder a neutral Swedish vessel. When the mutiny was put down, he had the leader flogged, put in irons, and sent to England aboard another ship. The less culpable mutineers were given lighter punishments, such as reduced rations. The ships intended to force the chilly Drake Passage off the tip of South America, but expedition leaders soon realised that they were short of warm clothing and alcohol, which was then believed to warm those exposed to cold. Considering the latter the more important problem, the expedition made a stop at Tenerife to stock up on the local wine, and later sewed the ships' blankets into cold weather gear. The ships experienced a difficult inter-oceanic passage; they were forced to almost 62° South latitude, which, according to Rogers, "for ought we know is the furthest that any one has yet been to the southward". At their furthest south, they were closer to as-yet-undiscovered Antarctica than to South America.
Rescue of Selkirk and raids on the Spanish
Rogers stocked his ships with limes to fend off scurvy, a practice not universally accepted at that time. After the ships reached the Pacific Ocean, their provisions of limes were exhausted and seven men died of the vitamin deficiency disease. Dampier was able to guide the ships to little-known Juan Fernández Island to replenish supplies of fresh produce. On 1 February 1709, as they neared the island, the sailors spotted a fire ashore and feared that it might be a shore party from a Spanish vessel. The next morning Rogers sent a party ashore and discovered that the fire was from Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk, who had been stranded there four years previously. Selkirk was to become an inspiration for the classic novel Robinson Crusoe, written by Rogers's friend, Daniel Defoe. Rogers found Selkirk to be "wild-looking" and "wearing goatskins", noting in his journal, "He had with him his clothes and bedding, with a firelock, some powder, bullets and tobacco, a hatchet, a knife, a kettle, a Bible and books." Selkirk, who had been part of the ship's crew that abandoned Dampier after losing confidence in his leadership, was now more than willing to join a flotilla that included his old commodore as ship's pilot. Selkirk served as a mate aboard the Duke, and was later given command of one of the prize ships taken by the expedition.
After leaving Juan Fernández on 14 February 1709, the expedition captured and looted a number of small vessels, and launched an attack on the town of Guayaquil, today located in Ecuador. When Rogers attempted to negotiate with the governor, the townsfolk secreted their valuables. Rogers was able to get a modest ransom for the town, but some crew members were so dissatisfied that they dug up the recently dead hoping to find items of value. This led to sickness on board ship, of which six men died. The expedition lost contact with one of the captured ships, which was under the command of Simon Hatley. The other vessels searched for Hatley's ship, but to no avail—Hatley and his men were captured by the Spanish. On a subsequent voyage to the Pacific, Hatley would emulate Selkirk by becoming the centre of an event which would be immortalised in literature. His ship beset by storms, Hatley shot an albatross in the hope of better winds, an episode memorialised by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
The crew of the vessels became increasingly discontented, and Rogers and his officers feared another mutiny. This tension was dispelled by the expedition's capture of a rich prize off the coast of Mexico: the Spanish vessel Nuestra Señora de la Encarnación y Desengaño. Rogers sustained a wound to the face in the battle. While Duke and Duchess were successful in capturing that vessel, they failed to capture Encarnación companion, a well-armed galleon, Nuestra Señora de Begoña, which made its escape after damaging both vessels. Rogers only reluctantly agreed to giving the inexperienced Captain Dover command of Encarnación, a decision that may have been eased by naming Selkirk as its sailing master. The privateers, accompanied by their two prizes, limped across the Pacific Ocean. The expedition was able to resupply at Guam, which, though governed by the Spanish, extended a cordial welcome to the privateers.
Homeward voyage The ships then went to the Dutch port of Batavia in what is now Indonesia, where Rogers underwent surgery to remove a musket ball from the roof of his mouth, and the expedition disposed of the less seaworthy of the two Spanish prizes. Dealing with the Dutch there constituted a violation of the British East India Company's monopoly. When the ships finally dropped anchor in the River Thames on 14 October 1711, a legal battle ensued, with the investors paying the East India Company £6,000 (about £ at today's values) as settlement for their claim for breach of monopoly, about four per cent of what Rogers brought back. The investors approximately doubled their money, while Rogers gained £1,600 (now worth perhaps £) from a voyage which disfigured him and cost him his brother, who was killed in a battle in the Pacific. The money was probably less than he could have made at home, and was entirely absorbed by the debts his family had incurred in his absence. The long voyage and the capture of the Spanish ship made Rogers a national hero. Rogers was the first Englishman, in circumnavigating the globe, to have his original ships and most of his crew survive.
After his voyage, he wrote an account of it, titled A Cruising Voyage Round the World. Edward Cooke, an officer aboard Duchess, also wrote a book, A Voyage to the South Sea and Round the World, and beat Rogers to print by several months. Rogers's book was much more successful, with many readers fascinated by the account of Selkirk's rescue, which Cooke had slighted. Among those interested in Selkirk's adventure was Daniel Defoe, who appears to have read about it, and fictionalised the story as Robinson Crusoe.