ROBINSON CRUSOE and CINQUE PORTS 1703

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aukepalmhof
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ROBINSON CRUSOE and CINQUE PORTS 1703

Post by aukepalmhof » Sat Mar 27, 2021 9:41 am

1984 Jersey issued a series of stamps to honour Jersey born painter J.A. Gilfillan https://nzhistory.govt.nz/media/photo/j ... -gilfillan One of these stamps shows Robinson Crusoe leaving the ship CINQUE PORTS, to settle down as a castaway on the island Juan Fernandez Archipelago. I don’t think that the artist ever had been on the island, and the vessel was not wrecked there.
Tons burthen:130 bm, length 52m x beam 10m :
Propulsion: Sail
Complement: 63
Armament: 16 guns

CINQUE PORTS was an English ship whose sailing master was Alexander Selkirk, generally accepted as a model for the fictional Robinson Crusoe. The ship was part of a 1703 expedition commanded by William Dampier, who captained an accompanying ship, the 26-gun ST GEORGE with a complement of 120 men.

Cinque Ports is also the name for a group of five English port towns, the namesake of this ship.
When the war of the Spanish Succession broke out in 1701, English privateers were recruited to act against French and Spanish interests. Despite the court-martial for cruelty to one of his crew in an earlier voyage, Dampier was given command of the two-ship expedition, which left England on 30 April 1703 from the port of Kinsale in Ireland.

Fateful voyage.
William Dampier's original companions dropped out of the scheme and a new agreement was made with captain Charles Pickering of the CINQUE PORTS. The CINQUE PORTS were equipped with 16 guns and a crew of 63. The two ships left Kinsale on 11 September 1703 with the purpose of attacking Spanish Galleons returning from Buenos Aires. When this plan failed, the owners decided to make the southern sea route of Cape Horn. While the ships were off the coast of Brazil an outbreak of scurvy on board CINQUE PORTS led to the death of a certain number of men, including the captain, who was replaced by 21-year-old Lieutenant Thomas Stradling.

After rounding Cape Horn and take a course along the coast of South America to Panama, capturing several Spanish ships, by the way, the two captains decided to separate. Captain Stradling stopped at one of the Islands of the archipelago Juan Fernandez off the Chilean coast in September 1704 to resupply. There was a dispute between Stradling and Alexander Selkirk on the seaworthiness of the CINQUE PORTS, Selkirk rapidly decided to go ashore on a desert island.
Selkirk was left on Juan Fernandez in complete solitude for four years and four months before being rescued by Woodes Rogers in 1709. His experience was one of the probable sources of inspiration for the character Robinson Crusoe in the novel of Daniel Defoe. Selkirks suspicions were soon justified, as the CINQUE PORTS sank near the island Malpelo 400 kilometres 250 miles from the coast of what is now Colombia, Stradling, and the surviving members of his crew were captured by the Spaniards.

Aftermath.
An eyewitness account of the last voyage of CINQUE PORTS was published by William Funnell, an officer on board ST GEORGE, who went on to circumnavigate the globe after abandoning Dampier in January 1705. The owners of CINQUE PORTS subsequently took legal action against Dampier over the loss of their ship. According to a deposition given by Selkirk on 18 July 1712, Dampier's failure to advise the owners to have CINQUE PORT and ST GEORGE covered in protective wood sheathing had resulted in "the loss of both ships, for they perished by being worm-eaten." Other witnesses supported this allegation. The ship owners would be disappointed, however, as Dampier died in 1715, leaving nothing but debts.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/ ... -74877644/

https://amp.en.google-info.org/2309629/ ... -ship.html Wikipedia and internet.
Jersey 1984 9p sg344, Scott?
Attachments
robinson crusoe by John Alexander gilfillan.jpg
1984 Robinson-Crusoe-Leaves-the-Wreck.jpg

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