1.
Howard Pyle
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Howard Pyle was an American illustrator and author, primarily of books for young people. He was a native of Wilmington, Delaware, but he spent the last year of his life in Florence, in 1894, he began teaching illustration at the Drexel Institute of Art, Science, and Industry. After 1900, he founded his own school of art and illustration named the Howard Pyle School of Illustration Art, pitz later used the term Brandywine School for the illustration artists and Wyeth family artists of the Brandywine region, several of whom had studied with Pyle. Some of his notable students were N. C. Pyle taught his students at home and studio in Wilmington, which is standing and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. His 1883 classic publication The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood remains in print and he is also well known for his illustrations of pirates, and is credited with creating what has become the modern stereotype of pirate dress. He published his first novel Otto of the Silver Hand in 1888 and he also illustrated historical and adventure stories for periodicals such as Harpers Magazine and St. Nicholas Magazine. His novel Men of Iron was adapted as the movie The Black Shield of Falworth, Pyle travelled to Florence, Italy in 1910 to study mural painting. He died there in 1911 of a kidney infection. Pyle was the son of William Pyle and Margaret Churchman Painter, as a child, he attended private schools and was interested in drawing and writing from a very young age. He was an indifferent student, but his parents encouraged him to study art, in 1876, he visited the island of Chincoteague off Virginia and was inspired by what he saw. He wrote and illustrated an article about the island and submitted it to Scribners Monthly, one of the magazines owners was Roswell Smith, who encouraged him to move to New York and pursue illustration professionally. Pyle initially struggled in New York, his lack of experience made it difficult for him to translate his ideas into forms for publication. He was encouraged by several working artists, however, including Edwin Austin Abbey and he finally published a double-paged spread in the Harpers Weekly issue of March 9,1878 and was paid $75—five times what he had expected. He became increasingly successful and was an established artist by the time that he returned to Wilmington in 1880 and he also collaborated on several books, particularly in American history. He wrote and illustrated his own stories, beginning with The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood in 1883 and this book won international attention from critics such as William Morris. Over the following decades, he published many illustrated works for children. Pyle married singer Anne Poole on April 12,1881, in 1889, he and his wife sailed to Jamaica, leaving their children in the care of relatives
2.
Desert island
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A desert island, deserted island or uninhabited island is an island that is not permanently populated by humans. Uninhabited islands are used in movies or stories about shipwrecked people. Some uninhabited islands are protected as reserves and some are privately owned. Devon Island in Canada is claimed to be the largest uninhabited island in the world, small coral atolls or islands usually have no source of fresh water, but at times a fresh water lens can be reached with a well. Uninhabited islands are also called deserted islands or desert islands. In the latter, the adjective desert connotes not desert climate conditions, the word desert has been formerly applied more widely to any wild, uninhabited region, including forest-land, and it is this archaic meaning that appears in the phrase desert island. Similarly, the deserted island does not imply that the island was previously inhabited. The term desert island is commonly used figuratively to refer to objects or behavior in conditions of social isolation. Behavior on an island is a common thought experiment, for example. Appat Island, Greenland Kermadec Islands in the South Pacific, part of New Zealand Astola Island, Baluchistan Devon Island,55,247 km2, many small islands off the coast of Greece A majority of islands in the Barra Isles archipelago. The most famous of abandoned islands is located at the southernmost point of the outer Hebrides. The protagonists in both are children living in seclusion on a deserted island, until they eventually come in contact with castaways from the outside world who are stranded on the island. The story of Theologus Autodidactus, however, extends beyond the island setting when the castaways take Kamil back to civilization with them. William Shakespeares 1610–11 play, The Tempest, uses the idea of being stranded on an island as a pretext for the action of the play. In the late 17th century, Philosophus Autodidactus inspired Robert Boyle, Ibn al-Nafis Theologus Autodidactus was also eventually translated into English in the early 20th century. The novel features Man Friday, Crusoes personal assistant and it is also likely that he was inspired by the Latin or English translations of Ibn Tufails Philosophus Autodidactus. Tom Neale was a New Zealander who voluntarily spent 16 years in three sessions in the 1950s and 1960s living alone on the island of Suwarrow in the northern Cook Islands group and his time there is documented in his autobiography, An Island To Oneself. Significant novels set on deserted islands include The Swiss Family Robinson, The Coral Island, The Mysterious Island, Lord of the Flies, The Cay, juana Maria, a Native American woman, was stranded for 18 years on San Nicolas Island off California in the 19th century
3.
Shoal
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Often it refers to those submerged ridges, banks, or bars that rise near enough to the surface of a body of water as to constitute a danger to navigation. Shoals are also known as sandbanks, sandbars, or gravelbars, two or more shoals that are either separated by shared troughs or interconnected by past and or present sedimentary and hydrographic processes are referred to as a shoal complex. The term shoal is also used in a number of ways that can be similar or quite different from how it is used in the geologic, geomorphic. Shoals are characteristically long and narrow ridges and they can develop where a stream, river, or ocean current promotes deposition of sediment and granular material, resulting in localized shallowing of the water. Marine shoals also develop either by the in place drowning of barrier islands as the result of sea level rise or by the erosion. Shoals can appear as a coastal landform in the sea, where they are classified as a type of bank, or as fluvial landforms in rivers, streams. A shoal–sandbar may seasonally separate a smaller body of water from the sea, such as, Marine lagoons Brackish water estuaries Freshwater seasonal stream and river mouths and deltas. They are typically composed of sand, although they could be of any matter that the moving water has access to and is capable of shifting around. Wave shoaling is the process when surface waves move towards shallow water, such as a beach, they slow down, their wave height increases and this behavior is called shoaling, and the waves are said to shoal. The waves may or may not build to the point where they break, depending on how large they were to begin with, in particular, waves shoal as they pass over submerged sandbanks or reefs. This can be treacherous for boats and ships, shoaling can also diffract waves, so the waves change direction. For example, if waves pass over a bank which is shallower at one end than the other. Thus the wave fronts will refract, changing direction like light passing through a prism, refraction also occurs as waves move towards a beach if the waves come in at an angle to the beach, or if the beach slopes more gradually at one end than the other. Sandbars, also known as a trough bars, form where the waves are breaking, sometimes this occurs seaward of a trough. Sand carried by the moving bottom current is deposited where the current reaches the wave break. Other longshore bars may lie further offshore, representing the point of even larger waves. A harbor or river bar is a sedimentary deposit formed at an entrance or river mouth by. Where beaches are suitably mobile, or the river’s suspended and/or bed loads are large enough, deposition can build up a sandbar that completely blocks a river mouth and damming the river
4.
Tide
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Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the Moon and the Sun and the rotation of the Earth. Some shorelines experience a semi-diurnal tide—two nearly equal high and low tides each day, other locations experience a diurnal tide—only one high and low tide each day. A mixed tide—two uneven tides a day, or one high, Tides vary on timescales ranging from hours to years due to a number of factors. To make accurate records, tide gauges at fixed stations measure water level over time, gauges ignore variations caused by waves with periods shorter than minutes. These data are compared to the level usually called mean sea level. Tidal phenomena are not limited to the oceans, but can occur in other systems whenever a gravitational field varies in time. For example, the part of the Earth is affected by tides. Tide changes proceed via the following stages, Sea level rises over several hours, covering the intertidal zone, the water rises to its highest level, reaching high tide. Sea level falls over several hours, revealing the intertidal zone, the water stops falling, reaching low tide. Oscillating currents produced by tides are known as tidal streams, the moment that the tidal current ceases is called slack water or slack tide. The tide then reverses direction and is said to be turning, slack water usually occurs near high water and low water. But there are locations where the moments of slack tide differ significantly from those of high, Tides are commonly semi-diurnal, or diurnal. The two high waters on a day are typically not the same height, these are the higher high water. Similarly, the two low waters each day are the low water and the lower low water. The daily inequality is not consistent and is small when the Moon is over the equator. From the highest level to the lowest, Highest Astronomical Tide – The highest tide which can be predicted to occur, note that meteorological conditions may add extra height to the HAT. Mean High Water Springs – The average of the two high tides on the days of spring tides, mean High Water Neaps – The average of the two high tides on the days of neap tides. Mean Sea Level – This is the sea level
5.
Piracy
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Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship- or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and other valuable items or properties. Those who engage in acts of piracy are called pirates, the earliest documented instances of piracy were in the 14th century BC, when the Sea Peoples, a group of ocean raiders, attacked the ships of the Aegean and Mediterranean civilizations. Narrow channels which funnel shipping into predictable routes have long created opportunities for piracy, as well as for privateering and commerce raiding. Historic examples include the waters of Gibraltar, the Strait of Malacca, Madagascar, the Gulf of Aden, a land-based parallel is the ambushing of travelers by bandits and brigands in highways and mountain passes. While the term can include acts committed in the air, on land, or in major bodies of water or on a shore. It does not normally include crimes committed against people traveling on the vessel as the perpetrator. Piracy or pirating is the name of a crime under customary international law. They also use larger vessels, known as ships, to supply the smaller motorboats. The international community is facing challenges in bringing modern pirates to justice. In the 2000s, a number of nations have used their naval forces to protect ships from pirate attacks. The English pirate is derived from the Latin term pirata and that from Greek πειρατής, brigand, in turn from πειράομαι, I attempt, from πεῖρα, attempt, the meaning of the Greek word peiratēs literally is one who attacks. The word is cognate to peril. The term is first attested to c, spelling was not standardised until the eighteenth century, and spellings such as pirrot, pyrate and pyrat were used until this period. It may be reasonable to assume that piracy has existed for as long as the oceans were plied for commerce, the earliest documented instances of piracy are the exploits of the Sea Peoples who threatened the ships sailing in the Aegean and Mediterranean waters in the 14th century BC. In classical antiquity, the Phoenicians, Illyrians and Tyrrhenians were known as pirates, the ancient Greeks condoned piracy as a viable profession, it apparently was widespread and regarded as an entirely honourable way of making a living. References are made to its perfectly normal occurrence many texts including in Homers Iliad and Odyssey, by the era of Classical Greece, piracy was looked upon as a disgrace to have as a profession. In the 3rd century BC, pirate attacks on Olympos brought impoverishment, among some of the most famous ancient pirateering peoples were the Illyrians, a people populating the western Balkan peninsula. Constantly raiding the Adriatic Sea, the Illyrians caused many conflicts with the Roman Republic and it was not until 229 BC when the Romans finally decisively beat the Illyrian fleets that their threat was ended
6.
Bartholomew Roberts
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Bartholomew Roberts, born John Roberts, was a Welsh pirate who raided ships off the Americas and West Africa between 1719 and 1722. He was the most successful pirate of the Golden Age of Piracy as measured by vessels captured and he is also known as Black Bart, but this name was never used in his lifetime. He is sometimes confused with Charles Bolles, called the Black Bart of the American West and he was born John Roberts in 1682 in Casnewydd-Bach, between Fishguard and Haverfordwest in Pembrokeshire, Wales. His father was most likely George Roberts and its not clear why Roberts changed his name from John to Bartholomew, but pirates often adopted aliases. He may have chosen his first name after the well-known buccaneer Bartholomew Sharp and he is thought to have gone to sea when he was 13 in 1695, but there is no further record of him until 1718, when he was mate of a Barbados sloop. In 1719, Roberts was third mate on the slave ship Princess under Captain Abraham Plumb, in early June that year, the Princess was anchored at Anomabu when she was captured by pirates. The pirates were in two vessels, the Royal Rover and the Royal James, and were led by captain Howell Davis, Davis, like Roberts, was a Welshman, originally from Milford Haven in Pembrokeshire. Roberts and several other of the crew of the Princess were forced to join the pirates, Davis quickly discovered Roberts abilities as a navigator and took to consulting him. He was also able to confide information to Roberts in Welsh, Roberts is said to have been reluctant to become a pirate at first, but soon came to see the advantages of this new lifestyle. Captain Charles Johnson reports him as saying, In an honest service there is thin commons, low wages, no, a merry life and a short one shall be my motto. In the merchant navy, Roberts wage was less than £4 per month, a few weeks after Roberts capture, the Royal James had to be abandoned because of worm damage. The Royal Rover headed for the island of Príncipe, Davis hoisted the flags of a British man-of-war and was allowed to enter the harbour. After a few days, Davis invited the governor to lunch on board his ship, Davis had to send boats to collect the governor, and he was invited to call at the fort for a glass of wine first. The Portuguese had discovered that their visitors were pirates and they ambushed Davis party on its way to the fort, shooting Davis dead. A new captain had to be elected, Davis crew was divided into Lords and Commons, and it was the Lords who had the right to propose a name to the remainder of the crew. Within six weeks of his capture, Roberts was elected captain and this was unusual, especially as he had objected to serving on the vessel. Historians believe he was elected for his abilities and his personality. He accepted of the Honour, saying, that since he had dippd his Hands in Muddy Water, Roberts first act as captain was to lead the crew back to Príncipe to avenge the death of Captain Davis
7.
Southern United States
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The Southern United States, commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South, is a region of the United States of America. The South does not fully match the geographic south of the United States, arizona and New Mexico, which are geographically in the southern part of the country, are rarely considered part, while West Virginia, which separated from Virginia in 1863, commonly is. Some scholars have proposed definitions of the South that do not coincide neatly with state boundaries, while the states of Delaware and Maryland, as well as the District of Columbia permitted slavery prior to the start of the Civil War, they remained with the Union. However, the United States Census Bureau puts them in the South, usually, the South is defined as including the southeastern and south-central United States. The region is known for its culture and history, having developed its own customs, musical styles, and cuisines, the Southern ethnic heritage is diverse and includes strong European, African, and some Native American components. Since the late 1960s, black people have many offices in Southern states, especially in the coastal states of Virginia. Historically, the South relied heavily on agriculture, and was rural until after 1945. It has since become more industrialized and urban and has attracted national and international migrants, the American South is now among the fastest-growing areas in the United States. Houston is the largest city in the Southern United States, sociological research indicates that Southern collective identity stems from political, demographic, and cultural distinctiveness from the rest of the United States. The region contains almost all of the Bible Belt, an area of high Protestant church attendance and predominantly conservative, indeed, studies have shown that Southerners are more conservative than non-Southerners in several areas, including religion, morality, international relations and race relations. Apart from its climate, the experience in the South increasingly resembles the rest of the nation. The arrival of millions of Northerners and millions of Hispanics meant the introduction of cultural values, the process has worked both ways, however, with aspects of Southern culture spreading throughout a greater portion of the rest of the United States in a process termed Southernization. The question of how to define the subregions in the South has been the focus of research for nearly a century, as defined by the United States Census Bureau, the Southern region of the United States includes sixteen states. As of 2010, an estimated 114,555,744 people, or thirty-seven percent of all U. S. residents, lived in the South, the nations most populous region. Other terms related to the South include, The Old South, the New South, usually including the South Atlantic States. The Solid South, region largely controlled by the Democratic Party from 1877 to 1964, before that, blacks were elected to national office and many to local office through the 1880s, Populist-Republican coalitions gained victories for Fusionist candidates for governors in the 1890s. Includes at least all the 11 former Confederate States, Southeastern United States, usually including the Carolinas, the Virginias, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. The Deep South, various definitions, usually including Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, occasionally, parts of adjoining states are included
8.
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was established as a sovereign state on 1 January 1801 by the Acts of Union 1800, which merged the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland. The growing desire for an Irish Republic led to the Irish War of Independence, Northern Ireland remained part of the United Kingdom, and the state was consequently renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Britain financed the European coalition that defeated France in 1815 in the Napoleonic Wars, the British Empire thereby became the foremost world power for the next century. The Crimean War with Russia and the Boer wars were relatively small operations in a largely peaceful century, rapid industrialisation that began in the decades prior to the states formation continued up until the mid-19th century. A devastating famine, exacerbated by government inaction in the century, led to demographic collapse in much of Ireland. It was an era of economic modernization and growth of industry, trade and finance. Outward migration was heavy to the colonies and to the United States. Britain also built up a large British Empire in Africa and Asia, India, by far the most important possession, saw a short-lived revolt in 1857. In foreign policy Britain favoured free trade, which enabled its financiers and merchants to operate successfully in many otherwise independent countries, as in South America. Britain formed no permanent military alliances until the early 20th century, when it began to cooperate with Japan, France and Russia, and moved closer to the United States. A brief period of limited independence for Ireland came to an end following the Irish Rebellion of 1798, the British governments fear of an independent Ireland siding against them with the French resulted in the decision to unite the two countries. This was brought about by legislation in the parliaments of both kingdoms and came into effect on 1 January 1801, however, King George III was bitterly opposed to any such Emancipation and succeeded in defeating his governments attempts to introduce it. When the Treaty of Amiens ended the war, Britain agreed to return most of the territories it had seized, in May 1803, war was declared again. In 1806, Napoleon issued the series of Berlin Decrees, which brought into effect the Continental System and this policy aimed to eliminate the threat from the British by closing French-controlled territory to foreign trade. Frances population and agricultural capacity far outstripped that of the British Isles, Napoleon expected that cutting Britain off from the European mainland would end its economic hegemony. The Spanish uprising in 1808 at last permitted Britain to gain a foothold on the Continent, after Napoleons surrender and exile to the island of Elba, peace appeared to have returned. The Allies united and the armies of Wellington and Blucher defeated Napoleon once, simultaneous with the Napoleonic Wars, trade disputes, arming hostile Indians and British impressment of American sailors led to the War of 1812 with the United States. The war was little noticed in Britain, which could devote few resources to the conflict until the fall of Napoleon in 1814, American frigates inflicted a series of defeats on the Royal Navy, which was short on manpower due to the conflict in Europe
9.
Ascension Island
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It is governed as part of the British Overseas Territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, of which the main island, Saint Helena, is around 1,300 kilometres to the southeast. The territory also includes the sparsely populated Tristan da Cunha archipelago, some 3,730 kilometres to the south, the island is named after the day of its recorded discovery, Ascension Day. It played a role as an important safe haven and coaling station to mariners, during World War II it was an important naval and air station, especially providing antisubmarine warfare bases in the Battle of the Atlantic. Ascension Island was garrisoned by the British Admiralty from 22 October 1815 to 1922, the island was used extensively by the British military during the Falklands War. Ascension Island hosts one of four antennas that assist in the operation of the Global Positioning System navigational system. Ascension is a young formation, the tip of an undersea volcano which rose above the waves only a million years ago. It is associated both with the Mid-Atlantic Ridge plate boundary 80 km to the west and with a hotspot 25–300 km to the south east and its last eruption may have occurred in the 16th Century. Due to its short history, its soil consists mostly of clinker. In 1501, the Portuguese navigator Afonso de Albuquerque sighted the island on Ascension Day, dry and barren, the island had little appeal for passing ships except for collecting fresh meat, and was not claimed for the Portuguese Crown. Mariners could hunt for the seabirds and the enormous female green turtles that laid their eggs on the sandy beaches. The Portuguese also introduced goats as a source of meat for future mariners. In February 1701, HMS Roebuck, commanded by William Dampier, sixty men survived for two months until they were rescued. Almost certainly, after a few days they found the water spring in the high interior of the island. British mariners found the Dutchmans tent, belongings and diary in January 1726, organised settlement of Ascension Island began in 1815, when the British garrisoned it as a precaution after imprisoning Napoleon I on Saint Helena to the southeast. On 22 October the Cruizer class brig-sloops Zenobia and Peruvian claimed the island for His Britannic Majesty King George III, the Royal Navy designated the island as a stone frigate, HMS Ascension, with the classification of Sloop of War of the smaller class. The location of the island made it a useful stopping-point for ships, the Royal Navy used the island as a victualling station for ships, particularly those of the West Africa Squadron working against the slave trade. A garrison of Royal Marines was based at Ascension from 1823, in 1836 the Beagle voyage visited Ascension. Charles Darwin described it as a treeless island, with nothing growing near the coast
10.
Sodomy
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Sodomy is generally anal or oral sex between people or sexual activity between a person and a non-human animal, but it may also mean any non-procreative sexual activity. Originally, the sodomy, which is derived from the story of Sodom. Sodomy laws in many countries criminalized these behaviors, and other disfavored sexual activities as well, in the Western world, many of these laws have been overturned or are not routinely enforced. The term is derived from the Ecclesiastical Latin peccatum Sodomiticum or sin of Sodom, Genesis tells how God wished to destroy the sinful cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Two angels are invited by Lot to take refuge with his family for the night, the men of Sodom surround Lots house and demand that he bring the messengers out so that they may know them. Lot protests that the messengers are his guests and offers the Sodomites his virgin daughters instead, then the angels strike the Sodomites blind, so that they wearied themselves to find the door. In current usage, the term is used in law. Laws prohibiting sodomy were seen frequently in past Jewish, Christian, and Islamic civilizations, but the term has little modern usage outside Africa, Islamic countries, and these laws in the United States have been challenged and have sometimes been found unconstitutional or been replaced with different legislation. Many cognates in other languages, such as French sodomie, Spanish sodomía, in modern German, the word Sodomie has no connotation of anal or oral sex and specifically refers to bestiality. The same goes for the Polish sodomia, the Norwegian word sodomi carries both senses. In Danish, sodomi is rendered as unnatural carnal knowledge with someone of the sex or with animals. In Arabic and Persian, the word for sodomy, لواط, is derived from the source as in Western culture. Its direct reference is to Lot and a literal interpretation of the word is the practice of Lot. The word sod, a noun or verb used as an insult, is derived from sodomite and it is a general-purpose insult term for anyone the speaker dislikes without specific reference to their sexual behaviour. Sod is used as slang in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth and is mildly offensive. However, in New Zealand and Australia it is not considered offensive at all, but only coarse, because it is assumed, even if incorrect. While religion and the law have had a role in the historical definition and punishment of sodomy, sodomitical texts present considerable opportunities for ambiguity. Sodomy is both a real occurrence and an imagined category, in the course of the eighteenth century, what is identifiable as sodomy often becomes identified with effeminacy, for example, or in opposition to a discourse of manliness
11.
Robert Louis Stevenson
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Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer. His most famous works are Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, a literary celebrity during his lifetime, Stevenson now ranks as the 26th most translated author in the world. M. Barrie, and G. K. Chesterton, who said of him that he seemed to pick the word up on the point of his pen. Stevenson was born at 8 Howard Place, Edinburgh, Scotland, on 13 November 1850, to Thomas Stevenson, a lighthouse engineer. He was christened Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson, at about age 18, Stevenson was to change the spelling of Lewis to Louis, and in 1873, he dropped Balfour. Lighthouse design was the profession, Thomass father was the famous Robert Stevenson. Indeed, even Thomass maternal grandfather, Thomas Smith, had been in the same profession, however, Roberts mothers family were not of the same profession. Margarets natal family, the Balfours, were gentry, tracing their lineage back to a certain Alexander Balfour who had held the lands of Inchyra in Fife in the fifteenth century. Margarets father, Lewis Balfour, was a minister of the Church of Scotland at nearby Colinton, and her siblings included the physician George William Balfour, Stevenson spent the greater part of his boyhood holidays in his maternal grandfathers house. Now I often wonder, wrote Stevenson, what I inherited from this old minister, I must suppose, indeed, that he was fond of preaching sermons, and so am I, though I never heard it maintained that either of us loved to hear them. Lewis Balfour and his daughter both had weak chests, so they often needed to stay in warmer climates for their health, Stevenson inherited a tendency to coughs and fevers, exacerbated when the family moved to a damp, chilly house at 1 Inverleith Terrace in 1851. The family moved again to the sunnier 17 Heriot Row when Stevenson was six years old, illness would be a recurrent feature of his adult life and left him extraordinarily thin. Contemporary views were that he had tuberculosis, but more recent views are that it was bronchiectasis or even sarcoidosis, Stevensons parents were both devout and serious Presbyterians, but the household was not strict in its adherence to Calvinist principles. His nurse, Alison Cunningham, was fervently religious. Her Calvinism and folk beliefs were a source of nightmares for the child. But she also cared for him tenderly in illness, reading to him from Bunyan, Stevenson recalled this time of sickness in The Land of Counterpane in A Childs Garden of Verses, dedicating the book to his nurse. In any case, his frequent illnesses often kept him away from his first school and he was a late reader, first learning at age seven or eight, but even before this he dictated stories to his mother and nurse. He compulsively wrote stories throughout his childhood and his father was proud of this interest, he had also written stories in his spare time until his own father found them and told him to give up such nonsense and mind your business
12.
Alexander Selkirk
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Alexander Selkirk was a Scottish privateer and Royal Navy officer who spent more than four years as a castaway after being marooned by his captain on an uninhabited island in the South Pacific Ocean. He survived that ordeal, but succumbed to illness a dozen years later while serving aboard HMS Weymouth off West Africa. Selkirk was a youth, and joined buccaneering voyages to the South Pacific during the War of the Spanish Succession. One such expedition was on Cinque Ports, commanded by William Dampier, the ship called in for provisions at the Juan Fernández Islands, and Selkirk judged correctly that the craft was unseaworthy and asked to be left there. When he was rescued by follow-on English privateer Woodes Rogers. His story of survival was widely publicised after their return to England, Alexander Selkirk was the son of a shoemaker and tanner in Lower Largo, Fife, Scotland, born in 1676. In his youth, he displayed a quarrelsome and unruly disposition and he was summoned before the Kirk Session in August 1693 for his indecent conduct in church, but he did not appear, being gone to sea. He was back at Largo in 1701, when he came to the attention of church authorities for beating up his brothers. Early on, he was engaged in buccaneering, in 1703, he joined an expedition of English privateer and explorer William Dampier to the South Pacific Ocean, setting sail from Kinsale in Ireland on 11 September. Dampier was captain of St George, and Selkirk served on Cinque Ports, St Georges companion ship, by this time, Selkirk must have had considerable experience at sea. A raid on the Panamanian gold mining town of Santa María failed when their party was ambushed. The easy capture of Asunción, a merchantman, revived the mens hopes of plunder. Dampier took off some much-needed provisions of wine, brandy, sugar and flour, then set the ship free. In May 1704, Stradling decided to abandon Dampier and strike out on his own, Selkirk had grave concerns about the seaworthiness of their vessel and probably wanted to make the needed repairs before going any farther. He declared that he would stay on Juan Fernández than continue in a dangerously leaky ship. Glad to be rid of a troublemaker, Stradling took him up on the offer and landed Selkirk on the island with a musket, a hatchet, a knife, a cooking pot, Selkirk regretted his rashness, but Stradling refused to let him back on board. Cinque Ports did indeed later founder off the coast of what is now Colombia, Stradling and some of his crew survived the loss of their ship but were forced to surrender to the Spanish. The survivors were taken to Peru where they endured a harsh imprisonment, at first, Selkirk remained along the shoreline of Juan Fernández
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