Note 59 — BARTHOLOMEW SHARP AND OTHERS.

This was a Mosquito Indian named William. A precursor of Alexander Selkirk, he lived alone upon the island for more than three years, till in March, 1684, when Capt. Edward Davis, in the Batchellor's Delight, in his voyage from the Chesapeake, touched at the island. William Dampier and several others of Captain Sharp's crew were now with Davis. They bethought them of William, and found and rescued him. Dampier, New Voyage, I. 84-87, describes the Crusoe-like expedients by which the ingenious William maintained himself. He was not the first precursor of Selkirk on the island, for Ringrose, p. 119, says that the pilot of their ship told this present crew of buccaneers "that many years ago a certain ship was cast away upon this Island, and onely one man saved, who lived alone upon the Island five years before any ship came this way to carry him off." Several of Davis's men lived there three years, 1687-1690. Selkirk's stay was in 1704-1709.