Dampier, HMS Roebuck, & Australia

I found the video on youtube.

It's about Dampier's Roebuck expedition to Australia - the first ever long-distance ocean voyage (notice the long-distance part, counting short-distance, he was the second ever) commissioned by the government purely for the purpose of scientific discovery.

The expedition was not a total success, proving Dampier not a great commander, and seemingly a bad navigator as well (to casual readers) - as the ship was lost (beached deliberately).

Nevertheless - as the video author says - the mission failed successfully.

As the first long-distance scientific ocean voyage, underfunded, with an old ship, inexperienced or perhaps personality flawed for command, "sabotaged" (rather than being assisted, supposedly) by his lieutenant, and still charted many islands around Australia, and only missed the original objective (east coast) because of ship condition - it's not as bad as it seems.

"The underfunded Admiralty could only spare HMS Roebuck, a 290-ton vessel that was not seaworthy enough for such a long voyage." - Arrival of English Explorer William Dampier by National Museum Australia

His "failure" in the Roebuck expedition has very legitimate reasons. We cannot fault the guy too much for being a bad commander - he was pretty much a nobody all his life (that is, until A New Voyage), and inexperienced in command - the guy is not perfect.

Apparently, commanding a government expedition staffed with naval officers was a very different job.

Also, his first famous book got him the commission from the Admiralty, and this second around the world trip resulted in his second book.

*If you have any suggestions or questions, you can go to one of the book pages and submit a form there. For example, page 1.