This is the first-hand story of Woodes Rogers, the most successful British privateer ever, and his circumnavigation from 1708 to 1711. Rogers’ mission was to harass Spanish shipping, and he did it splendidly, capturing two Spanish galleons laden with riches off the Pacific coast of the Americas. Along the way he rescued a castaway, a Scottish seaman named Alexander Selkirk, who joined his crew. Daniel Defoe, a friend of Rogers’, read this log, and later wrote Robinson Crusoe. High adventure on the high seas!