Economic warfare is not a new phenomenon. In the protectionist climate of the seventeenth century, trade embargoes, exclusions and boycotts were common. England was among the most active nations when it came to using economic clout to get its own way. It did so to force Scotland to accept an Act of Union: to submerge its independence within a United Kingdom governed from London. Instrumental in this attack upon the Scots was William Dampier, the principal subject of this book. He was an extraordinary man. A farmer's son, he became the most travelled man of his generation. He was a pirate, a brute and a devious sociopath. But he was also a scientist and a talented writer who gave his readers accurate descriptions of previously unknown places, peoples, plants and animals. He was a daring explorer and an expert navigator who mapped coastlines and logged wind patterns and ocean currents. He led the first Royal Navy expedition to Australia, over 70 years before Captain Cook's arrival. Dampier's writing made him famous, but not rich. It allowed him to rub shoulders with the leading men of his day; scientists such as Robert Hooke, Edmund Halley and Hans Sloane, businessmen such as Sir John Houblon (first governor of the Bank of England) and William Paterson, politicians such as James Vernon and Charles Montagu (first Earl of Halifax), and Admiralty men such as Admiral Sir George Rooke and Samuel Pepys. And Dampier was in the pay of the English Government; an agent known to Queen Anne, in which capacity he engineered a financial disaster and political drubbing for Scotland. AUTHOR: Leon Hopkins is a journalist and author. After a short career in financial analysis, he joined Accountancy Age, which he later edited. Other accountancy titles followed as did writing for, editing and publishing a variety of business and professional magazines. Leon has written for national newspapers and is author of non-fiction books on subjects ranging from auditing to letting. The Hundredth Year described the history of the accountancy profession in England and An Armenian Family Torn Apart, which he translated, describes life during the Armenian Genocide. He also has a published novel to his name, There's Only One Henry Green. 20 b/w illustrations
