observing: "One may see that solitude and retirement from the world is not such an insufferable state of life as most men imagine, especially when people are fairly called or thrown into it unavoidably, as this man was." He made Selkirk Dukes second mate, later giving him command of one of their prize ships, Increase, before it was ransomed by the Spanish. Selkirk returned to privateering with a vengeance. At Guayaquil in present-day Ecuador, he led a boat crew up the Guayas River where several wealthy Spanish ladies had fled and looted the gold and jewels they had hidden inside their clothing. His part in the hunt for treasure galleons along the coast of Mexico resulted in the capture of Nuestra Señora de la Encarnación y Desengaño, renamed Bachelor, on which he served as sailing master under Captain Dover to the Dutch East Indies. Selkirk completed the around-the-world voyage by the Cape of Good Hope as the sailing master of Duke, arriving at the Downs off the English coast on 1 October 1711. He had been away for eight years. Later life and influence Selkirk's experience as a castaway aroused a great deal of attention in England. Fellow crewman Edward Cooke mentioned Selkirk's ordeal in a book chronicling their privateering expedition, A Voyage to the South Sea and Round the World (1712). A more detailed recounting was published by the expedition's leader, Rogers, within months. The following year, prominent essayist Richard Steele wrote an article about him for The Englishman newspaper. Selkirk appeared set to enjoy a life of ease and celebrity, claiming his share of Duke plundered wealth—about £800 (equivalent to £ today). However, legal disputes made the amount of any payment uncertain. After a few months in London, he began to seem more like his former self again. But he still missed his secluded and solitary moments, "I am now worth eight hundred pounds, but shall never be as happy as when I was not worth a farthing." In September 1713, he was charged with assaulting a shipwright in Bristol and may have been kept in confinement for two years. He returned to Lower Largo, where he met Sophia Bruce, a young dairymaid. They eloped to London early and married on 4 March 1717. He was soon off to sea again, having enlisted in the Royal Navy. While on a visit to Plymouth in 1720, he married a