Despite the efforts of the participants to paint them as ‘noble undertakings’ the three voyages described here were, above all, treasure hunts and consequently subject to the exalted expectations, dashed hopes, deceits, frauds and fierce battles at sea and at law which traditionally accompany such exploits.

One of the many delights of the National Archives at Kew, where much of the primary material relating to these voyages is to be found, is that research itself takes on the character of a treasure hunt. Materials are arranged using a taxonomy which has, as its indivisible unit, the ‘document’. Researchers unfamiliar (as I was) with this use of the term may be surprised to find that the document they have ordered consists of two large boxes, full to the brim with hundreds of individual books, letters and vellum sheets. The documents relating to these three voyages are just such a treasure trove, and Donald Jones, who conducted a bibliographical study into the primary material relating to Woodes Rogers's expedition, described them as ‘the real monuments of that remarkable voyage’. Anyone who has been lucky enough to open the boxes in the National Archive, detect the faint aroma of Stockholm tar and observe the wonderful variety of materials, from scraps of paper or parchment bleached by tropical sun, to cloth, vellum or board bound books, betting slips, IOUs and chancery bills of complaint, can only agree.

The history revealed in these papers is an unfamiliar one for those of us nurtured on tales of the triumphant progress of the British navy (punctuated by a few blips) through the eighteenth century. The heroes of these voyages were, for the most part, merchant mariners ‘of desperate fortune’, as Daniel Defoe put it, but they were remarkable seamen as well as being determined, resourceful and ingenious. What they did, in small, worm-ridden, leaky and unhandy ships, buffeted by fierce storms, navigating great distances through poorly-charted waters with primitive, inaccurate instruments, is quite remarkable and deserves to be better known.