BACK WHEN VICTIMIZING PEOPLE WAS STILL ENCOURAGED:

Diaries of swashbuckling hero who rescued Robinson Crusoe unearthed (Nick Britten, 05 Jan 2009, Daily Telegraph)

A 300-year-old journal of a British explorer who saved the real-life Robinson Crusoe and defeated pirates of the Caribbean has been discovered.

The extremely rare account chronicles a three-year round-the world voyage of the swashbuckling privateer Capt Woodes Rogers, who made a fortune pillaging from pirate ships and Spanish galleons.

During that journey, Rogers, who was a friend of the author Daniel Defoe, even stopped off at a remote Pacific island and found castaway Alexander Selkirk, who inspired the character and book Robinson Crusoe. He said he found him "wild-looking" and wearing "goatskins", adding: "He had with him his clothes and bedding, with a firelock, some powder, bullets and tobacco, a hatchet, a knife, a kettle, a Bible and books."

Rogers, who left Britain in 1708, had been tasked with "victimising" pirates targeting his fellow British merchants.