Alexander Selkirk - Later Life

Later Life

When he got back to England, the journalist Richard Steele interviewed Selkirk about his adventures and wrote a much-read article about him in The Englishman. After a few months of living in London, he began to seem more like his old self again. Enriched by his share of the Duke's plundered wealth—about £800 (equivalent to £106,000 today)—Selkirk appeared set to enjoy a life of ease and celebrity. Nevertheless, the sea would continue to beckon him.

Early in 1717 Selkirk returned to Lower Largo. There he met Sophia Bruce, a sixteen-year-old dairymaid. They eloped to London but apparently did not marry. In March 1717 he went off to sea again. While on a visit to Plymouth, he married a widowed innkeeper named Frances Candis. In November 1720 he joined the Royal Navy. Selkirk was serving as a master's mate on board the HMS Weymouth when, according to the ship's log, he died on 13 December 1721, evidently succumbing to the yellow fever that had plagued the voyage. He was buried at sea off the west coast of Africa.

Those who spoke to Selkirk after his rescue, such as Captain Rogers and the journalist Steele, were impressed by the tranquillity of mind and vigour of body that Selkirk had attained while on the island. Rogers stated that "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." Steele added that "This plain man's story is a memorable example, that he is happiest who confines his wants to natural necessities; and he that goes further in his desires, increases his wants in proportion to his acquisitions."