The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder, Grann - A*

                      In 1740, in the midst of a war with Spain, England sent 5 ships around the Horn to plunder Spanish galleons in pursuit of silver.  The HMS Wager was a converted East Indiaman and packed with 250 men, twice its normal complement. The ship's captain was George Murray, and she "had an unusual number of unwilling and troublesome crewmen..."  After two months and in the mid-Atlantic, the fleet was struck by typhus and 65 members of the squadron were interred at sea. Another 80 were buried at St. Catherine's, Brazil. David Cheap took over as captain when Murray was transferred to replace a captain who had died. The deceased captain  predicted that the expedition "would end in poverty, vermin, famine, death and destruction." To round the Cape, a ship passing through Drake's Passage sails through the strongest currents in the world's oceans.  The winds are ferocious, the seas are shallow, and the waves monstrously high. The area is almost always shrouded in fog. Scurvy struck while they were rounding the Cape.  Two of the ships suffered fifty-percent casualties. Three, including the Wager, lost sails and masts. Eventually, the winds scattered the squadron and the Wager was alone. She sailed north and foundered on the rocks off an island off the South American coast. One-hundred and forty-five men made it ashore, and discovered they were on an island with little food and shelter. They used the remnants of the ship to build shelters, and the wild celery they found cured them of scurvy. But they were quickly running low on provisions and winter was approaching. Discipline and order deteriorated, and Capt. Cheap began to have thieves flogged and abandoned on an off-shore island. Cheap then shot a drunk threatening the peace of the compound. The ship's carpenter began to lengthen, widen, and rebuild the ship's longboat, thus leading to a revival of the company's spirits. Soon, though there was a division amongst the men. Cheap wanted to head north and attack the Spanish. A contingent led by the ship's gunner, John Bulkeley, wanted to try for Brazil via the Straits of Magellan. As both sides dithered, the survivors dropped below 100. In October, 1741, 71 men squeezed into 2 boats and left the island, which they had christened Wager. Cheap was one of the 20 men left behind. Two weeks into their sail, the cutter with only one man aboard slipped under the waves. Eleven men asked to be left on a shore they passed and swam away. They were never seen again. Bulkeley and his men entered the Straits of Magellan. Cheap with two boats and 18 men headed for the Chilean coast. After months of trying, they returned to Wager Island. Bulkeley navigated his way through the Straits and turned north in the Atlantic. A total of 29 men stumbled into the town of Rio Grande in southern Brazil eight months after the Wager had sunk. When Bulkeley returned to England, the Admiralty decided to wait and see if Cheap survived before passing judgement on all that had happened. Bulkeley and the ship's carpenter, Cummins, published a journal that was widely read, and garnered them support from the public. Meanwhile off the coast of the Philippines, the only surviving ship of the squadron, the Centurion, chased down a Spanish treasure ship, Our Lady of Covadonga. After 90 minutes of intense battle, the Spaniards struck their flag. As it turned out, the Covadonga was the richest prize England ever took at sea. A year later, Adm. George Anson returned home to the acclaim of the nation. Ordinary seaman received 300 pounds, twenty years of wages. Anson received ninety thousand, the equivalent of 20 million today. Two years later, Cheap arrived in Dover. He was accompanied by a marine lieutenant, and a midshipman, John Byron, second son of a Lord, and grandfather of the famous poet. The three men had been captured and imprisoned by the Spanish. They were paroled in Chile and allowed to go home when hostilities ended between the two countries. The Admiralty called for a court martial and summoned all of the Wager's survivors to appear. Bulkeley and three others were imprisoned. The Admiralty, however, had no desire to air the facts of the Wager's story in public, and simply concluded that no officer was at fault for the ship's foundering. 

                    Capt. Cheap was assigned another command and performed well capturing a Spanish ship loaded with silver. Bulkeley went to America and faded from history.  John Byron was a career navy man who eventually became a Vice-Admiral. Later in life, he wrote a narrative condemning Cheap's leadership. George Anson was for decades the most famous and successful man in the Royal Navy. Wager Island remains a place of desolation battered by waves and wind. A special thanks to David Gutowski for urging me to read this truly excellent book.