by C. H. Layman
David Cheap
This letter raises a number of intriguing and bizarre questions. What was HMS Wager doing off the coast of Chile in 1744, apparently so far away from British interests and possessions? Was it not a major navigational error for the ship to be set so far inshore? And what does Captain Cheap mean by the words “I even proceeded to extremities” when trying to control mutinous and disobedient men? To address these questions, and many others, we must go back five years to the start of Britain’s war with Spain.
Chapter 2
Preparations for War
It is 1740, and Britain and Spain have been at war for a few months. An experienced naval captain, George Anson, is appointed Commodore and Commander-in-Chief of a small squadron to “annoy and distress” the Spanish in the Pacific. His ships, which include H.M.S. Wager as stores-ship, are with difficulty fitted out and manned in Portsmouth and Deptford by an over-stretched naval administration, and their departure is delayed. They eventually sail too late for Cape Horn and the most hostile of sea passages anywhere in the world.
The story of the Wager disaster begins with some admirably clear and flexible orders, probably drafted by the First Lord, in the name of King George II:
(signed) George R
Instructions for our trusty and well-beloved George Anson, Esq., Commander-in-Chief of our ships designed to be sent into the South Seas in America. Given at our Court at St. James’s the 31st day of January 1740, in the thirteenth year of our reign.
Whereas we have thought proper to declare war against the King of Spain, for the several injuries and indignities offered to our crown and people, which are more particularly set forth in our declaration of war, we have thought fit to direct that you, taking under your command our ships, should proceed with them according to the following instructions. You are to receive on board our said ships five hundred of our land forces, and to proceed forthwith to the Cape de Verde Islands, and to supply your ships with water and such refreshments as are to be procured there; and you are from thence to make the best of your way to the Island of St Catherine on the coast of Brazil, or such other place on that coast as you may be advised is more proper, where you are again to supply your ships with water and any other necessaries you may want that can be had there. And when you have done so, you are to proceed with our ships under your command into the South Sea, either round Cape Horn or through the Straits of Magellan, as you shall judge most proper, and according as the season of the year and winds and weather shall best permit.
When you shall arrive on the Spanish coast of the South Sea,[5] you are to use your best endeavours to annoy and distress the Spaniards, either at sea or land, to the utmost of your power, by taking, sinking, burning, or otherwise destroying all their ships and vessels that you shall meet with, and particularly their boats, and all embarkations[6] whatsoever, that they may not be able to send any intelligence by sea along the coast of your being in those parts.
In case you shall find it practical to seize, surprise or take any of the towns or places belonging to the Spaniards on the coast, that you may judge worthy of making such an enterprise upon, you are to attempt it; for which purpose we have not only ordered the land forces above mentioned, but have also thought proper to direct that an additional number of small arms be put on board the ships under your command to be used, as occasion may require, by the crews of the said ships, or otherwise, as you shall find best for our service. And you are, on such occasions, to take the opinion of the Captains of our ships under your command at a Council of War: of which Council of War, in case of any attack or enterprise by land, the Commander of our land forces shall also be one; which said land forces shall, upon such occasions, be landed according to the determination of the said Council of War. And as it will be absolutely necessary for you to be supplied with provisions and water, when and where they can be had, you will inform yourself of the places where that can most conveniently be done; and as we have been informed that the coasts of Chile, and particularly the island of Chiloé, do abound with provisions and necessaries of all sorts, you are to call there for that purpose.
As it has been represented unto us that the number of native Indians on the coast of Chile greatly exceeds that of the Spaniards, and that there is reason to believe that the said Indians may not be averse to join with you against the Spaniards in order to recover their freedom, you are to endeavour to cultivate a good understanding with such Indians as shall be willing to join and assist you in any attempt that you may think proper to make against the Spaniards that are established there…
But where the Spanish ships in their passage between Panama and Lima do usually stop, it will be proper for you to look into those places, and to annoy Spaniards there, as much as it shall be in your power. And if you shall meet with the Spanish men-of-war that carry the treasure from Lima to Panama, you are to endeavour to make yourself master of them.
When you are arrived at Panama you will probably have an opportunity to take or destroy such embarkations as you shall find there. And as the town itself is represented to be not very strong, especially as it has been lately burnt down, you are, if you shall think you have sufficient force for that purpose, to make an attempt upon that town and endeavour to take it, or burn and destroy it, as you think most for our service.
And as you may possibly find an opportunity to send privately overland to Portobello or Darien, you are by that means to endeavour to transmit to any of our ships or forces that shall be on that coast an account of what you have done, or intend to do. And lest any such intelligence should fall into the hands of the Spaniards we have ordered you to be furnished with a cipher in which manner only you are to correspond with our Admiral, or the Commander-in-Chief of any of our ships…
Britain’s war with Spain had been in force for three months, and has been called “the War of Jenkins’ Ear”. A merchant ship, the Rebecca of Glasgow, had been stopped by the Spanish some years before and plundered; the ship’s company had been maltreated, and the Master, Captain Jenkins, claimed he had had his ear cut off. The ear, pickled and presented to Parliament by Captain Jenkins, outraged public opinion which the MP-Admiral Edward Vernon in the House of Commons did all he could to inflame. There was much talk of the Catholic threat and a Spanish invasion, and a Jacobite-Catholic rising in Scotland, supported by France and Spain, seemed entirely possible. Moreover Spanish trading restrictions were hampering British trade, and no doubt the immensely rich Spanish colonies in the West Indies and in Central and South America were also in everyone’s mind. The government, headed by Robert Walpole, had reluctantly decided that war was unavoidable.
In this unsettled scene the Royal Navy, as so often in its history, could offer the nation stability and protection, as well as the possibility of taking the initiative against a powerful and aggressive enemy.
With hindsight it is easy to see that for Anson’s expedition – given sound ships, experienced crews and soldiers, surprise, and provision against disease – there would have been an excellent chance of causing havoc in the almost undefended Spanish Pacific colonies. But all was not well with the Navy, and almost none of those elements for success were achievable. Certainly there were resolute officers and some fine ships, but the administration was overstretched and haphazard in many crucial respects, and recruitment based on the press-gang was a constant problem.
In the summer of 1740 Portsmouth Dockyard, Spithead and the Solent were all crowded with ships as the Navy prepared two large fleets. One was intended for the North Atlantic and Mediterranean, to intercept and capture shipping going to and from Spanish ports. The other was to head for the West Indies to exploit Admiral Vernon’s recent and stirring success at Portobello. Fitting out, storing and manning these two large fleets and their auxiliaries meant that all the support services were working at full stretch.
The eighteenth-century press-gang at work.
The system was more unpopular, and less efficient, than twentieth-century conscription. But in wa
rtime both were necessary.
Anson was aged 42 and a much-respected Captain with a reputation for being firm, uncommunicative, humane, calm, and highly professional. He was allocated six warships and two victualling ships (pinks) for his small squadron with its secret mission to the Pacific Ocean:
Centurion (Commodore George Anson), 4th rate, 60 guns, 400 men
Gloucester (Captain Richard Norris), 4th rate, 50 guns, 300 men
Severn (Captain the Hon. Edward Legge), 4th rate, 50 guns, 300 men
Pearl (Captain Mathew Mitchel), 5th rate, 40 guns, 250 men
Wager (Captain Daniel Kidd), 6th rate, 28 guns, 160 men
Tryall (Captain the Hon. George Murray), sloop, 8 guns, 100 men
Anna, pink
Industry, pink
With respect to preparing and fitting out this comparatively small squadron for what was known would be an extremely challenging operation, it is fair to say that just about everything went wrong. The other two fleets, both to be commanded by admirals, numbered 33 ships of the line,[7] and there were no less than 120 merchant ships to be organised into three convoys for North America, and the Eastern and Western Mediterranean. It is perhaps not surprising, but still highly regrettable, that top priority for stores, men, and dockyard support went to the larger fleets. Anson and his captains battled desperately against reluctant dockyard officials to get their own ships ready. The situation was urgent in that it was considered essential to get round Cape Horn in the austral summer; sailing conditions in that area are always vicious, but in winter they were thought to be nearly impossible.[8] A sailing date of June or July was desirable, but the squadron was delayed long after this. Moreover the longer the delay the less likely secrecy could be maintained, and indeed the Spanish heard about the expedition very quickly through their spies, and had time to warn their colonies and send a squadron of their own under Admiral Pizarro to intercept Anson.[9]
It is intriguing to see how efficient the intelligence services were at that time, and how difficult it seems to have been to keep a secret. The decision to send the expedition was made on 7th December 1739. On 30th January 1740 the French Ambassador at Madrid received a report – clearly based on an overheard conversation – “There are letters from England which report that they are sending six frigates under the command of M. Hanson, which are under orders to round Cape Horn and enter the South Sea.” And on 7th August 1740 Anson was informed that intercepted Spanish letters made it clear that the Viceroys of Peru and Mexico had been accurately informed of the size and intent of his squadron, and warned to be on their guard. In addition the English Press reported the slow progress of getting the squadron ready. On 19th July the London Evening Post informed readers and spies, “Commodore Anson and the ships under his command, it’s said, are actually victualled for two and twenty months, and the sea and land officers on board have great lucrative expectations from the expedition that they are to be employed in.”
If dockyard officials and naval administrators were not seized with the urgency of the situation, the captains of the ships of the squadron certainly were. They wrote dozens of strongly-worded letters to press for the timely readying of their ships, letters that still survive in Admiralty files. Captain Kidd of the Wager seems to have been the most active of all. We find requests for storerooms, accommodation, soldiers’ beds, iron ballast, a pinnace, a six-oared boat, surgeons’ necessaries for six months, oil and paint. He asked for an adjustment to the position of his after capstan, and made the point that the orlop[10] had to be finished before he could embark his cables. He protested that although the Board had sent the necessary orders, dockyard officials “have not understood them” – a neat way of trying to put a bomb under a dockyard department.He requested his allocated deal cutter to be provided, a boat which seems to have been shanghaied by another ship. All this will seem familiar to any captain who has battled with dockyards and bureaucracy endeavouring to get his ship ready for sea.
It is 1739, and naval dockyards are working flat out to prepare a large number of ships for the war against Spain.
And in spite of all this activity the Wager, a converted East Indiaman, was never ideal for this projected voyage around Cape Horn through the world’s most hostile seas. Built in Rotherhithe in 1734, she was bought by the Navy for use as a stores-ship, and after a fairly extensive refit at Deptford emerged as a 6th rate. She was named after the First Lord of the Admiralty, Admiral Sir Charles Wager, himself a highly successful veteran of a previous conflict with Spain. He was the prime mover behind the planning of the expedition, and he more than anyone else had been responsible for the drafting of Anson’s instructions.
The Wager was broader in the beam than purpose-built 6th rates, which made her more commodious for stores and passengers, but less handy in a rough sea and less able to head into wind. Square riggers in general could not expect to head closer to the wind than six points or about 68 degrees, but it is likely Wager could not even achieve this.
Her role was to carry naval and military stores for the whole squadron, and of course to support with her 28 guns whatever naval action might occur. Her naval stores included victuals for the squadron, bulky careening gear, merchandise in bales for trading with disaffected Indians, and a significant quantity of brandy and wine. Her military stores were for the squadron’s land forces, whose role was to create mayhem among the Spanish settlements. These included four eight-pounders, twenty 4.4 inch mortars, much ammunition, muskets, tents, spades, axes, wheelbarrows, and 10,000 sandbags – all equipment necessary for operations on shore.
She was therefore deeply laden and cluttered below decks, and in Byron’s words, writing later when he was himself an experienced Commodore, “a ship of this quality and condition could not be expected to work with that readiness and ease which was necessary for.. those heavy seas which she was to encounter.”
Admiral Sir Charles Wager was First Lord of the Admiralty at the outbreak of war with Spain in 1739. “A man of great natural talents, improved by industry and long experience”, he probably drafted the instructions for Anson’s squadron to “annoy and distress” the Spanish in the Pacific Ocean, waters they regarded as their own. HMS Wager was named after him.
As the sailing date approached Anson found that his squadron was some 300 seamen short. He informed the Admiralty, who told him to apply to Admiral Norris, commanding the Atlantic Fleet, for what he needed. But Admiral Norris was short of men too, and declined to help. Anson eventually was sent 69 seamen (half from the sick bay ashore and local hospitals) and about 100 Marines.
Anson’s official orders had included, “You are to receive on board.. 500 of our land forces,” but they were not forthcoming either. In a crass decision that ranks high in the long annals of culpable bureaucratic stupidity, the Government sent 500 men from the “Corps of Invalids,” out-patients from Chelsea Hospital who, from age, wounds, or other infirmities, were considered incapable of service in the Army. Anson protested vigorously that these men were entirely unsuitable for the mission, and he was supported by the First Lord of the Admiralty himself, [11] but to no avail. Anson’s own account at this point states, “(Sir Charles Wager) was told that persons, who were supposed to be better judges of soldiers than either he or Mr Anson, thought them to be the properest men to be employed on this occasion.”
Desertion was a constant problem in the days of the press-gang navy. The Wager men on this list (including one called Robinson Cruzoe) have R (= Run or deserted) written against their names. They absconded in the weeks prior to the ship’s departure in September 1740.
Chelsea Hospital’s melancholy memorial to a cruel decision.
Five hundred Chelsea Pensioners were ordered to Portsmouth to make up the Land Force for Commodore Anson’s expedition. Anson protested that these men, mostly aged between 60 and 70, some with missing limbs, were entirely unsuitable, and deserved better of the country they had served. The First Lord of the Admiralty agreed. Both were over-ruled. Those pensioners who
could walk deserted on the road to Portsmouth. The remaining 250 all died of disease, hunger and exhaustion on the voyage.
Of the 500 Invalids, those capable of walking deserted before they could be embarked. Some 259 of the most decrepit were hoisted aboard the ships of the squadron because, accounts say, they could not even climb the ladders to reach the deck. Most of them were over 60 years of age, some over 70; and it is almost certain that they all died on the voyage. Anson’s Voyage[12] comments:
It is difficult to conceive a more moving scene than the embarkation of these unhappy veterans. They were themselves extremely averse to the service they were engaged in, and fully apprised of all the disasters they were afterwards exposed to, the apprehensions of which were strongly marked by the concern that appeared in their countenances, which was mixed with no small degree of indignation, to be thus hurried from their repose into a fatiguing employ to which neither the strength of their bodies nor the vigour of their minds were in any way proportioned, and where, without seeing the face of an enemy.. they would in all probability uselessly perish.
Two hundred and ten marines, raw recruits and probably pressed, made up the number.
The Wager therefore sailed short-handed, and with her living spaces severely overcrowded by an extra 142 marines and pensioners and a large quantity of stores for the whole squadron.
Adverse winds caused further delays. Anson’s squadron finally departed, much too late, on 18th September 1740. The London Daily Post duly told the world, “Yesterday sailed from St Helen’s Commodore Anson in the Centurion, in company with the Severn, Gloucester, Pearl, Wager, and Tryall, for the Great South Sea.”
Soon after this Captain Kidd died of some unknown cause. Later it was alleged that with his last breath he had foretold that the voyage of the Wager would end in “poverty, vermin, famine, death, and destruction,” but this looks suspiciously like second-guessing by superstitious yarn-spinners. He was relieved, after some further adjustments, by the Centurion’s 47-year-old Scottish First Lieutenant who was now given a temporary promotion and appointed to his first command, Captain David Cheap.