The Wager Disaster

by C. H. Layman

  It is natural to think that, to men thus upon the point of perishing by shipwreck, the getting to land was the highest attainment of their wishes. Undoubtedly it was a desirable event; yet, all things considered, our condition was but little mended by the change. Whichever way we looked a scene of horror presented itself. On one side the wreck (in which was all we had in the world to support and subsist us), together with a boisterous sea, presented us with the most dreary prospect; on the other, the land did not wear a much more favourable appearance: desolate and barren, without sign of culture, we could hope to receive little other benefit from it than the preservation it afforded us from the sea. It must be confessed this was a great and merciful deliverance from immediate destruction; but then we had wet, cold, and hunger to struggle with, and no visible remedy against any of these evils.

  Exerting ourselves, however, though faint, benumbed, and almost helpless, to find some wretched covert against the extreme inclemency of the weather, we discovered an Indian hut at a small distance from the beach within a wood, in which as many as possible without distinction crowded themselves, the night coming on exceedingly tempestuous and rainy. But here our situation was such as to exclude all rest and refreshment by sleep from most of us; for besides that we pressed upon one another extremely, we were not without our alarms and apprehensions of being attacked by the Indians, from a discovery we made of some of their lances and other arms in our hut; and our uncertainty of their strength and disposition gave alarm to our imagination, and kept us in continual anxiety.

  The original frontispiece of Byron’s Narrative.

  This is a fairly imaginative artist’s impression of Cheap’s Bay just after the shipwreck, with the Wager breaking up in the background – but it is to be feared that the scene was not as orderly as this.

  In this miserable hovel one of our company, a Lieutenant of Invalids, died this night; and of those who for want of room took shelter under a great tree, which stood them in very little stead, two more perished by the severity of that cold and rainy night.

  In the morning the calls of hunger, which had been hitherto suppressed by our attention to more immediate dangers and difficulties, were now become too importunate to be resisted. We had most of us fasted eight and forty hours, some more; it was time, therefore, to make inquiry among ourselves what store of sustenance had been brought from the wreck by the providence of some, and what could be procured on the island by the industry of others. But the produce of the one amounted to no more than two or three pounds of biscuit dust reserved in a bag, and all the success of those who ventured abroad, the weather being still exceedingly bad, was to kill one seagull and pick some wild celery.[11] These, therefore, were immediately put into a pot with the addition of a large quantity of water, and made into a kind of soup, of which each partook as far as it would go; but we had no sooner thrown this down than we were seized with the most painful sickness at our stomachs, violent retchings, swoonings, and other symptoms of being poisoned. This was imputed to various causes, but in general to the herbs we made use of, in the nature and quality of which we fancied ourselves mistaken. But a little further inquiry let us into the real occasion of it, which was no other than this: the biscuit dust was the sweepings of the bread room, but the bag in which they were put had been a tobacco bag, the contents of which not being entirely taken out, what remained mixed with the biscuit dust, and proved a strong emetic.

  We were in all about a hundred and forty who had got to shore; but some few remained still on board, detained either by drunkenness or a view of pillaging the wreck, among which was the Boatswain. These were visited by an officer in the yawl, who was to endeavour to prevail upon them to join the rest; but finding them in the greatest disorder, and disposed to mutiny, he was obliged to desist from his purpose, and return without them.

  Though we were very desirous, and our necessities required, that we should take some survey of the land we were upon, yet being strongly prepossessed that the savages were retired but some little distance from us, and waited to see us divided, our parties did not make this day any great excursions from the hut; but as far as we went, we found it very morassy and unpromising. The spot which we occupied was a bay formed by hilly promontories; that to the south so exceeding steep, that in order to ascend it (for there was no going round, the bottom being washed by the sea) we were at the labour of cutting steps. This, which we called Mount Misery, was of use to us in taking some observations afterwards, when the weather would permit; the other promontory was not so inaccessible. Beyond this I with some others, having reached another bay, found driven ashore some parts of the wreck, but no kind of provision, nor did we meet with any shellfish, which we were chiefly in search of. We therefore returned to the rest, and for that day made no other repast than what the wild celery afforded us.

  This dramatic engraving comes from “Loss of the Wager Man of War, one of Commodore Anson’s Squadron…and the Embarrassments of the Crew, Separation, Mutinous Disposition, Narrow Escapes, Imprisonment and other Distresses.” It was published in 1809, showing that even 60 years after the event interest in the story was still alive.

  Chapter 4

  The Captain Shoots an Officer

  Wager Island, 15th April 1741. Shortage of food (but not liquor) makes the men turbulent, undisciplined and almost ungovernable. Some Indians appear in canoes and a little food is bartered for, but pilfering of stores is difficult to prevent. Eight men desert and are never heard of again. Midshipman Cozens becomes drunk and insubordinate, and the Captain shoots him as a mutineer, greatly increasing resentment and ill-will.

  From Midshipman Byron’s narrative.

  The ensuing night proved exceedingly tempestuous; and the sea running very high threatened those on board with immediate destruction by the parting of the wreck. They then were as solicitous to get ashore, as they were before obstinate in refusing the assistance we sent them; and when they found the boat did not come to their relief at the instant they expected it, without considering how impracticable a thing it was to send it them in such a sea, they fired one of the quarter-deck guns at the hut, the ball of which did but just pass over the covering of it, and was plainly heard by the Captain and us who were within. Another attempt, therefore, was made to bring these madmen to land; which, however, by the violence of the sea, and other impediments occasioned by the mast that lay alongside, proved ineffectual.

  This unavoidable delay made the people on board outrageous; they fell to beating everything to pieces that fell in the way; and, carrying their intemperance to the greatest excess, broke open chests and cabins for plunder that could be of no use to them. And so earnest were they in this wantonness of theft that one man had evidently been murdered on account of some division of the spoil, or for the sake of the share that fell to him, having all the marks of a strangled corpse. One thing in this outrage they seemed particularly attentive to was to provide themselves with arms and ammunition, in order to support them in putting their mutinous designs in execution, and asserting their claim to a lawless exemption from the authority of their officers, which they pretended must cease with the loss of the ship. But of these arms, which we stood in great need of, they were soon bereaved upon coming ashore, by the resolution of Captain Cheap and Lieutenant Hamilton of the marines.

  Among these mutineers who had been left on board, as I observed before, was the Boatswain, who instead of exerting the authority he had over the rest, to keep them within bounds as much as possible, was himself a ringleader in their riot. Him, without respect to the figure he then made (for he was in laced clothes[12]), Captain Cheap, by a blow well laid on with his cane, felled to the ground. It was scarce possible to refrain from laughter at the whimsical appearance these fellows made, who, having rifled the chests of the officers’ best suits, had put them on over their greasy trousers and dirty checked shirts. They were soon stripped of their finery, as they had before been obliged to resign their arms.

  The incessant rains and exceeding
cold weather in this climate rendered it impossible for us to subsist long without shelter; and the hut being much too little to receive us all, it was necessary to fall upon some expedient without delay which might serve our purpose. Accordingly the Gunner, the Carpenter, and some more, turning the cutter keel upwards, and fixing it upon props, made no despicable habitation.

  Having thus established some sort of settlement, we had the more leisure to look about us, and to make our researches with greater accuracy than we had before after such supplies as the most desolate coasts are seldom unfurnished with. Accordingly we soon provided ourselves with some sea-fowl, and found limpets, mussels, and other shellfish in tolerable abundance; but this rummaging of the shore was now becoming exceedingly irksome to those who had any feeling, by the bodies of our drowned people thrown among the rocks, some of which were hideous spectacles from the mangled condition they were in by the violent surf that drove in upon the coast. These horrors were overcome by the distresses of our people, who were even glad of the occasion of killing the gallinazo[13] (the carrion crow of that country) while preying on these carcasses, in order to make a meal of them. But a provision by no means proportional to the number of mouths to be fed could, by our utmost industry, be acquired from that part of the island we had hitherto traversed. Therefore till we were in a capacity of making more distant excursions, the wreck was to be applied to as often as possible for such supplies as could be got out of her.

  But this was a very precarious fund in its present situation, and at best could not last us long, considering too that it was very uncertain how long we might be detained upon this island. The stores and provision we were so fortunate as to retrieve were not only to be dealt out with the most frugal economy, but a sufficient quantity if possible laid by to fit us out, whenever we could agree upon any method of transporting ourselves from this dreary spot. The difficulties we had to encounter in these visits to the wreck cannot be easily described; for no part of it being above water except the quarterdeck and part of the forecastle, we were usually obliged to purchase such things as were within reach by large hooks fastened to poles, in which business we were much incommoded by the dead bodies floating between decks.

  In order to secure what we thus got in a manner to answer the ends and purposes above-mentioned, Captain Cheap ordered a store-tent to be erected near his hut as a repository, from which nothing was to be dealt out but in the measure and proportion agreed upon by the officers.

  And though it was very hard upon us petty officers,[14] who were fatigued with hunting all day in quest of food, to defend this tent from invasion by night, no other means could be devised for this purpose so effectual as the committing this charge to our care; and we were accordingly ordered to divide the task equally between us. Yet, notwithstanding our utmost vigilance and care, frequent robberies were committed upon our trust, the tent being accessible in more than one place. And one night when I had the watch, hearing a stir within, I came unawares upon the thief, and presenting a pistol to his breast obliged him to submit to be tied up to a post, till I had an opportunity of securing him more effectually.

  Depredations continued to be made on our reserved stock, notwithstanding the great hazard attending such attempts; for our common safety made it necessary to punish them with the utmost rigour. This will not be wondered at when it is known how little the allowance which might consistently be dispensed from thence, was proportional to our common exigencies; so that our daily and nightly task of roving after food, was not in the least relaxed thereby; and all put together was so far from answering our necessities that many at this time perished with hunger. A boy, when no other eatables could be found, having picked up the liver of one of the drowned men (whose carcass had been torn to pieces by the force with which the sea drove it among the rocks) was with much difficulty withheld from making a meal of it. The men were so assiduous in their research after the few things which drove from the wreck, that in order to have no sharers of their good fortune, they examined the shore no less by night than by day; so that many of those who were less alert, or not so fortunate as their neighbours, perished with hunger or were driven to the last extremity.

  It must be observed that on the 14th of May we were cast away, and it was not till the 25th of this month, that provision was served regularly from the store tent.

  The land we were now settled upon was about 90 leagues[15] to the northward of the western mouth of the Straits of Magellan, in the latitude of between 47 and 48 degrees south, from whence we could plainly see the Cordilleras; and by two lagoons on the north and south of us, stretching towards those mountains, we conjectured it was an island. But as yet we had no means of informing ourselves perfectly whether it was an island or the main; for besides that the inland parts at little distance from us seemed impracticable, from the exceeding great thickness of the wood, we had hitherto been in such confusion and want (each finding full employment for his time in scraping together a wretched subsistence, and providing shelter against the cold and rain) that no party could be formed to go upon discoveries. The climate and season too were utterly unfavourable to adventures, and the coast as far as our eye could stretch seaward a scene of such dismal breakers as would discourage the most daring from making attempts in small boats. Nor were we assisted in our inquiries by any observation that could be made from that eminence we called Mount Misery toward land, our prospect that way being intercepted by still higher hills and lofty woods. We had therefore no other expedient by means of which to come at this knowledge but by fitting out one of our ship’s boats[16] upon some discovery, to inform us of our situation. Our long-boat was still on board the wreck; therefore a number of hands were now dispatched to cut the gunwale[17] of the ship in order to get her out.

  Whilst we were employed in this business there appeared three canoes of Indians paddling towards us; they had come round the point from the southern lagoons. It was some time before we could prevail upon them to lay aside their fears and approach us, which at length they were induced to do by the signs of friendship we made them, and by showing some bale goods,[18] which they accepted, and suffered themselves to be conducted to the Captain, who made them likewise some presents. They were strangely affected with the novelty thereof, but chiefly when shown the looking-glass, in which the beholder could not conceive it to be his own face that was represented, but that of some other behind it, which he therefore went round to the back of the glass to find out.

  These people were of a small stature, very swarthy, having long, black, coarse hair hanging over their faces. It was evident from their great surprise and every part of their behaviour, as well as their not having one thing in their possession which could be derived from white people, that they had never seen such. Their clothing was nothing but a bit of some beast’s skin about their waists, and something woven from feathers over the shoulders; and as they uttered no word of any language we had ever heard, nor had any method of making themselves understood, we presumed they could have had no intercourse with Europeans.

  These savages, who upon their departure left us a few mussels, returned in two days and surprised us by bringing three sheep. From whence they could procure these animals in a part of the world so distant from any Spanish settlement, cut off from all communication with the Spaniards by an inaccessible coast and unprofitable country, is difficult to conceive. Certain it is that we saw no such creatures, nor ever heard of any such, from the Straits of Magellan, till we got into the neighbourhood of Chiloé. It must be by some strange accident that these creatures came into their possession, but what that was we never could learn from them. At this interview we bartered with them for a dog or two, which we roasted and ate. In a few days after they made us another visit, and bringing their wives with them, took up their abode with us for some days, then again left us.

  Whenever the weather permitted, which was now grown something drier but exceeding cold, we employed ourselves about the wreck, from which we had at sundry times recovered seve
ral articles of provision and liquor. These were deposited in the store tent.

  Ill-humour and discontent, from the difficulties we laboured under in procuring subsistence, and the little prospect there was of any amendment in our condition, were now breaking out apace. In some it showed itself by a separation of settlement and habitation; in others, by a resolution of leaving the Captain entirely, and making a wild journey by themselves, without determining upon any plan whatever. For my own part, seeing it was the fashion, and liking none of their parties, I built a little hut just big enough for myself and a poor Indian dog I found in the woods, who could shift for himself along shore at low water by getting limpets. This creature grew so fond of me and faithful that he would suffer nobody to come near the hut without biting them.

  Besides those seceders I mentioned, some laid a scheme of deserting us entirely; these were in number ten, the greatest part of them a most desperate and abandoned crew, who, to strike a notable stroke before they went off, placed half a barrel of gunpowder close to the Captain’s hut, laid a train to it, and were just preparing to perpetrate their wicked design of blowing up their commander, when they were with difficulty dissuaded from it by one who had some bowels and remorse of conscience left in him. These wretches, after rambling some time in the woods and finding it impracticable to get off, for they were then convinced that we were not upon the mainland as they had imagined when they first left us, but upon an island within four or five leagues of it, returned and settled about a league from us. However they were still determined, as soon as they could procure craft fit for their purpose, to get to the main. But before they could effect this we found means to prevail upon the Armourer and one of the carpenter’s crew, two very useful men to us, who had imprudently joined them, to come over again to their duty. The rest (one or two excepted) having built a punt, and converted the hull of one of the ship’s masts into a canoe, went away up one of the lagoons and never were heard of more.