The wager, p.28
The Wager, page 28
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“I never knew”: Byron, The Narrative of the Honourable John Byron, 39.
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a fiddler: Byron recalled how on one voyage an officer “played on the fiddle & some of our people danced.”
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They cut off: Charles Harding Firth, Naval Songs and Ballads, 172.
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“the most surprising”: Robert E. Gallagher, ed., Byron´s Journal of His Circumnavigation, 1764–1766, 35.
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“They struck”: Thompson, Sailor’s Letters, vol. 2, 166.
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“I can bear”: Bulkeley and Cummins, A Voyage to the South Seas, 77.
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“The first time”: Herman Melville, Redburn: His First Voyage: Being the Sailor-Boy Confession and Reminiscences of the Son-of-a-Gentleman, in the Merchant Service, 132–33.
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As Byron now: After many repetitions climbing the mainmast, Byron would write with cool nonchalance how he “went up immediately.”
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“designed by Providence”: Walter, A Voyage Round the World, 17.
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“The difficulties”: Ibid., 11.
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“Having been”: Letter from Captain Norris to Anson, Nov. 2, 1740, TNA-ADM 1/1439.
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“Cowardice, Negligence”: N. A. M. Rodger, Articles of War: The Statutes Which Governed Our Fighting Navies, 1661, 1749, and 1886, 24.
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“rather a puny”: John Nichols, Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, 782.
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“Fye upon it”: Berkenhout, “A Volume of Letters from Dr. Berkenhout to His Son, at the University of Cambridge,” 116.
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“quit” his: Walter, A Voyage Round the World, 18.
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“greatest signs”: “An Appendix to the Minutes Taken at a Court-Martial, Appointed to Enquire into the Conduct of Captain Richard Norris,” 24.
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“remove that infamy”: Letter from Captain Norris to the Admiralty, Sept. 18, 1744, TNA-ADM 1/2217.
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“worthy and humane”: Anon., A Voyage to the South-Seas, and to Many Other Parts of the World, Performed from the Month of September in the Year 1740, to June 1744, by Commodore Anson…by an Officer of the Squadron, 18.
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“courting the favour”: W. H. Long, ed., Naval Yarns of Sea Fights and Wrecks, Pirates and Privateers from 1616–1831 as Told by Men of Wars’ Men, 86.
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all the “intelligence”: Andrew Stone to Anson, Aug. 7, 1740, printed in Williams, ed., Documents Relating to Anson’s Voyage Round the World, 53.
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“intended to put”: Walter, A Voyage Round the World, 19.
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“In strength”: Ibid., 20.
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CHAPTER 3
“never seen”: Quoted in Adkins and Adkins, Jack Tar, 270.
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the ship’s great guns: For more information on how the men on British naval warships prepared for battle, see Adkins and Adkins’s Jack Tar; Patrick O’Brian’s Men-of-War: Life in Nelson’s Navy; Tim Clayton’s Tars: The Men Who Made Britain Rule the Waves; G. J. Marcus’s Heart of Oak; Lavery’s Shipboard Life and Organisation; and Rodger’s The Wooden World. Also see the many firsthand accounts by seamen, including those by William Dillon and Samuel Leech.
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guns were blazing: During practice, many guns fired blanks to conserve ammunition.
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“laugh at vindictive”: Chamier, The Life of a Sailor, 93.
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“A gunner at”: William Monson, Sir William Monson’s Naval Tracts: In Six Books, 342.
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“Garden of the”: Bulkeley and Cummins, A Voyage to the South Seas, xxi.
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“prayer had been”: Ibid., 45.
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“make a man”: Thomas à Kempis, The Christian’s Pattern, or, A Treatise of the Imitation of Jesus Christ, 19.
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“the life”: Ibid., 20.
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“the terror of”: Bulkeley and Cummins, A Voyage to the South Seas, xxi.
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“sober, careful”: William Mountaine, The Practical Sea-Gunner’s Companion, or, An Introduction to the Art of Gunnery, ii.
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“lowest station”: Ibid.
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“Tho’ I was”: Bulkeley and Cummins, A Voyage to the South Seas, 5.
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“degenerate” practice: Ibid., xxiii.
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“In the time-honoured”: Rodger, The Wooden World, 20.
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“He compelled”: Bulkeley and Cummins, A Voyage to the South Seas, 136.
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“These volumes”: For my understanding of logbooks and sea narratives, I’m especially indebted to two excellent sources. They are Philip Edwards’s The Story of the Voyage: Sea-Narratives in Eighteenth-Century England and Paul A. Gilje’s To Swear Like a Sailor: Maritime Culture in America, 1750–1850.
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“tedious accounts”: Daniel Defoe, The Novels and Miscellaneous Works of Daniel Defoe, 194.
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Bold were: Bulkeley and Cummins, A Voyage to the South Seas, front page.
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“logbooks of memory”: Gilje, To Swear Like a Sailor, 66.
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“carefully kept”: R. H. Dana, The Seaman’s Friend: A Treatise on Practical Seamanship, 200.
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These logbooks: For more information on the growing interest in sea narratives during this era, see Edwards’s The Story of the Voyage.
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“in our present”: Quoted in Edwards, The Story of the Voyage, 3.
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“unequal” he: Lawrence Millechamp, A Narrative of Commodore Anson’s Voyage into the Great South Sea and Round the World, NMM-JOD/36.
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line of battle: For more information on naval battle tactics, see Sam Willis’s insightful book Fighting at Sea in the Eighteenth Century: The Art of Sailing Warfare.
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This formation: The naval historian Sam Willis writes that this line of battle formation was considered “the holy grail of fleet performance.”
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“surprise and confound”: Quoted in Willis, Fighting at Sea in the Eighteenth Century, 137.
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“Masthead there”: Leech, Thirty Years from Home, 83.
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invisible siege: For more information on the typhus epidemic that bedeviled the expedition, see, among other sources, Heaps’s Log of the Centurion; Keppel’s The Life of Augustus, Viscount Keppel, Admiral of the White, and First Lord of the Admiralty in 1782–3, vol. 1; Pascoe Thomas’s A True and Impartial Journal of a Voyage to the South-Seas; Boyle Somerville’s Commodore Anson’s Voyage into the South Seas and Around the World; Walter’s A Voyage Round the World; and Williams’s The Prize of All the Oceans. Also see the various logbooks and muster books kept on each ship in Anson’s squadron, which provide a vivid and unnerving record of the enormous toll.
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“Our men grew”: Keppel, The Life of Augustus, Viscount Keppel, Admiral of the White, and First Lord of the Admiralty in 1782–3, vol. 1, 24.
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“machine for reducing”: Henry Ettrick, “The Description and Draught of a Machine for Reducing Fractures of the Thigh,” Philosophical Transactions 459, XLI (1741), 562.
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“flow of words”: Pascoe Thomas, A True and Impartial Journal of a Voyage to the South-Seas, 142.
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“for a man”: Millechamp, A Narrative of Commodore Anson’s Voyage into the Great South Sea and Round the World, NMM-JOD/36.
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“These a certain”: The Spectator, August 25 and September 1, 1744.
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“I was much”: Tobias Smollett, The Works of Tobias Smollett: The Adventures of Roderick Random, vol. 2, 54.
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“dropping silent tears”: Quoted in H. G. Thursfield, ed., Five Naval Journals, 1789–1817, 35.
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According to tradition: For further information on the rituals for burial at sea, see, among other sources, Adkins and Adkins’s Jack Tar; Baynham’s From the Lower Deck; Joan Druett’s Rough Medicine: Surgeons at Sea in the Age of Sail; Pope’s Life in Nelson’s Navy; Rex Hickox’s 18th Century Royal Navy; and Thursfield’s Five Naval Journals, 1789–1817.
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“Death is at”: Dana, Two Years Before the Mast, and Twenty-Four Years After, 37.
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“sinners from”: John Woodall’s De Peste, or the Plague, preface.
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“The Industry store-ship”: Bulkeley and Cummins, A Voyage to the South Seas, 2.
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more than sixty-five: The tally of the deaths is based on my examination of the muster books of the Pearl, the Centurion, the Severn, and the Gloucester. Because many of the Wager’s records were lost during the wreck, it is not possible to give a precise number of the deaths its company suffered from typhus, though they were considerable. I also do not include any deaths suffered on the Trial sloop and the two cargo ships, the Industry and the Anna. As a result, the figure I cite is conservative, and even so it shows that the toll was much greater than has generally been reported.
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“not only terrible”: Walter, A Voyage Round the World, 42.
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“looked like blood”: Bulkeley and Cummins. A Voyage to the South Seas, 4.
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“We saw the”: Ibid., 3.
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“fled hither”: Thomas, A True and Impartial Journal of a Voyage to the South-Seas, 12.
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“very singular bird”: Quoted in Keppel, The Life of Augustus, Viscount Keppel, Admiral of the White, and First Lord of the Admiralty in 1782–3, vol. 1, 26.
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“One might imagine”: Ibid.
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the sickness: Typhus was no longer the sole cause of their suffering. Some of them had likely contracted yellow fever and malaria. Though the men complained of venomous mosquitoes, they did not realize these insects transmitted such potentially fatal illnesses. Instead, many officers attributed the fevers to the atmospheric conditions—what the schoolmaster, Thomas, called the “violent heat of the climate, and the bad air.” The very name malaria reflects this misconception: it derives from the Italian words mala and aria, meaning bad air.
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“absolutely necessary”: Thomas, A True and Impartial Journal of a Voyage to the South-Seas, 10.
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“cut and bruised”: Millechamp, A Narrative of Commodore Anson’s Voyage into the Great South Sea and Round the World, NMM-JOD/36.
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“We lost sight”: Bulkeley and Cummins, A Voyage to the South Seas, 3.
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“They came within”: Lieutenant Salt’s report to the Admiralty, July 8, 1741, TNA-ADM 1/2099.
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“I regret to”: Somerville, Commodore Anson’s Voyage into the South Seas and Around the World, 28.
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“brave fellows”: Anon., A Voyage to the South-Seas, and to Many Other Parts of the World, Performed from the Month of September in the Year 1740, to June 1744, by Commodore Anson…by an Officer of the Squadron, 19.
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“advancement in”: Will and testament of Dandy Kidd, TNA-PROB 11.
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those despots: Tyrannical captains were much less common than widely portrayed over the years. When a captain earned a reputation for excessive cruelty, he quickly found few would go to sea with him. The Admiralty also tried to root out these figures, if not for humane reasons, then for practical ones: an unhappy ship was an ineffectual one. One forecastle man observed that well-treated crews always outperformed those who felt “so degraded at being wantonly and unmanly beaten about, that their spirits were partly broken.”
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“How shall thy”: Kempis, The Christian’s Pattern, 41.
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“It would end”: Bulkeley and Cummins, A Voyage to the South Seas, 4.
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CHAPTER 4
“command of temper”: Scott, Recollections of a Naval Life, 41.
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“faithful to that”: Joseph Conrad, Complete Short Stories, 688.
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Articles of War: For more information on these rules and regulations, see Rodger’s Articles of War: The Statutes Which Governed Our Fighting Navies, 1661, 1749, and 1886.
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round Cape Horn: In describing the conditions around Cape Horn, I relied on the firsthand journals and logbooks of seamen, especially those on Anson’s voyage. I also benefited from various published accounts, including Adrian Flanagan’s The Cape Horners’ Club: Tales of Triumph and Disaster at the World’s Most Feared Cape; Richard Hough’s The Blind Horn’s Hate; Robin Knox-Johnston’s Cape Horn: A Maritime History; Dallas Murphy’s Rounding the Horn: Being a Story of Williwaws and Windjammers, Drake, Darwin, Murdered Missionaries and Naked Natives—a Deck’s Eye View of Cape Horn; and William F. Stark and Peter Stark’s The Last Time Around Cape Horn: The Historic 1949 Voyage of the Windjammer Pamir.
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a British expedition: Francis Drake on his expedition passed through the Strait of Magellan, but on the western coast of Patagonia his ship got caught in a storm and was blown near Cape Horn. Though he didn’t round the Horn, he found the route, which was later named the Drake Passage.
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“the most mad”: Quoted in David Laing Purves, The English Circumnavigators: The Most Remarkable Voyages Round the World, 59.
