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The Wager — David Grann

Contains spoilers

Overview

David Grann’s The Wager recounts a true 18th0century naval disaster and the battle over what it meant. In 1740, a British squadron under Commodore George Anson secretly sails to strike Spain’s Pacific empire and capture a treasure galleon. One ship, HMS Wager, is wrecked off the Patagonian coast, forcing survivors into a brutal contest with cold, hunger, and each other. When two rival groups later stagger into South America with clashing stories—one hailing a heroic escape, the other alleging mutiny—the struggle to live becomes a struggle to be believed.

At the center are Captain David Cheap, determined to uphold naval authority even on a beach; gunner John Bulkeley, a disciplined seaman whose journal becomes a weapon; and midshipman John Byron, a young observer whose loyalties are tested. Around them loom Anson’s larger expedition and the British Admiralty, along with Indigenous peoples whose aid and withdrawal reshape the castaways’ fate. Grann traces how survival, command, and empire collide, and how the story that prevails can absolve, condemn, or erase.

Plot Summary

The story opens with a shock: in 1742 a shattered boat lands in Brazil carrying thirty survivors who claim to be from His Majesty’s Ship Wager, long presumed lost during Commodore George Anson’s secret mission to seize a Spanish treasure galleon. They are feted for a death0defying escape from a Patagonian shipwreck—until, six months later, three other Wager men arrive in Chile and accuse the first party of mutiny. The Admiralty orders court0martials as rival narratives race into print, establishing the book’s central tension: survival and judgment hinge on who controls the story.

Grann rewinds to 1740. The squadron’s departure is crippled by rot, shortages, winter ice, disease, and desperate press gangs. Ambitious first lieutenant David Cheap pins his hopes on advancement under the austere, capable Anson. On the Wager, sixteen0year0old midshipman John Byron learns the brutal routines of a man0of0war under lieutenant Robert Baynes and master Thomas Clark. After reshuffles at Madeira and St. Catherine, Cheap becomes Wager’s captain. Gunner John Bulkeley, a skilled, devout professional who keeps a private journal, emerges as a crucial organizer as typhus and scurvy begin to ravage the fleet.

Rounding Cape Horn in late season proves catastrophic. With no reliable chronometer, captains navigate by dead reckoning through the Drake Passage’s lethal weather. Cheap saves Wager from destruction in the Strait of Le Maire, briefly winning admiration, but relentless storms and scurvy soon gut the crews. The squadron fragments; the Severn and Pearl disappear, then the Centurion vanishes in a gale. Alone, the crippled Wager is driven into the Gulf of Penas. After officers miss signs of land, the ship strikes rocks at night. Cheap shatters his shoulder in a fall; the rudder is smashed; the hull floods. Miraculously, the wreck wedges between reefs and survivors see an island through the spray.

Evacuation devolves into chaos. With the longboat ruined, men ferry ashore in smaller craft, salvaging scant food, arms, tools, charts, and a Bible. Some officers’ records are missing or destroyed. A renegade group led by boatswain John King and carpenter’s mate James Mitchell drinks and refuses to leave the wreck; when they are finally retrieved, Cheap publicly beats King and strips the plundered finery from the men, reasserting command. The castaways name their bleak refuge Wager Island.

Early survival is precarious: tainted flour sickens the group; shellfish, a cask of beef, and wild celery briefly help. Bulkeley shows practical leadership—turning a cutter into shelter, lighting fires, organizing salvage—even as resentment of Cheap grows. Systematic salvage under strict rationing stabilizes life: tools, clothing, clocks, barrels of provisions, and wild celery ease scurvy; a makeshift village of huts and a hospital arises. Then resources dwindle, thefts resume, and violence returns. The arrival of Kawesqar families transforms prospects with food and knowledge—diving, netting fish, keeping constant fires—but misconduct and predation from Mitchell’s clique rupture trust, and the Kawesqar withdraw, removing a vital lifeline.

With hunger surging, Cheap enforces the Articles of War. Courts0martial impose six hundred lashes and banishment to an islet for store thieves; marines defect to the seceders; one exile soon dies. Fear spirals amid suspected murders. A confrontation with midshipman Henry Cozens escalates during rations: after a misfired pistol, Cheap rushes out and shoots Cozens in the face. The crew edges toward revolt before Cheap, flanked by his few loyal officers, asserts authority and Cozens is moved to the sick tent. With the chief surgeon absent, the surgeon’s mate performs two excruciating operations; Cheap refuses Cozens’ transfer and threatens him. Fourteen days later Cozens dies, and Cheap’s standing with the men collapses.

A desperate project momentarily reunites the camp: carpenter John Cummins leads the recovery and enlargement of the sunken longboat into an open vessel they christen the Speedwell. Behind the effort lies a strategic schism. Cheap secretly plans to sail north to Chiloe9, seize a Spanish trader, and rejoin the mission; Bulkeley, backed by navigators including master Clark, presses to run the Strait of Magellan and north to neutral Brazil. Most sign a petition for Bulkeley’s plan. Cheap debates but refuses limits on his command. As both sides arm, an earthquake rattles the island.

After a failed attempt to confront Cheap, hunger and opportunity drive events. In October 1741, as the rebuilt Speedwell is launched, Bulkeley leads an armed party that seizes Cheap and arrests marine lieutenant Thomas Hamilton. With space and trust exhausted, Bulkeley leaves Cheap on Wager Island with a damaged yawl, meager stores, Elliot the surgeon, Hamilton, and a handful of men. Eighty0one depart in three boats for the Magellan passage. Days later, Byron, tormented by having abandoned his captain, defects with midshipman Alexander Campbell and returns to Cheap with the barge; Bulkeley refuses them rations unless they surrender the boat.

Bulkeley’s voyage becomes a race against starvation. The overpacked Speedwell and cutter thread rock0choked channels and nearly capsize before finding a sanctuary cove he dubs the Port of God’s Mercy. The cutter is finally lost; eleven men request to be set ashore on a barren coast. Confused by a maze of channels, the party backtracks for two weeks before realizing they had already entered the strait. Swept into the Atlantic, they head for Port Desire, slaughter seals, and suffer fatal refeeding. In heavy surf a squall strands eight ashore—including John Duck and Isaac Morris—as the Speedwell, rudder damaged, is blown off. With men dying daily, the Speedwell drifts into Rio Grande, Brazil, on January 28, 1742. Twenty0nine of the original eighty0one survive. The governor calls their arrival a miracle. Bulkeley submits his journal to authorities; his contemporaneous account will become his defense.

Cheap, Byron, and their diminished party attempt to run north in the barge and yawl. Repeated efforts to double a towering cape fail; a storm capsizes the yawl and a man drowns; four marines are left ashore and later vanish. Starving, they retreat to Wager Island. Later, guided by Chono navigators led by Martin, they portage and canoe through a safer route toward Chiloe9. Surgeon Elliot dies en route. Near Chiloe9 the party splits for a final crossing; Cheap is nursed back from the brink in an Indigenous village before Spanish soldiers seize them. After confinement in the condemned hole and months on parole in Santiago—including dinners with Admiral Don Jose9 Pizarro, whose own squadron was wrecked by the Horn—a prisoner exchange returns Cheap, Byron, and Hamilton to England in 1746.

Meanwhile, in Brazil and then England, Bulkeley fights a second battle: to fix the record. Boatswain John King’s allies try to seize his journal; lieutenant Robert Baynes rushes home to denounce Bulkeley and Cummins. Detained by the Admiralty, Bulkeley counters with his written log and is released; he publishes A Voyage to the South-Seas, a plain, seaman’s account that wins public sympathy and casts leaving Cheap as necessity. The Wager scandal is briefly eclipsed by Anson’s spectacular success across the Pacific: in 1743 the Centurion drills relentlessly and, off Samar, defeats the Manila galleon Covadonga, seizing a fortune and returning to London in triumph in 1744.

Cheap’s return reignites the controversy. Grub Street pamphlets multiply; Campbell publishes a defense and decamps to Spanish service. The Admiralty finally convenes a court0martial aboard HMS Prince George in 1746—but limits its scope to the wreck itself. Cheap accuses Baynes of failing to report land; Bulkeley withholds island accusations; all are acquitted regarding the loss except Baynes, who is reprimanded. No court rules on murder, mutiny, or desertion. The Admiralty buries the island scandal to protect imperial prestige, producing, as historians later call it, the mutiny that never was.

Afterward, three of the Speedwell men left ashore—including Isaac Morris—straggle home with a harrowing coda: Spanish captivity and an enslaved Indigenous chief, Orellana, who briefly seizes Don Jose9 Pizarro’s warship before being shot; his followers leap to their deaths rather than return to bondage. John Duck is kidnapped and sold into slavery near Buenos Aires, then erased from the record. Anson orchestrates the bestselling official account, credited to Richard Walter but ghostwritten by Benjamin Robins, which sympathizes with Cheap, minimizes the Wager disaster, and fixes an empire0affirming version.

The epilogue follows fates and memory. Cheap, restored by Anson, captures a Spanish prize and retires wealthy, though obituaries recall he shot a man after the wreck. Bulkeley emigrates to Pennsylvania, republishes his narrative, and vanishes. Byron rises to vice0admiral as Foul0Weather Jack and, decades later, publishes a candid account critical of Cheap. Anson reforms the Navy. On Wager Island, only a few decaying timbers, celery, and limpets remain as mute testimony to ambition, shipwreck, and the versions that won.

Characters

  • David Cheap
    Captain of HMS Wager after mid-voyage reshuffles; enforces the Articles of War ashore, shoots midshipman Henry Cozens, and later leads a failed northern bid via Chiloé before Spanish captivity and return. His rigid defense of authority and contested decisions drive the central conflict and later court-martial.
  • John Bulkeley
    Wager’s gunner and disciplined organizer whose private journal becomes the key counter-narrative. He leads the Speedwell party through the Strait of Magellan to Brazil, publishes his account, and frames leaving Cheap as survival, igniting a public battle over truth.
  • John Byron
    Sixteen-year-old midshipman who learns seamanship, survives the wreck and island ordeal, briefly departs with Bulkeley, then returns to Cheap. Later captured by Spaniards and exchanged, he becomes a crucial witness and eventual author whose perspective shapes posterity.
  • George Anson
    Commodore of the Pacific expedition; loses much of his squadron to storms and scurvy but later captures the Manila galleon, returning in triumph. His influence shields Cheap and, through orchestrated publication, helps fix the official version of events.
  • Robert Baynes
    Wager’s lieutenant who hesitates between Cheap and Bulkeley, ultimately lending the mutineers legitimacy. Reprimanded only for failing to report land at the wreck inquiry, he is central to the leadership vacuum.
  • Alexander Campbell
    Midshipman who first enforces Cheap’s discipline, later signs Bulkeley’s petition, and defects back with Byron to Cheap. He publishes a defense in London before fleeing to Spanish service, becoming a flashpoint in the pamphlet war.
  • Thomas Hamilton
    Marine lieutenant loyal to Cheap who is arrested with him during the mutiny and chooses to remain on Wager Island. He returns to England with Cheap and publicly defends his captain’s reputation.
  • Walter Elliot
    Wager’s surgeon aligned with Cheap; treats the wounded on the island and accompanies Cheap’s northern attempt before dying during the Chono-guided escape. His absence at Cozens’s first surgery fuels damaging rumors.
  • Thomas Harvey
    Purser who guards salvaged stores, helps expose thefts, and later joins Bulkeley’s faction. He survives the strait but dies after overeating seal meat at Port Desire, illustrating the perils of refeeding.
  • John Cummins
    Carpenter whose ingenuity saves the Wager during storms and later rebuilds the sunken longboat into the Speedwell. A key adviser to Bulkeley, he helps steer the party through the strait.
  • John King
    Boatswain who leads early disorder, is publicly beaten by Cheap, and later becomes a hard man in Bulkeley’s crew. He improvises survival measures and is implicated in attempts to seize Bulkeley’s journal.
  • James Mitchell
    Carpenter’s mate and ringleader of the seceders whose thefts and violence destabilize the camp. Suspected in a strangling on the wreck and later disappears after rafting away.
  • Robert Pemberton
    Captain of marines who forms a rival power center ashore, signs Bulkeley’s petition, and drills his men. His defection deepens the split between naval authority and popular sovereignty.
  • Master Thomas Clark
    The Wager’s master and navigator whose dead reckoning is doubted as land looms before the wreck; later supports Bulkeley’s Magellan plan. He dies of starvation aboard the Speedwell; his son soon follows.
  • Peter Plastow
    Captain Cheap’s steward who attends him in isolation and later defects to Bulkeley’s party. His shift underscores Cheap’s shrinking inner circle.
  • Henry Cozens
    Midshipman whose clash with Cheap over discipline and rations ends when Cheap shoots him; two surgeries fail and he dies after fourteen days. His killing dissolves any remaining faith in Cheap.
  • Henry Ettrick
    Surgeon who treats the scurvy-ridden squadron before transferring off the Wager. His dissections and mistaken theories reflect the period’s medical limits.
  • Reverend Richard Walter
    The Centurion’s chaplain and chronicler who documents storms, scurvy, and Anson’s campaign. Later credited as author of the official voyage, which minimizes the Wager scandal.
  • Don José Pizarro
    Spanish admiral hunting Anson whose own squadron is shattered at Cape Horn; later hosts the paroled English survivors in Santiago. His ship also transports prisoners and enslaved Indigenous men.
  • Isaac Morris
    Midshipman stranded ashore when the Speedwell is blown off; survives with Indigenous help, endures Spanish captivity, and returns to publish his narrative, challenging Bulkeley’s omissions.
  • John Duck
    A free Black seaman valued on the Wager who is stranded at Port Desire and later kidnapped and sold into slavery near Buenos Aires, disappearing from the record.
  • William Oram
    Carpenter’s mate coaxed from the seceders to help rebuild the longboat; he reaches Brazil but dies in hospital, a casualty of the Speedwell ordeal.
  • Richard Phipps
    Resourceful seaman who invents rafts for foraging on Wager Island; later chooses to be set ashore from the Speedwell and vanishes from the narrative.
  • Sir James Steuart
    Vice-admiral who presides over the 1746 court-martial aboard HMS Prince George, which addresses only the wreck and pointedly avoids the island’s mutiny and killings.
  • The Kawésqar
    Indigenous canoe people whose food, shelter, and maritime knowledge briefly sustain the castaways before English misconduct drives them away, removing a crucial lifeline.
  • Martin (Chono guide)
    Chono navigator who leads Cheap’s remnant through portages and channels toward Chiloé, enabling their escape when seas make open-boat travel impossible.
  • Orellana
    Indigenous chief enslaved aboard Don José Pizarro’s warship who leads a knife-and-sling revolt; shot dead, his men leap overboard rather than return to bondage.
  • The Admiralty
    Britain’s naval authority that summons court-martials, detains Bulkeley, and ultimately narrows the Wager inquiry to the wreck, burying the island scandal to protect imperial prestige.

Themes

David Grann’s The Wager refracts a single shipwreck into a study of power, storytelling, and the fragility of order. Moving from the squall-swept Horn to courts and printing houses, the book asks how men behave when institutions crack, and who gets to fix the official memory when the seas go calm.

  • Authority and the ethics of command. Naval hierarchy holds only so long as it feeds and protects. Captain David Cheap’s reliance on the Articles of War, his public humiliations, savage floggings, and the shooting of Midshipman Henry Cozens (Chs. 10–14) turn discipline into a cudgel. John Bulkeley’s petitions, then seizure of the Speedwell (Ch. 16), recast mutiny as self-preservation. The court-martial later narrows blame to the “loss of the ship” (Ch. 25), producing, as Grann notes, “the mutiny that never was.”
  • Survival and the unmaking of civility. Scurvy, exposure, and famine strip away ceremony and rank (Chs. 5–8). The makeshift town on Wager Island briefly simulates society—rations, a hospital, even a bell (Ch. 10)—before thefts, lashings, and cannibal whispers return (Ch. 16). The eating of the stray dog (Ch. 12) and the maroonings show how necessity corrodes moral boundaries.
  • Nature versus hubris. The Horn’s weather and the era’s imprecise longitude repeatedly unmask human pretension: the near-destruction off Staten Island (Ch. 4), dead-reckoning errors that misplace the Juan Fernández haven (Ch. 5), the wreck in the Gulf of Penas (Ch. 7), and the “Port of God’s Mercy” (Ch. 18). Against this, Anson’s eventual capture of the Manila galleon (Ch. 22) reads as an anomalous victory snatched from an elemental world.
  • Stories as weapons. Competing narratives fight for legitimacy. Bulkeley’s guarded journal becomes leverage in Brazil and London (Ch. 21); Cheap vows to vindicate himself in court, not print (Ch. 23). The Admiralty’s official version—Walter and Robins’s Voyage—canonizes empire and minimizes the island’s anarchy (Ch. 26), while Byron’s later memoir reopens the wound (Epilogue). Cheap’s shoreline plea—“let my story be told” (Ch. 16)—haunts every retelling.
  • Empire’s blind spots and collateral lives. Press-ganged crews, the ambiguity of pay after shipwreck, and the Admiralty’s image management (Chs. 1, 25) reveal a system that prizes reputation over truth. Indigenous Kawésqar and Chono sustain—and then abandon—the castaways (Chs. 11, 23), their worlds later erased; John Duck is kidnapped into slavery, and Orellana’s doomed revolt at sea flickers briefly in the record (Ch. 26).
  • Brotherhood, choice, and identity. Byron’s return to Cheap (Ch. 17) pits honor against survival, while Speedwell oaths and shared rations (Ch. 16) fracture under fear. In the epilogue, careers and obituaries become verdicts: Cheap prospers yet bears a stain; Bulkeley vanishes; Byron becomes “Foul-Weather Jack”—and, finally, a witness.

Across ice, ink, and law, the book reveals a harsher wager: that who endures long enough to steer the tale decides what a nation remembers.

Chapter Summaries

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