The Wager
by David Grann
Contents
Epilogue
Overview
The epilogue charts the fates of the Wager’s principal survivors and their legacies. David Cheap briefly redeems his career with a rich Spanish prize, while John Bulkeley vanishes after reinventing himself in America. John Byron builds a lauded naval career and finally tells his version. George Anson reforms the Navy, but the Wager’s memory erodes to literature, map names, and a few decaying timbers on a desolate island.
Summary
In England, David Cheap resumes service with Anson’s backing, takes a Spanish ship laden with silver, and retires to wealth and marriage. Even so, his obituary preserves the stain of the Wager, noting he shot a man after the wreck. John Bulkeley emigrates to Pennsylvania, republishes his account while cutting Isaac Morris’s accusation of abandonment, and disappears from the record.
John Byron remains in the Navy, eventually commanding a circumnavigation and earning the nickname Foul-Weather Jack. Haunted by memories and bound by tradition, he stays silent until 1768, when he publishes a candid narrative critical of Cheap’s rashness. Marine Lieutenant Hamilton publicly defends Cheap and condemns Byron’s account as unjust.
Byron’s book draws praise and later inspires his poet grandson. Meanwhile, Admiral George Anson wins further victories but leaves his most enduring mark as an administrator, professionalizing the service and shaping the marine corps, though his fame wanes before newer naval heroes.
The Centurion’s lion figurehead becomes a relic: celebrated, moved to Greenwich Hospital, then neglected and ruined. Writers periodically revive the Wager story—Herman Melville in White-Jacket and Patrick O’Brian in The Unknown Shore—but public memory largely fades.
In Patagonia, map names quietly memorialize the castaways, including the marines left behind. The Chono are eradicated and the Kawésqar reduced to a remnant. On Wager Island, only celery, limpets, and a few rotted hull planks remain, mute traces of the struggle and the ambitions that once converged there.
Who Appears
- David CheapFormer Wager captain; captures a Spanish silver-laden prize, retires wealthy, but the shooting on Wager mars his legacy.
- John ByronSurvivor turned vice-admiral; renowned as Foul-Weather Jack; later publishes a candid narrative critical of Cheap.
- John BulkeleyMutineer and chronicler; emigrates to Pennsylvania, republishes his account minus Morris’s accusation, then vanishes from history.
- George AnsonCommodore turned reformer; wins victories and then reshapes Navy administration, later overshadowed by newer heroes.
- Marine Lieutenant HamiltonStaunch defender of Cheap; accuses Byron’s narrative of doing great injustice to the captain’s memory.
- Isaac MorrisSurvivor whose account Bulkeley partly prints, omitting Morris’s charge of cruel abandonment.
- Byron’s grandson, the poetInspired by his grandfather’s Narrative; echoes the ordeals in verse, including Don Juan.
- Herman MelvilleNovelist who praises the castaways’ narratives in White-Jacket as vivid tales for stormy nights.
- Patrick O’BrianNovelist who adapts the disaster into The Unknown Shore, a precursor to his later naval series.
- Duke of RichmondReceives the Centurion’s lion figurehead, later displayed and ultimately neglected into decay.