Book Review of “The Wager” by David Grann

Posted on December 17, 2023 by Richard H. McBee Jr.

The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Author David Grann recounts a seafaring adventure like non other from the mid 1700’s. The British scheme to hijack and capture a Spanish galleon carrying a king’s ransom worth of Peruvian silver ingots and coins is to be carried out by a squadron of five British warships under the command of a Commodore Anson. One of these ships, HMS The Wager, is placed under the command of up-and-coming Captain Cheap who revels in the idea that he will have battles befitting his desire to become a war hero. When the flotilla departs Britain, they are hounded across a section of the Atlantic by warships under the command of Don Jose Pizarro. After typhus strikes the crew and they finally reach neutral Brazil for a respite, the fleet continues south to Cape Horn despite continued disease, scurvy and malcontent withing the sailors. Disaster strikes south of the Horn, separating the ships and leaving The Wager alone, damaged and essentially unable to sail, off the coast of southern Chile. When the weathered ship finally is blown into rocks off an uninhabited coastal island, she is abandoned, raided of her stores, lifeboats, weapons and gunpowder. The fragmented survivors set up camps for each faction on the island and try to survive on limpets and seaweed as summer ends and the cold Chilean winter sweeps in from the Antarctic south. What ensues is an adult real-life version of Golding’s “Lord of the Flies”, leading to near mutiny, death, starvation and feuding that eventually sends the few survivors off in tiny makeshift boats in different directions. Captain Cheap and his remaining followers headed North toward Chiloe Island governed by the Spanish. Meanwhile, the Gunner, Bulkeley and a larger group head south to weather Magellan’s Strait in hopes of reaching England. The few survivors who do make it back to Britain then must convince the Admiralty and public that they are not mutineers and subject to justice by being swung from a yardarm. The book is a masterful piece of British Naval history, and well worth the read for anyone interested in the human ability to survive under the most horrendous of conditions at sea.