Madi’s Reviews > The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder > Status Update
Madi
is on page 220 of 352
In March 1742, Baynes fled on a boat for England. He wanted to arrive before the others and get his story on the record first. It took months for Bulkeley and Cummins to secure passage on another vessel, and when they stopped along the way in Portugal, they were informed by several English merchants at the port there that Baynes had already made damning accusations against them.
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— Dec 11, 2025 05:34PM
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Madi
is on page 252 of 352
Yet, no matter which story prevailed, the trial would surely expose how the officers and seamen—part of that vanguard of the British Empire—had descended into anarchy and savagery. The sad spectacle might even supplant the glorious tale of Anson’s capturing the galleon.
— Dec 11, 2025 06:26PM
Madi
is on page 251 of 352
Because of the sheer number of accounts—including those of dubious provenance—perceptions of the Wager affair varied from reader to reader. Bulkeley, whose journal kept being pilfered by hacks, was incensed when he realized that it was increasingly being regarded with suspicion, as if it, too, might be fake.
— Dec 11, 2025 06:23PM
Madi
is on page 240 of 352
Amid all the hoopla, the scandalous Wager affair seemed to blissfully fade away. But almost two years later, on a March day in 1746, a boat arrived in Dover, carrying a thin, stern man with eyes fixed like bayonets. It was the long-lost Captain David Cheap, and accompanying him were the marine lieutenant, Thomas Hamilton, and the midshipman John Byron.
— Dec 11, 2025 05:36PM
Madi
is on page 239 of 352
Spain’s colonial plunder was now Britain’s. It was the largest treasure ever seized by a British naval commander—the equivalent today of nearly $80 million. Anson and his party had captured the greatest prize of all the oceans.
— Dec 11, 2025 05:35PM
Madi
is on page 220 of 352
“We were even advised by some of our friends there not to return to our country, lest we should suffer death for mutiny,” Bulkeley wrote.
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— Dec 11, 2025 05:35PM
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Madi
is on page 202 of 352
Bulkeley learned that the War of Jenkins’ Ear had dragged on, and he sent off a letter to a British naval officer in Rio de Janeiro to inform him of his group’s arrival. And he mentioned one other thing: that Captain Cheap had, “at his own request, tarried behind.”
— Dec 10, 2025 06:50PM
Madi
is on page 182 of 352
The castaways had decided that it was too “dangerous to suffer the Captain any longer to enjoy liberty,” Bulkeley wrote. And this time Lieutenant Baynes had joined the rebellion.
Cheap looked bewildered, and turning to Bulkeley and the other officers, he said, “Gentlemen, do you know what you have done?"
— Dec 10, 2025 06:49PM
Cheap looked bewildered, and turning to Bulkeley and the other officers, he said, “Gentlemen, do you know what you have done?"
Madi
is on page 73 of 352
The Wager’s surgeon, Henry Ettrick, set up a sick bay on the lower deck, which had more room to sling hammocks than the operating area in the midshipmen’s berth. (When ailing seamen were shielded belowdecks from the adverse elements outside, they were said to be “under the weather.”)
— Dec 09, 2025 10:37AM
Madi
is on page 13 of 352
But these men believed their very lives depended on the stories they told. If they failed to provide a convincing tale, they could be secured to a ship’s yardarm and hanged.
— Dec 08, 2025 08:00PM
