This article is taken from the August-September 2023 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10.

John Byron is part of British naval folklore. The son of nobility and Lord Byron’s grandfather, he served in the Royal Navy as an officer, captain and vice-admiral. He was nicknamed “Foul-Weather Jack” due to his uncanny ability to confront terrible weather conditions on the high seas, and he was immortalised in a 1759 portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds.

Byron had another unusual claim to fame. He was a midshipman aboard the HMS Wager, a square-rigged sixth-rate vessel that was wrecked on the south coast of Chile in 1742 and witnessed a mutiny. Byron wasn’t a mutineer, but he had a bird’s-eye view: his account was included in his 1768 autobiography, The Narrative of the Honourable John Byron.

David Grann, one of America’s finest authors and long-form journalists, came across Byron’s long-forgotten tale in 2016. “When they’re on that island, it became almost like a laboratory, testing human nature under extraordinary circumstances,” he told the New York Times in April. “This is a story about the disintegration of a floating civilisation.”

Grann set out to write the definitive story of how this mutiny came to pass. He researched it for six years, using ship logbooks, journals and survivors’ accounts. The end result, The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, accomplishes his lofty goal — and more. 

The author focuses on what he called the “bastard of the fleet”. The Navy purchased the Wager from the East India Company in 1739 when it required more ships. This “tubby and unwieldy” vessel that moved heavy cargo was a “123-foot eyesore”: it had to be gutted for its new role as a man-of-war. Yet, what a tale it would have! 

During the War of Jenkins’ Ear (1739–48) between Britain and Spain, Commodore George Anson formed a squadron to disrupt the Spanish armada. Its goal was to capture the Manila galleon, described as “the prize of all the oceans”. The Wager was part of Anson’s secret mission, along with mightier vessels such as the flagship HMS Centurion and HMS Gloucester.

The squadron set sail in September 1740 with 250 men aboard the fleet’s bastard, including 16-year-old Byron. “How far the Wager seemed from Newstead Abbey, the Byron family estate, with its breathtaking castle, part of which had been built as a monastery in the twelfth century,” Grann writes. Nevertheless, Byron was determined and worked hard to learn the fine art of seamanship. 

When 30 men washed up on Brazil, they were treated like heroes

Dandy Kidd took the Wager’s helm. The 56-year-old “experienced seaman” was apparently a “descendant of the infamous buccaneer William Kidd”. He was respected by his crew, along with the Centurion’s first lieutenant, David Cheap. “A burly Scotsman in his early forties,” Grann noted, “he was in flight — from squabbles with his brother over their inheritance, from creditors chasing him.” This new posting “offered what he longed for: a chance to finally claim a wealthy prize and rise to captain his own ship”.

The opportunity arrived faster than expected. Kidd, now commanding the HMS Pearl, died from “fever”. Captain George Murray, who briefly helmed the Wager, was promoted to the Pearl — and replaced by Cheap. “The men wondered whether Cheap, like Captain Kidd and Commodore Anson, understood that the secret to establishing command was not tyrannizing men but convincing, sympathizing, and inspiring them … or if he would be one of those despots who ruled by the lash.”

One Wager crew member watched with interest: gunner John Bulkeley. He “rarely betrayed emotion”, but mused in his journal about whether this turn of events signalled another trial in the “warfare upon earth”. He referenced Kidd’s soothsayer-like deathbed statement about the expedition: “it would end in poverty, vermin, famine, death and destruction”. 

The book goes into meticulous detail about the Wager’s descent into madness. It was a combination of competing personalities, harsh weather, sickness and a crew turning against its captain. 

Competing narratives developed of what transpired. Bulkeley led one group, whilst Cheap had few allies — Byron amongst them. When 30 men (including Bulkeley) washed up on Brazilian shores in January 1742, they were treated like heroes. That is, until a vessel with a handful of survivors came ashore in Chile six months later, carrying a different message: “They were not heroes — they were mutineers.” 

Grann has masterfully woven together the Wager mutiny’s mysterious details and found places for the puzzle pieces to fit. It’s an engaging book that readers will consume with a hearty appetite — and find themselves hungry for more.