THE LOSS OF THE _WAGER_ MAN-OF-WAR
To the modern generation, one of the great adventures of seafaring
history is familiar only in an eloquent reference of Robert Louis
Stevenson, and few readers, I venture to say, have taken the trouble to
delve for the facts which inspired the following tribute in the essay
called “The English Admirals”:
It was by a hazard that we learned the conduct of the four marines
of the _Wager_. There was no room for these brave fellows in the
boat, and they were left behind upon the island to a certain death.
They were soldiers, they said, and knew well enough it was their
business to die; and as their comrades pulled away, they stood upon
the beach, gave three cheers, and cried, “God bless the king!”
Now one or two of those who were in the boat escaped, against all
likelihood, to tell the story. That was a great thing for us; but
surely it cannot, by any possible twisting of human speech, be
construed into anything great for the marines.
You may suppose, if you like, that they died hoping their
behavior would not be forgotten; or you may suppose they thought
nothing of the subject, which is much more likely. What can be
the signification of the word “fame” to a private of marines,
who cannot read and knows nothing of past history beyond the
reminiscences of his grandmother? But whatever supposition you
make, the fact is unchanged; and I suppose their bones were already
white, before the winds and the waves and the humor of Indian
chiefs and governers had decided whether they were to be unknown
and useless martyrs or honored heroes. Indeed, I believe this is
the lesson: if it is for fame that men do brave actions, they are
only silly fellows after all.... If the marines of the _Wager_ gave
three cheers and cried “God bless the king,” it was because they
liked to do things nobly for their own satisfaction. They were
giving their lives, there was no help for that, and they made it a
point of self-respect to give them handsomely.
In 1739 the bitter rivalry between England and Spain for the trade
and treasure of the New World flamed afresh in war. A squadron of six
British men-of-war under Commodore George Anson was sent out to double
Cape Horn and vex the dons in their South American ports and on the
routes of the Pacific where the lumbering galleons steered for Panama
or Manila. With these fighting-vessels went a supply-ship called the
_Wager_, an old East Indiaman which had been armed and filled with
stores of every description. Clumsy, rotten, and overladen, the _Wager_
was no better off for a crew, which consisted of sailors long exiled
on other voyages and pining for home. The military guard was made up
of worn-out old pensioners from Chelsea Hospital, who were very low
in their minds at the prospect of so long and hazardous a cruise.
They could not be called a dashing lot aboard the _Wager_, and as for
the captain of her his name was Cheap, and he was not much better
than that. You shall have the pleasure of damning him as heartily for
yourselves as did his forlorn ship’s company.
The crazy old hooker of a store-ship began to go to pieces as soon as
she encountered the wild gales and swollen seas off the Horn. Decks
were swept, boats smashed, and the mizzenmast carried clean out of her.
Disabled and leaking, the _Wager_ was somehow worked into the Pacific;
but the captain had no charts of the coast, and he blundered along
in the hope of finding the rest of the squadron at the rendezvous,
which was the island of Juan Fernandez. He was warned by the first
lieutenant, the gunner, and other officers that the floating weed, the
flocks of land birds, and the longitude, as they had figured it out,
indicated a lee shore not many miles distant. The gunner was a man of
sorts and he was bold enough to protest:
“Sir, the ship is a perfect wreck; our mizzenmast gone, and all our
people ill or exhausted; there are only twelve fit for duty,--therefore
it may be dangerous to fall in with the land.”
Captain Cheap stubbornly held on until he was disabled by a fall on
deck which dislocated his shoulder, and confined him to his cabin. The
officers were better off without him. On the morning of May 13, 1740,
the carpenter’s keen eyesight discerned the lift of land through a rift
in the cloudy weather, but the others disagreed with him until they saw
a gloomy peak of the Cordilleras. The ship was driving bodily toward
the land, and the utmost exertions were made to crowd her offshore; but
the sails split in the heavy gale, and so few men were fit for duty
that there were no more than three or four active seamen to a watch.
In darkness next morning the _Wager_ struck a sunken rock, and her
ancient timbers collapsed. She split open like a pumpkin, rolled on her
beam-ends, and lodged against other projections of the reef, with the
seas boiling clean over her. Then a mountainous billow or two lifted
her clear, and she went reeling inshore, sinking as she ran. Several
of the sick men were drowned in their hammocks, and others scrambled
on deck to display miraculous recoveries. Because the commander of the
ship was worthless and disabled besides, the discipline of the ship
in this crisis was abominable. The brave men rallied together as by
instinct, and tried to hammer courage and obedience into the frenzied
mob. The mate, Mr. Jones, was a man with his two feet under him, and
he shouted to the cowards:
“Here, lads, let us not be discouraged. Did you never see a ship
amongst breakers before? Come, lend a hand; here is a sheet and there
is a brace; lay hold. I doubt not that we can bring her near enough to
land to save our lives.”
Mr. Jones thought they were all dead men without a ghost of a show of
salvation, as he later confessed, but his exhortations put heart into
them, and he was not one to die without a gallant struggle. Soon the
wreck of the _Wager_ piled up in the breakers between two huge rocks,
where she stayed fast. Dry land was no more than a musket-shot away,
and as soon as daylight came the three boats that were left--the barge,
the cutter, and the yawl--were launched and instantly filled with men,
who tumbled in helter-skelter. The rest of the sailors proceeded to
break open casks of wine and brandy and to get so drunk that several
were drowned in the ship. The suffering Captain Cheap permitted
himself to be lifted out of bed and borne into a boat with most of the
commissioned officers, while the master, gunner, and carpenter, who
were not gentlemen at all, but very ordinary persons, in fact, remained
in the wreck to save what they could of her and to round up the
riotous bluejackets and bear a hand with the surviving invalids.
A hundred and forty people of the _Wager_ found themselves alive,
and nothing more, on the savage and desolate coast of Patagonia. The
boatswain, who was a hard case, had stuck by the ship, but there was
nothing noble in his motive. He led a crowd of kindred spirits, who
vowed they would stay there as long as the liquor held out. When
ordered to abandon the hulk, they threatened mutiny and broached
another cask. During the following night, however, another gale drove
the sea over the wreck, and the rogues had quite enough of it.
They signaled for the boats to take them off, but this was impossible
because of the raging surf; wherefore the gay mutineers lost their
tempers and let a cannon-ball whizz from a quarter-deck gun at the
refugees on shore. While waiting for rescue, they rifled the cabins for
tempting plunder, and swaggered in the officers’ laced coats and cocked
hats. The boatswain, who egged them on, saw to it that they were well
armed, for he proclaimed defiance of all authority, and there was to be
no more of the iron-handed code of sea law. These were pressed men, poor
devils, who broke all restraint because they had not been wisely and
humanely handled.
When at length they were taken ashore, Captain Cheap showed one of his
fitful flashes of resolution by sallying from his tent and knocking
the insolent boatswain down with a loaded cane and putting a cocked
pistol to his ear. This took the wind out of the sails of the other
mutineers, and they tamely submitted to being stripped of their arms,
which made them harmless for the moment. So bleak was the coast that
the only food obtainable was shell-fish, while from the wreck almost no
stores were saved. The most urgent business was to knock huts together
of the drift-wood and canvas, and effect some sort of organization.
A fortnight passed before Captain Cheap had the provisions properly
guarded and the rations dealt out in a systematic manner, while in the
meantime the sailors were stealing the stuff right and left, and the
battle was to the strongest.
It was ascertained that they were marooned on what appeared to be an
island near the coast and about three hundred miles to the northward
of the Strait of Magellan. Three canoes of Patagonian Indians happened
to discover the camp, and they were friendly enough to barter for two
dogs and three sheep, which were no more than a meal for the hungry
crew of the _Wager_. The Indians vanished, and the agony of famine took
hold of these miserable people. Instead of pluckily working together
to master the situation like true British seamen, they split into
hostile factions, and insubordination was rampant. There were rough
and desperate men among them, it is true, but a leader of courage
and resource whom they respected would have stamped out much of this
disorder.
They wandered off in sullen groups, ten of them straying away into
the woods until starvation drove them back, another party building a
punt and sailing away in it, never to be heard of again. These latter
fellows were not regretted, according to the narrative of one of the
survivors, who declares that
there was great reason to believe that James Mitchell, one of them,
had perpetrated no less than two murders, the first on a sailor
found strangled on board and the second on the body of a man who
was discovered among some bushes, stabbed in a shocking manner. On
the day of their desertion, they plotted blowing up the captain
in his hut, along with the surgeon and Lieutenant Hamilton of the
marines; they were with difficulty dissuaded from it by one less
wicked than the rest; and half a barrel of powder, together with
the train, were found actually laid.
Among the officers was a boyish midshipman named Cozens who was of a
flighty, impulsive disposition and who had no head for strong liquors.
Too much grog made him boisterous, and by way of a lesson he was shut
up in a hut under guard. He cherished a hearty dislike for Captain
Cheap and was extremely impertinent to that chicken-hearted bully of a
commander, who thereupon lashed him with his cane. The doughty sentry
of marines interfered, swearing that not even the captain of the ship
should strike a prisoner placed in his charge. The midshipman took
the disgrace to heart, and what with anger, drink, and privation he
seems to have become a bit unbalanced. There had been no more popular
young officer in the _Wager_, easy, genial, affectionate; but now he
quarreled with the surgeon and had a more serious row with the purser,
taking a shot at him and vowing that he was ready to mutiny to get rid
of the blockheads and villains who had brought ruin to the expedition.
Captain Cheap heard a report of the uprising of Midshipman Cozens and
delayed not to investigate, but rushed out and shot the rash youngster
through the head. There was nothing novel in talking mutiny. The
whole camp was infected with lawlessness. If it was a crime to ignore
authority, all hands were guilty. Flouted and held in contempt, Captain
Cheap killed the midshipman as an example to the others, and, of
course, they hated and despised him more than before. Poor young Cozens
lived long enough to take the hand of his chum, Midshipman Byron, and
to smile a farewell to the sailors who had been fond of him. They
begged to be allowed to carry him to one of their own tents while he
was still breathing, but the captain refused, and flourished his pistol
at them; so he died where he fell.
Captain Cheap, after the deed was done, addressed the people,
assembled together by his command, and told them he was resolved to
retain his authority over them as usual, and that it remained as
much in force as ever. He then ordered them all to return to their
respective tents, with which they complied. This event, however,
contributed to lessen him in the regard of the people.
Three boats had been saved from the wreck of the _Wager_, and the
largest of them was the long-boat, a word that awakens memories of
many an old-time romance of the sea and seems particularly to belong
to “Robinson Crusoe.” It was what might be called a ship’s launch, and
was often so heavy and capacious that vessels towed it astern on long
voyages. Two months after the disaster, the _Wager’s_ people despairing
of rescue, began to patch up the boats with the idea of making their
way to the Spanish settlements of the mainland. The long-boat was
hauled up on the beach, and the carpenter undertook the difficult task
of sawing it in two and building in a section in order to make it
twelve feet longer.
While this enterprise was under way, a party of fifty Indians, men,
women, and children, found the camp and built wigwams, evidently
intending to settle for a while and do some trading. Their canoes were
filled with seal, shell-fish, and live sheep, and the visitation was
immensely valuable to the castaways; but some of the ruffianly sailors
insulted the women, and the indignant Patagonians soon packed up and
departed, bag and baggage. As a result, the ravages of famine became so
severe that the muster-roll was reduced to a hundred men. This meant
that a third of the survivors of the wreck were already dead.
Throughout the whole story of suffering, mutiny, and demoralization the
deeds of those who bravely and unflinchingly endured seemed to gleam
like stars against a somber background. You will find frequent mention
of Midshipman Byron, a lad in his teens, who was the real hero of the
_Wager_, although he never realized it. He achieved nothing spectacular
in a way, but he always tried to do his duty and something more. The
British midshipman of that era was often a mere rosy-cheeked infant who
pranced into the thick of a boarding-party with his cutlass and dirk
or bullied a boat’s crew of old salts in some desperate adventure on
an enemy’s coast. The precocious breed survives in the Royal Navy of
to-day, and in the great battleships of the Grand Fleet, at Rosyth or
Scapa Flow, you might have seen these bantam midshipmen standing a deck
watch with all the dignity of a four-starred admiral.
Midshipman Byron of the _Wager_ built himself a tiny hut in which
he lived alone after the captain killed his messmate Cozens, and
his companion was a strayed Indian cur, which adored him. The dog
faithfully guarded the hut when Byron was absent from it, and they
shared together such food as could be found, mostly mussels and
limpets. At length a deputation of seamen called to announce that they
must eat the dog or starve. Byron made a gallant fight to save his
four-legged friend, but was subdued by force, and for once during the
long and terrible experience he wept and was in a hopeless state of
mind.
Among the minor characters who commend themselves to our approval was
a reckless devil of a boatswain’s mate, who noticed that the seabirds
roosted and nested on reefs and islets out to seaward. In the words of
one of his shipmates:
Having got a water puncheon, he scuttled it, then lashing two logs,
one on each side of it, he went to sea in this extraordinary and
original piece of embarkation. Thus he would frequently provide
himself with wild-fowl when all the rest were starving; and the
weather was bad indeed when it deterred him from adventuring.
Sometimes he would be absent a whole day. At last he was
unfortunately overset by a heavy sea when at a great distance from
shore; but being near a rock, though no swimmer, he contrived to
scramble to it. There he remained two days with little prospect
of relief, as he was too far off the land to be visible. Luckily,
however, one of the boats happened to go that way in quest of
wild-fowl, discovered his signals, and rescued him from his forlorn
condition. Yet he was so little discouraged by this accident that,
soon after, he procured an ox’s hide from the Indians and, by the
assistance of hoops, fashioned something like a canoe in which he
made several successful voyages.
In August the three boats had been made seaworthy enough to undertake
an escape from the miseries of this hopeless island. Then, as usual,
there arose confusion of purpose and violent disagreement. This ship’s
company could be trusted to start a row at the drop of the hat. As
long as there was breath in them, they were sure to turn against one
another. The majority proposed that they try for a passage homeward by
way of the Strait of Magellan. Captain Cheap and his partizans were
for steering northward, capturing a Spanish vessel of some sort, and
endeavoring to find the British squadron from which the _Wager_ had
become separated. He blustered about his authority, insisted that his
word was law, and so on, until the high-handed majority grew tired of
his noise and decided to take him along as a prisoner and hand him
over to justice for killing Midshipman Cozens.
They hauled their commander out of bed and lugged him by the head
and the heels to the purser’s tent, where he was guarded by a sentry
of marines and very coarsely derided by these unmannerly rebels. The
gunner informed Captain Cheap that he was to be carried to England as
a prisoner; at which he retorted, with proper spirit, that he would
sooner be shot than undergo such humiliation and, given his choice, he
preferred to be left behind on the island. This was agreeable to the
mob, who gave three cheers and thought no more about him. His two loyal
companions, the surgeon and Lieutenant Hamilton, elected of their own
free will to remain with the fallen commander, and this devotion was
one of the admirable episodes of the tragedy. The mutineers recognized
it as such, and they distributed the provisions fairly with these
exiles and gave them arms and ammunition.
[Illustration: THE “CHARLEMAGNE,” A NEW YORK PACKET SHIP
From the painting by Frederic Roux of Havre, 1838]
There were now eighty-one men to embark in the long-boat, the cutter,
and the barge and set sail for the Strait of Magellan. They started
off with huzzas and Ho for Merry England, with about one chance in a
thousand of getting there, and coasted along for two days when the wind
blew some of their rotten canvas away and they halted to send the
barge back to the wreck for more sail-cloth. Midshipman Byron found
the company uncongenial, to put it mildly, and the venture seemed so
confused and hazardous that he shifted into the barge to return to the
island and resume existence in his little hut. The crew of the barge
were of the same opinion and so they announced to Captain Cheap that
they would take chances with him. Eight deserters came straggling out
of the woods to join the party and there were, in all, twenty men to
contrive a voyage of their own.
The most unruly lot had departed in the long-boat and the cutter, and
mutiny no longer kept the island in a turmoil. Order was restored
to the extent that a sailor was flogged and banished for stealing
food, and the party sensibly toiled at the wreck until they salvaged
several barrels of salt beef from the hold, and so recruited health and
strength. They patched together the remnants of the yawl, and in this
and the barge they put to sea to cruise to the northward in December,
or more than half a year after the loss of the _Wager_. Misfortune
beset them at every turn. It seemed as though their ship had been under
a curse. A gale almost swamped the two boats as soon as they were clear
of the island, and to keep afloat they had to throw overboard all their
salt beef and seal meat. Most of the other stuff was washed out, and
they made a landing in worse plight than before.
With fitful weather they skirted a swampy coast, with nothing to eat
but seaweed, until they were chewing the shoes they had sewed together
from raw sealskin. It was Christmas day or thereabouts when the yawl
was smashed beyond mending by dragging its anchor and driving into
the surf. The barge was not large enough to carry all hands, and it
was agreed that four of them should be abandoned ashore. There was no
obstreperous argument over it. They had become careless of such matters
as life and death. Just how these four men were chosen or whether they
volunteered is left to conjecture. The story written by Midshipman
Byron, which is the most detailed account of the episode, describes it
as follows:
They were all marines, who seemed to have no great objection to the
determination made with regard to them, they were so exceedingly
disheartened and exhausted with the distress and dangers they had
already undergone. Indeed, I believe it would have been a matter of
indifference to most of the others whether they should embark or
take their chance. The captain distributed among these poor fellows
arms, ammunition, and some other necessaries.
When we parted they stood upon the beach, giving us three cheers
and calling out, “_God bless the King!_” We saw them a little
after setting out upon their forlorn hope and helping one another
over hideous tracts of rocks; but considering the difficulties
attending this only mode of travelling left them, for the woods
are impenetrable, from their thickness, and the deep swamps
everywhere met within them, and considering, too, that the coast is
here rendered inhospitable by the heavy seas that are constantly
tumbling upon it, it is probable that they all experienced a
miserable fate.
The picture of the four marines as they waved their caps and shouted
that immortal huzza is apt to suggest the wreck of the _Birkenhead_
troop-ship in 1852, when she struck a rock off the Cape of Good
Hope and four hundred British soldiers and marines perished. With
the ship foundering beneath their feet, they fell in and stood as
though on parade, while the women and children were put into the two
available boats. As the decks of the _Birkenhead_ lurched under the
sea, the ranks of the four hundred British soldiers and marines were
still splendid and unbroken. The deed rang through England like a
trumpet-call, as well it might.
Brothers in arms and kinsmen in spirit were these four hundred men
of England’s thin, red line to the four humble privates of the Royal
Marines whose names are forgotten. And Kipling’s tribute may be said to
include them also:
To take your chance in the thick of a rush, with firing all
about,
Is nothing so bad when you’ve cover to ’and, an’ leave an’ likin’
to shout;
But to stand an’ be still to the _Birken’ead_ drill is a damn
tough billet to chew,
An’ they done it, the Jollies--’Er Majesty’s Jollies--soldier an’
sailor too.
The wretched voyage of the _Wager’s_ barge was so delayed by head winds
and battering seas and the necessity of landing often in search of food
that all hope of reaching a Spanish port was relinquished, and finally
they put about and trailed wearily back to the island and the wreck of
the _Wager_ after two months of futile endeavor. The superstition of
the sea perturbed these childish sailormen, who laid their distresses
to the fact that one of the crew who was murdered on the island had
never been given burial. Therefore the first errand when they tottered
ashore at their old camp was to dig a grave and say a prayer.
They were so tormented with famine that they talked, or rather
whispered, of choosing one of their number by lot, that dreadful old
expedient, and boiling him for a square meal; but the discovery of
some rotten beef cast up from the wreck averted this procedure. They
existed for a fortnight, and then a party of Indians appeared, among
them a chief. He spoke a little Spanish, and an officer of the _Wager_
managed to convey to him that they desired guidance to the nearest
white settlement. The promise of the barge as a gift persuaded the
mercenary Patagonian to lead them out of the wilderness. Thirteen
survivors were left of the twenty who had attempted to fare to the
northward. The four marines had been left to their heroic fate, and
three others had later died of hunger.
The Indian chief had not bound himself to furnish food, and it soon
appeared as though the castaways would all perish to a man before they
came to the end of the journey. They were trying to pull the barge up
a turbulent river with a rapid current, and there occurred an incident
or two which illumined the characters of Midshipman Byron and Captain
Cheap and showed what very different men they were. I quote the old
record:
Mr. Byron had hitherto steered the boat; but one of the men
dropping down, and dying of fatigue, he was obliged to take his
oar. While thus engaged, John Bosman, who was considered the
stoutest man among them, fell from his seat under the thwarts,
complaining that his strength was quite exhausted from want of food
and that he should soon expire. While he lay in this manner, he
would, every now and then, break out into the most pathetic wishes
for some little sustenance, expressing that two or three mouthfuls
might be the means of saving his life.
At this time, the captain had a large piece of boiled seal by
him and was the only one in possession of anything like a meal.
But they were become so hardened to the sufferings of others and
so much familiarized to similar scenes of misery that the poor
man’s dying entreaties were in vain. Mr. Byron sat next him when
he dropped, and having about five or six dried shell-fish in his
pocket, put one from time to time in his mouth, which only served
to prolong his misery. From this, however, death released him soon
after his benefactor’s little supply was exhausted. For him, and
the other man, a grave was made in the sand.
It would have greatly redounded to the tenderness and humanity of
Captain Cheap if he had remitted somewhat of that attention which
he testified to self-preservation and spared in those exigencies
what might have been wanted, consistently with his own necessities.
He had better opportunities of recruiting his stock than the
others, for his rank was an inducement to the Indian guide to
supply him when not a bit of anything could be found for the rest.
On the evening of the same day, Captain Cheap produced a large
piece of boiled seal, of which he permitted no one, excepting
the surgeon, to partake. His fellow-sufferers did not expect it,
as they had a few small mussels and herbs to eat, but the men
could not suppress the greatest indignation at his neglect of the
deceased, saying that he deserved to be deserted for such savage
conduct.
If one may hazard a personal conjecture, it seems plausible to assume
that Captain Cheap was the Jonah of the _Wager_ expedition and that
the spell might have been lifted if he had been thrown overboard much
earlier in the adventure. Be that as it may, the curse was still
potent, for as the next mishap six sailors and one of the Indians
stole the barge and made off to sea with it. This left the others
stranded and bereft of everything that belonged to them. Besides this
affliction, the Patagonian chief was disgruntled because the barge was
to have been his reward for befriending them. He was for killing them
at once as the easiest way to settle the account, but it was Midshipman
Byron, of course, who cajoled him out of his mood and pleased him with
the gift of a fowling-piece. The six seamen who stole the barge passed
into oblivion at the same time, and so were justly punished for their
perfidy. They joined the great majority of the _Wager’s_ company who
never saw port again.
Over the rocks and through the swamps panted and staggered the few
survivors, hauling and paddling canoes like galley-slaves and abused
immoderately by their Indian guides, or captors. They were cold and
wet and famished, and at last the surgeon died, and the others were
little more than shadows. Captain Cheap grew more selfish and pompous,
and adversity had no power to chasten him. One more picture and we are
almost done with him.
The canoes were taken to pieces and each man and Indian woman of
the party, except Captain Cheap, had something to carry. Mr. Byron
had a piece of wet heavy canvas to carry for the captain, in which
was wrapped a piece of seal which had that morning been given to
him by some of the Indians. The way was through a thick wood and
quagmire, often taking them up to the knees, and stumps of trees
in the water obstructing their progress. Their feet were wounded,
besides, with the ruggedness of the ground. Mr. Byron, whose load
was equal to what a strong healthy man might have carried, was left
behind by two Indians who accompanied him. Alarmed lest the whole
should be too far advanced for him to overtake them, he strove to
get up; and in his exertions fell off a tree crossing the road in a
deep swamp, where he narrowly escaped drowning.
Quite exhausted with the labor of extricating himself, he sat
down under a tree and there gave way to melancholy reflections.
Sensible that if he indulged them in inactivity, his companions
could not be overtaken, he marked a great tree and, depositing his
burden, hastened after them. In some hours he came up, and Captain
Cheap began asking for his canvas; and on being told the disaster
that had befallen Mr. Byron, nothing was heard but grumbling for
the loss. Mr. Byron made no answer but, resting himself a little,
rose and returned at least five miles to the burden, with which
he returned just as the others were embarking to cross a great
lake which seemed to wash the foot of the Cordilleras. He was left
behind to wait the arrival of some more Indians, without a morsel
of food, or even a part of the seal meat that had cost him so much
anxiety.
When they were led at last to a small Spanish garrison called Castro,
only four of the party had survived the journey, Midshipman Byron,
Lieutenant Hamilton of the Royal Marines, Lieutenant Alexander
Campbell, and Captain Cheap. Although the English were enemies, the
_corregidor_ and the Jesuit priests felt pity for these poor victims,
and treated them with great kindness. When they had recovered, they
were escorted to the larger town of Chaco with a guard of thirty
Spanish soldiers. At this seaport of the Chilean coast the governor
entertained them handsomely and invited them to travel on his annual
tour through the districts of his province. Midshipman Byron was so
popular with the ladies that he had to steer a very careful course to
avoid entanglements. He was the guest of one doting mother who had two
very handsome daughters, and she straightway sent a message to the
governor asking that the young Englishman be sent back to spend a month
with the family.
This was not so serious as the affair with the niece of the rich and
venerable priest, a highly educated damsel
whose person was good, though she was not a regular beauty. Casting
an amorous eye on Mr. Byron, she first proposed to her uncle to
convert him and then begged his consent to marry him. The old man’s
affection for his niece induced his ready acquiescence to her
wishes, and on the next visit Mr. Byron was acquainted with the
lady’s designs. The uncle unlocked many chests and boxes before
him, first showing what a number of fine clothes his niece had
and then exhibiting his own wardrobe which he said should be Mr.
Byron’s at his death. Among other things he produced a piece of
linen, engaging that it should immediately be made up into shirts
for his use. Mr. Byron felt this last article a great temptation,
yet he had the resolution to withstand it, and declined the honor
intended him, with the best excuses he was able to frame.
Some time after they had been at Chaco, a ship arrived from Lima
which occasioned great joy amongst the inhabitants, as no ship had
been there the year before on account of the alarm of Commodore
Anson’s squadron. The captain of her was an old man, well known
upon the island, who had been trading there for thirty years
past. He had a remarkably large head and was commonly known by
the nick-name of _Cabuco de Toro_, or Bull’s-head. Not a week had
elapsed after his arrival before he came to the governor with a
melancholy countenance, saying that he had not slept a wink since
he came into the harbor because the governor was pleased to allow
three English prisoners to walk about at liberty, whom he expected
every minute would board his vessel and carry her away, although
he said he had more than thirty sailors on board. The governor
answered that he would be responsible for the behavior of the
three Englishmen, but could not help laughing at the old man.
Notwithstanding these assurances, Captain Bull’s-head used the
utmost despatch in disposing of his cargo and put to sea again, not
considering himself safe until he lost sight of Chaco.
The officers of the _Wager_ were compelled to wait for another of
the infrequent trading ships from Lima, and it was therefore in
January, 1743, before they made the next stage of their interminable
pilgrimage. They were sent ashore at Valparaiso, where the Spanish
governor promptly threw them into prison; but he later forwarded them
to Santiago, the capital of Chile, where they were handsomely released
on parole.
In Santiago at that time were Admiral Pizarro and several officers of
the squadron which had been sent out from Spain to intercept Commodore
Anson and drive him away from the rich trade routes of the Pacific. It
was a powerful force of six men-of-war, with a total of three hundred
guns and four thousand sailors, marines, and soldiers. The storms of
Cape Horn and the ravages of disease crippled the expedition, and
shipwreck almost wiped it out. The flagship _Asia_ found refuge in
the River Plate with half her crew dead; the _Esperanza_ had only
fifty-eight men alive of the four hundred and fifty who had sailed
from Spain in her, and of an entire regiment of infantry all but sixty
perished. Only two ships survived to return home after four years’
absence, and more than three thousand Spanish sailors had found their
graves in the sea.
While his flagship was undergoing repairs at Montevideo, Admiral
Pizarro made the journey by land across the Andes to Santiago to
confer with the Viceroy of Chile. Introduced to the officers of the
_Wager_, one of the ships of the enemy’s squadron which he had hoped
to engage in battle, the Spanish admiral invited them to dine with him
and displayed the most perfect courtesy. One of his staff, Don Manuel
de Guiros, insisted upon advancing them funds to the amount of two
thousand dollars. Midshipman Byron and his companions accepted part
of it, giving drafts on Lisbon, and were able to live comfortably and
await the next turn of fortune’s wheel.
Two weary years they tarried in Santiago, and were treated not
as enemies but as castaways. They found great consolation in the
friendship of a Scotch physician who was known as Don Patrico Gedd.
Midshipman Byron wrote:
This gentleman had been a long time in the city and was greatly
esteemed by the Spaniards, as well for his abilities in his
profession as for the humanity of his disposition. He no sooner
heard that four English prisoners had arrived in that country than
he waited on the president and begged that they might be lodged
in his house. This was granted, and had we been his own brothers
we could not have met with a more friendly reception; and during
two years that we were with him, it was his constant study to
make everything as agreeable to us as possible. We were greatly
distressed to think of the expense he was at upon our account, but
it was vain to argue with him about it.
A French ship, bound from Lima to Spain, finally carried them homeward
as passengers, and they saw the shores of England in November, 1745,
or more than five years after the _Wager_ had been lost in the Gulf de
Panas on the coast of Patagonia. The boyish midshipman who had behaved
so well through all vicissitudes was of gentle blood and breeding, and
in England he was known as the Honorable John Byron, second son of the
fourth Lord Byron. When he landed at Dover with two of his shipmates
his troubles were not quite at an end, and to quote his own words:
We directly set off for Canterbury upon post-horses, but Captain
Cheap was so tired by the time he got there that he could proceed
no farther that night. The next morning he still found himself
so much fatigued that he could ride no longer; therefore it was
agreed that he and Mr. Hamilton should take a post-chaise and that
I should ride. But here an unlucky difficulty was started; for upon
sharing the little money we had, it was found to be not sufficient
to pay the charges to London, and my proportion fell so short that
it was, by calculation, bare enough to pay for horses, without a
farthing for eating a morsel upon the road or even for the very
turnpikes. Thus I was obliged to defraud by riding as hard as I
could through the toll-gates, not paying the least regard to the
men who called out to stop me. The want of refreshment I bore as
well as I could.
When I got to the Borough of London I took a coach and drove to
Marlborough Street where my friends lived when I left England but
when I came there I found the place shut up. Having been absent so
many years, and having, in all that time, never a word from home,
I knew not who was dead or who was living or where to go next,
or even how to pay the coachman. I recollected a linen-draper’s
shop, not far from thence, at which our family used to deal. I
therefore drove thither and, making myself known, they paid the
coachman. I then inquired after our family and was told that my
sister had married Lord Carlisle and was at that time in Soho
Square. I immediately walked to the house and knocked at the door.
But the porter, not liking my figure which was half French and half
Spanish, with the addition of a large pair of boots covered with
dirt, was going to shut the door in my face but I prevailed upon
him to let me in.
I need not acquaint the reader with what surprise and joy my sister
received me. She immediately furnished me with money to appear like
the rest of my countrymen. Till that time I could not properly be
said to have finished all the extraordinary scenes in which I had
been involved by a series of adventures, for the space of five
years and upwards.
The Honorable John Byron became a British vice-admiral and was also
the grandfather of the poet, who transmuted some of the exploits of
the midshipman of the _Wager_ into the pages of _Don Juan_. As one of
the most famous fighting sailors of his era, Admiral Byron earned the
nickname of “Foul Weather Jack,” because he contended so constantly
with gales and head winds, and it is to this that Lord Byron refers in
his “Epistles to Augusta”:
A strange doom is thy father’s son’s, and past
Recalling as it lies beyond redress,
Reversed for him our grandsire’s fate of yore,
He had no rest at sea, nor I on shore.
You will find that Stevenson mentions him in that same tribute to the
English admirals:
Most men of high destinies have high-sounding names. Pymn and
Habakkuk may do pretty well, but they must not think to cope with
the Cromwells and Isaiahs. And you could not find a better case in
point than that of the English Admirals. Drake and Rooke and Hawke
are picked names for men of execution. Frobisher, Rodney, Boscawen,
Foul-Weather Jack Byron, are all good to catch the eye in a page of
naval history.