THE WRECK OF THE WAGER--A MUTINY.
The remaining ships of the squadron were the Severn, the Pearl, and the
Wager, store-ship. The Severn and Pearl parted company with the squadron
off Cape Noir and, as we afterwards learned, put back to the Brazils, so
that of all the ships which came into the South Seas the Wager, Captain
Cheap, was the only one that was missing. This ship had on board some
field-pieces mounted for land service, together with some Cohorn mortars,
and several kinds of artillery, stores, and tools, intended for the
operations on shore; and therefore, as the enterprise on Baldivia had
been resolved on for the first undertaking of the squadron, Captain Cheap
was extremely solicitous that these materials, which were in his custody,
might be ready before Baldivia, that if the squadron should possibly
rendezvous there, no delay nor disappointment might be imputed to him.
But whilst the Wager, with these views, was making the best of her way to
her first rendezvous off the island of Socoro, she made the land on the
14th of May, about the latitude of 47 degrees south, and the captain,
exerting himself on this occasion in order to get clear of it, he had the
misfortune to fall down the after-ladder, and thereby dislocated his
shoulder, which rendered him incapable of acting. This accident, together
with the crazy condition of the ship, which was little better than a
wreck, prevented her from getting off to sea, and entangled her more and
more with the land, so that the next morning at daybreak she struck on a
sunken rock, and soon after bilged and grounded between two small islands
at about a musket-shot from the shore.
DISORDER AND ANARCHY.
In this situation the ship continued entire a long time, so that all the
crew had it in their power to get safe on shore, but a general confusion
taking place, numbers of them, instead of consulting their safety or
reflecting on their calamitous condition, fell to pillaging the ship,
arming themselves with the first weapons that came to hand and
threatening to murder all who should oppose them. This frenzy was greatly
heightened by the liquors they found on board, with which they got so
extremely drunk that some of them, tumbling down between decks, were
drowned as the water flowed in, being incapable of getting up and
retreating to other places where the water had not yet entered, and the
captain, having done his utmost to get the whole crew on shore, was at
last obliged to leave these mutineers behind him and to follow his
officers and such as he had been able to prevail on; but he did not fail
to send back the boats to persuade those who remained to have some regard
to their preservation, though all his efforts were for some time without
success. However the weather next day proving stormy, and there being
great danger of the ship's parting, they began to be alarmed with the
fears of perishing, and were desirous of getting to land; but it seems
their madness had not yet left them, for the boat not appearing to fetch
them off as soon as they expected, they at last pointed a four-pounder
which was on the quarter-deck against the hut where they knew the captain
resided on shore, and fired two shots, which passed but just over it.
From this specimen of the behaviour of part of the crew it will not be
difficult to frame some conjecture of the disorder and anarchy which took
place when they at last got all on shore.
There was another important point which set the greatest part of the
people at variance with the captain: this was their differing with him in
opinion on the measures to be pursued in the present exigency, for the
captain was determined, if possible, to fit up the boats in the best
manner he could and to proceed with them to the northward; for having
with him above a hundred men in health, and having got some firearms and
ammunition from the wreck, he did not doubt that they could master any
Spanish vessel they should meet with in those seas, and he thought he
could not fail of meeting with one in the neighbourhood of Chiloe or
Baldivia, in which, when he had taken her, he intended to proceed to the
rendezvous at Juan Fernandez; and he further insisted, that should they
meet with no prize by the way, yet the boats alone would easily carry
them there. But this was a scheme that, however prudent, was no ways
relished by the generality of his people, for, being quite jaded with the
distresses and dangers they had already run through, they could not think
of prosecuting an enterprise further which had hitherto proved so
disastrous, and, therefore, the common resolution was to lengthen the
long-boat, and with that and the rest of the boats to steer to the
southward, to pass through the Straits of Magellan, and to range along
the east side of South America till they should arrive at Brazil, where
they doubted not to be well received, and to procure a passage to Great
Britain. This project was at first sight infinitely more hazardous and
tedious than what was proposed by the captain, but as it had the air of
returning home, and flattered them with the hopes of bringing them once
more to their native country, this circumstance alone rendered them
inattentive to all its inconveniences, and made them adhere to it with
insurmountable obstinacy, so that the captain himself, though he never
changed his opinion, was yet obliged to give way to the torrent, and in
appearance to acquiesce in this resolution, whilst he endeavoured
underhand to give it all the obstruction he could, particularly in the
lengthening of the long-boat, which he contrived should be of such a size
that, though it might serve to carry them to Juan Fernandez, would yet,
he hoped, appear incapable of so long a navigation as that to the coast
of Brazil.
AN UNHAPPY ACCIDENT.
But the captain, by his steady opposition at first to this favourite
project, had much embittered the people against him, to which, likewise,
the following unhappy accident greatly contributed. There was a
midshipman whose name was Cozens, who had appeared the foremost in all
the refractory proceedings of the crew. He had involved himself in brawls
with most of the officers who had adhered to the captain's authority, and
had even treated the captain himself with great abuse and insolence. As
his turbulence and brutality grew every day more and more intolerable, it
was not in the least doubted but there were some violent measures in
agitation in which Cozens was engaged as the ringleader, for which reason
the captain and those about him constantly kept themselves on their
guard. But at last the purser having, by the captain's order, stopped the
allowance of a fellow who would not work, Cozens, though the man did not
complain to him, intermeddled in the affair with great eagerness, and
grossly insulting the purser, who was then delivering our provisions just
by the captain's tent, and was himself sufficiently violent, the purser,
enraged by his scurrility, and perhaps piqued by former quarrels, cried
out--"A mutiny!" adding "that the dog had pistols," and then himself
fired a shot at Cozens, which, however, missed him. But the captain, on
this outcry and the report of the pistol, rushed out of his tent, and,
not doubting but it had been fired by Cozens as the commencement of a
mutiny, he immediately shot him in the head without further deliberation,
and though he did not kill him on the spot, yet the wound proved mortal,
and he died about fourteen days after.
This incident, however displeasing to the people, did yet for a
considerable time awe them to their duty, and rendered them more
submissive to the captain's authority. But at last, when towards the
middle of October the long-boat was nearly completed and they were
preparing to put to sea, the additional provocation he gave them by
covertly traversing their project of proceeding through the Straits of
Magellan, and their fears that he might at length engage a party
sufficient to overturn this favourite measure, made them resolve to make
use of the death of Cozens as a reason for depriving him of his command,
under pretence of carrying him a prisoner to England to be tried for
murder, and he was accordingly confined under a guard. But they never
intended to carry him with them, as they too well knew what they had to
apprehend on their return to England if their commander should be present
to confront them, and therefore, when they were just ready to put to sea,
they set him at liberty, leaving him and the few who chose to take their
fortunes with him no other embarkation but the yawl, to which the barge
was afterwards added by the people on board her being prevailed on to
return back.