Citation Needed - HMS Wager

Episode Date: September 6, 2023

HMS Wager was a square-rigged sixth-rate Royal Navy ship of 28 guns. She was built as an East Indiaman in about 1734 and made two voyages to India for the East India Company before the Royal Navy purchased her in 1739. She formed part of a squadron under Commodore George Anson and was wrecked on the south coast of Chile on 14 May 1741. The wreck of Wager became famous for the subsequent adventures of the survivors who found themselves marooned on a desolate island in the middle of a Patagonian winter, and in particular because of the Wager Mutiny that followed.

Dude, dude, dude wake up. Jesus, where are we? I have no idea, but it's Monday, so I'm guessing it's this four-show Eli shenanigans? You know, I've always wondered, should we set shenanigans on Mondays or Wednesdays? Because Wednesdays are the release days, and I'm worried that the Monday reference

takes people out of it. There you are, Eli, where the hell are we? Oh, a desert island, you know, for this week's episode. Just a group of guys hanging out in the sun, nobody to bother them. Honestly, I think this is going to be great. It was not great. Did you, Eli, did you even read the essay, man? See, so I don't even read my essays.

But look at Ethan Tom, they're having a blast. Tom! Tom throw me that coconut! Nuh! Nice! Okay, back up! Back up! Look Eli, I'm all for fun in the sun I guess, but this is a story of people who barely survive a ship right. This isn't gonna be a good time. I mean to be fair with us, neither would a beach day. Out! Tom, that was a rock. It looked polka-notty to me. I see what you mean, man. Out!

Hump! That was another rock! Okay, one of these has to be a polka-not. Hello and welcome. Citation needed. Podcast where we choose a subject, you're a single article about it on Wikipedia and pretend we're experts. This is the internet, and that's how it works now. I'm Heath, and I'll be the captain for this the internet? That's how it works now. I'm Heath, and I'll be the captain for this maritime disaster, and I'm joined by two other guys who put the curvy

and scurvy just like me, Tom and Cesar. All the port in a storm, Heath. All of the port. And I say a lot junk with a trunk. That's the thing. Junk's tummy. Well done. Well done. And we also have a guy who puts the curvy in scurvy.

I think he just has scurvy and a guy with almond milk leg, Noah and Eela. I drink so much mountain do my cats or immune to scurvy. And to be fair, I just have this so I can sneak it into concerts at this point. It's just for, you know, cool. All right. So what, person, place, thing, concept, phenomenon or event? Or we're gonna be talking about today.

The wreck of the HMS wager. All right, and would you like to name a book that you've read before we start? Yeah. Yes. Yes. Guy who literally does whole fucking episodes All right, and would you like to name a book that you've read before we start? Yes. Guy who literally does whole fucking episodes about the trauma of being forced to read a book in 10th grade, I would like to. Sometimes I'm not in real, because I've actually been dying to tell you guys this story.

Ever since I read The Wager, a tale of shipwreck, butane and murder, by, we'll, we'll look at this non-Bill Bryson author, David Graham. Okay. How many pages was that book? I don't know. I don't know. Two slots of audience. So what was the HMS wager? It was, according to its Wikipedia article, a square rigged sixth rate royal navy warship

of 28 guns. It was originally built for use by the East India company, then purchased by the British Navy in 1739 in they run up the war. And now it's Heath's car. Yeah, well, it's the end. Is that a fire? No. So now this make hydro images of like a container ship with a bunch of guns haphazardly

stuck to it tears of the kingdom style, but it was actually built as a fighting ship. It's just that back then trading companies built warships to accompany their fleets. I get it. I once went to Costco on a Sunday. So yeah, sure. Yeah, no, it's like that. Yeah. Now, the war that this purchase was in the run up to probably should have an episode all by itself. This is the so-called War of Jenkins' ear, which was a mercantile war between Spain and Great Britain. Now, if you read the British accounts, they'll generally tell you that this war was to ensure British access to South American trade. If you read the Spanish accounts, they tend to emphasize

the fact that the trade in question was the slave trade, but at its heart, it was a war that happened because Spain had a lot of money and England was pretty sure they could kick Spain's ass. Okay, that's a weird angle for the propaganda from Spain, right? They're like, England is evil because they want to be part of the slave trade that weird dominating. Right, they want to be part of our slave trade. England would make slave trade on ethical if they could. Okay, I'm sorry, are we just going to leave the Jenkins ear reference dangling there is no one gonna pierce this mystery Well now I want to wait if I'm gonna get

Nice, so of course you can't drum up public support for a war by say well We need to bully the rich kid and sell slaves so in an effort to humanize the conflict the company's pushing for war Try out this dude named Robert Jenkins. There it is. So he was the captain of British ship. So he was the captain of a British ship that was boarded by the Spanish and while they were searching his ship, the Spanish Coast Guard allegedly cut off his ear.

He was actually invited to tell his story in parliament and he brought the pickled ear with him for emphasis in a jar. Who is looking at his missing ear and remaining skeptical about the story of him? To me was like, show me how it fits. It was a trap. It was a trap. It's a trap fit before you tore it off. Yeah, right.

Show me again, but let me play stuck in the middle with you really quickly So in light of the dramatic testimony and the fear of violent Irremoval that it engendered in the public the British people demanded war Even though this shit happened nine years before Jenkins testified about it So the the British government obliged to not October 19th of 1739, they declared war on Spain. You know, when you teased us with a war called the War of Jenkins Ear, I did not think it was gonna be a war about avenging the ear of a guy named Jenkins. So, you know what, that's right.

Yes, that is what I mean. The England and Spain really kept the whole slave trade civil until that white guy lost his ears. We're right. Yeah, exactly. Now, of course, despite the fact that England and Spain are only like 500 miles apart as the crow flies, civil until that white guy lost his ears. Right. Yeah. Exactly. Now, of course, despite the fact that England and Spain are only like 500 miles apart as the crow flies, the fighting here is primarily going to take place in New Grenada.

That would be the part of Northern South America that Spain controlled at the time. I basically like, Brazil's hat. And that meant England needed to augment its navy, which is where the wager comes in. But it turns out that it's actually far easier to buy up existing ships and fill out your navy than it is to find crews of qualified men to fill them up. But so that's where all the stupid that's going to make up this episode starts. I mean, the English are faking a war over a pickle the years so they can call dibs on some slaves.

Not all the stupid. No, that's true. The only interest is we're right into it. Right. No, that's true. The only stupid. Right. Yeah, right. No, you're fair. That's fair. So, the wager was first pressed into services part of a squadron under the control of Commodore George Anson.

I guess also last pressed into service for this reason. The flotilla included six warships and two supply ships and Anson's target was the greatest prize on the sea. A Spanish treasure ship called the Manila Galeon, which carried riches from Spain's South American colonies to Asian ports. And to do this, Hanson was given the aforementioned eight ships

and 1,980 men, including both crew and infantry. Now, spoiler alert, some like 197 of these people are gonna make it to the end of the story, so don't get attached to anybody. So now, the first sign that this might not be a great assignment was the British Navy's trouble filling out those 1,980 open positions on the ship.

After they ran out of volunteers, which was very early on, they started the usual process of just kidnapping anybody who looked like a sailor or a person from a trade that might come in handy on a ship, but even that couldn't fill out their ranks. So they topped it off by going to the Chelsea military hospital and rounding up 470 wounded soldiers who'd been declared unfit to return to service. What? And yeah, and we're talking greedously wounded men. Like no shit, several dozen of them had to be loaded into the ships on stretchers. Okay, so it's going to be catapulting human bodies during the battle to freak out to Spanish people.

Or like winning by a show of hands. Like it's a democracy battle. Either way, I'll be impressed, I guess. Yeah. Don't they know how dangerous a boat trip can be? That's how you kill a Scottish queen if you're not careful. Come on. Two episodes ago, it's pretty easy. In the same night for recording on one night, I'm very tired. And although I'm sure most of you have already realized this, I should emphasize here that the squadrons departing from England and their target is in the Pacific Ocean, which is fucking hell and gone from England.

As you recall, of course, from episode 151, the Panama Canal didn't open until 1903, which meant that answers ships would have to cross the Atlantic during wartime. So all the way down the South American coast, most of which would be controlled by the country they were at war with at this point, make the notoriously difficult traverse around the horn of South America and then sail all the hellway back up the Hostel South South American coast, which much more of which is controlled on that side by the Spanish. It's exactly the kind of thing that you'd want able-bodied semen for, right? Or at least people can walk up the gang plank of their own accord. But not only were they going to do this with a crew that was nearly one quarter invalid,

but because of delays, disease, and ever-presentouts of scurvy, a fuck ton of that crew wouldn't even survive the trip across the Atlantic. Scurvy is killing off our men at alarming numbers, and there is only one thing to do. Throw more bodies at the problem until we tire that scurvy out. Right? That's so close to what they were doing.

No, so when the ships first set off, the wagers captain by the audaciously named Dan D. Kid. But it's a real fucking shame that we lose him early. But unfortunately, kid was among the considerable group that died during the Atlantic crossing. And through a bit of officer shuffling, a lieutenant from the flotilla's small ship winds up getting promoted to acting captain of the wager. This guy's name is David Cheap. And by my reading of this,

Cheap is going to show himself to be a very brave, very ambitious and medium competent guy. Exactly the combo you don't want, if you're about to round the ocean's most notorious passage with a proof full of scurvy ridden invulence. It is however ideal for a podcast. So, that was exactly. So, so me list to say the rounding of the cape didn't go great. Your mission left port way later than intended and got repeatedly

delayed along the way. And that led them to enter the most treacherous part of their journey at the most treacherous time of the year to do it. Christmas, South American Christmas, I guess. And we have to emphasize how hard navigation was at this time, right? Navidad. What? Well, you could mark latitude with a sextant, then a view of the sun. There was no way to check your longitude in root at that point. Right. So the best you could do is try to keep track of how fast you were going and how west

you were going and multiply those two. And in 1739, it's not like they had super detailed charts of the maze of islands, bays, and inlets along Cape Horn. I'm add to that terrible storms and continuous fog. And it's no surprise that during the tumultuous attempt, the wager got separated from the rest of the ships. Okay, you know how a kindergarten class, they all grab big rope when they walk down the road together and then nobody gets lost. We're gonna do that. Everybody's gone.

Everybody's gone with the fuck happened. Yeah. Yeah, I get it. I still use a GPS to drive my kids to school. Right. So at this point, acting captain cheap decides he knows better than everybody else. He ignores the advice of his officers and he makes a few questionable decisions about where to go and how to get there.

Up now, in cheap defense, he knew shit about the orders that the other officers didn't know. So it's entirely possible he was doing the correct thing, but the important thing is that the bulk of the crew didn't think he was. And that got way more important when it became clear that cheaps chosen course of action was going to lead them into a shipwreck. On May 13th of 1741, the ship enters an uncharted bay that's big enough that they had no idea they were in it for a long time. They thought they were still in the open ocean when they realized their mistake. Though they try to turn back, whether turn to shit,

the ship wound up trapped in the bay. Chief gets injured at this point. He ends up dislocating his shoulders, got to be confined below decks and at 4.30 a.m. the following morning the wager strikes a rock and destroys the ship's tiller. Though it does stay afloat at the time. It tears open a huge chunk of the ship partially floods needless to say the invulids below that hadn't already died a scurvy drown at this point. So by daybreak the ship was stuck past near a small uninhabited island which would soon earn the name Wager island which it's known by today. So most of the remaining crew makes it to the life boat and launches to for

Terra firma but a large contingent decides that it's hopeless and they're all doomed anyway and Among the supplies the wager was carrying for the flotilla was the bulk of the supply of rum So much of the crew in the words of the wick, equal part into the spirit room and got drunk, armed themselves and began looting, dressing up in officers clothes and fighting and. Okay, okay, we're all gonna die. Let's drink makes perfect sense to me.

Yes, we're all gonna die. Let's dress up fancy and fucking punch each other. Absolutely, totally get that but the Looted No, hey, if I get that because if I die, I'm dying rich. There you go. So so cheap and the relatively sober part of the crew get the people and all the supplies They can carry to shore eventually the bottom of the ship's hull cracks open and most of the drunks that stay behind drown, but the ones that remain start firing the cannons to signal that they've changed their minds

and would like to abandon ship now. So, cheap sent a few men back to pick up the last few survived. Okay, I feel like they were just fucking around. They come back and they're like, ah, no, the guys, we're just shooting cannons. We're doing that. We got a drunk and we're doing a cannon shooting. Very fun. First May calling up to him. So, and we're doing a cannon shooting. Very fun.

First May calling up to him. So are you done with your little tantrum now? Are we done? We gonna be good now? No. I'll sit outside all night. I'll stay here all night. They're giving the competent so far

of surprise shooting the cannons. They didn't sink their own life. That's right. Right? Shoot it on short. You know, all you guys. Now, to be clear, they weren't exactly doing these people a favor by picking them up. They were on a small uninhabited island with no large game, no recognizably edible plants,

and a much smaller supply of food than they had of stomachs. On top of that, they were wrecked near the southernmost point in South America right at the beginning of southern hemisphere winter. What's more, the crew is divided about how much blame cheap deserved for the predicament, so military discipline was already starting to break down. All right, it sounds like we're about to have some very polite, very bland English cuisine cannibal meals. But first, we take a break for Smoppovna?

Sorry, who are we meeting? It's better you just see. Don't love that. I don't love that either. Hey, there he is. Carl, what's up? You remember Cecil? Yeah, yeah, we've been on game together. Oh, of course, of course. Yeah, you guys met on game.

Wait, the dog is on a game? He's actually a good corn. Hi, yo! Whoa, what up? What's up, crabgrass? How you doing, buddy? Yeah. Doing good, how are you?

Sorry, who is this? So this is the Woldescher missile. He is a Fey named after a shoe. Hi, Fey! Hi, Fey. He and he don't usually get along. Okay, sorry guys, why are we meeting these people? Oh, because of the ads.

Sorry, all these people are on the show now because of the ads. Because of the ads, yeah, it's because of the ads. Sorry. All these people are on the show now because of the ads. Because of the ads. Yeah. It's part of a psychosexual, fugestate thing that's going on. It's a podcast, averse. It's a psychosexual, fugestate, like I said. Okay.

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What is wrong with her? She's inside out. Pick start a fresh fall routine with hello fresh Hello fresh handles all your meal planning and shopping to deliver everything you need to cook up a tasty meal right at home They do the hard part and you get to take the credit. I don't know guys all these people and dogs and whatever that is. They all eat different stuff right? Really Tom? That's your concern now. No, I see where he's coming from crunch back and when it comes to options, honestly more is more. That's why hella fresh's menu includes 40 recipes and over 100 add-on items to choose from every week. That is a lot of variety. When you get a fresh, you know you're getting top-notch produce since it travels from the farm to your door in less than seven days.

Who's the octopus? Oh, it's Booth and Steen, the octopus. Booth and Steen, yeah, I've been working on this. He's right though. I became a Hello Fresh customer when they became a sponsor and I love the variety and how easy it is to unpack. That's why I, Ethan Wright, personally, endorse Hello Fresh as a product. All right, guys, I'm convinced. Where do I sign up?

Oh, you're gonna go to hidofrish.com slash 50 citation and use code 50 citation for 50% off plus 15% of the next two months. Why does she have a sock puppet? You don't want to know about the sock. Yeah, we'd have to do a make good on the end. Okay, all right. Right.

So go to hello fresh dot com slash 50 citation, use the code 50 citation for 50% off plus 15% for the next two months. Exactly. Thanks, Carl. I'm Edna, how dare you? I'm just gonna call my old job and see, maybe, you know, if I can, I also wanna call your old job, wait. Those guys are weird.

Right? Thank you for saying that. Edna, thank you. Under now, Captain Jenkins, I'm afraid I must take something from you as a warning to the English big dogs that's central. Take something from you as a warning to the English big dogs that's essential Totally understand so You do mind if I just start if I sorry, right right. I feel as to the asking put on Can I keep it?

Keep what my ear you're gonna cut off my ear right? Yes Want to keep it? Yeah, sure do. I'm always super near for the folks at home, ain't it? Is the ear that the Spaniards cut off or say? I mean, it's going to get gross. Like, super gross. Thank you.

No, no, no. How about a pickle jar? A pickle jar. Yep, yep. As soon as you cut off my ear, I'll just pop it in there and pop some of my own gula. And pop some of my ears, the case may be, right? So you were just carrying around a jar in case someone cut off your ear.

No, don't be silly, I brought two. In case someone cut off both your ears? No, no. Other ones in case I get caught cheating on the Mrs. Boo! Fuck you, Cecil, you write a sketch, then you write a fucking sketch. Boo! And we're back. When we left off, the suicidal drunk people made the absolute correct move.

What's next for everybody else? So at this point, everybody knows they're not going to be able to just tough this out, right? But the ship's gunner and its most experienced seam in John bulkly has a plan. With the help of the ship's carpenter, uh, due to by the name of John Cummins, he's figured out that he could lengthen the life boat so that it could hold more men convert it to a schooner with parts of salvage from the wreck, sail through the strait of Magellan and make their way up the coast of South America to port Shigis controlled Brazil. Um, but cheap insist system instead of Brazil, they need to continue to the planned rendezvous

with the rest of the squadron and to go take the Spanish treasure ship. Despite the fact that they would be a, like essentially, an improvised life raft with no guns, and the fact that Cheapsroot would take them by at least a dozen Spanish encampments along the Chilean shore. No, trust me, guys. We sing a few verses of fucking Margaritaville. The lettuce right back. Let's see if I can.

Spanish, right? We'll take the Spanish by surprise in that they will be surprised how easy it is to kill us. Yeah, really, right? Right. Well, so here's the thing, chiefs motivations don't exactly line up with everybody else. The ship wrecked. He was to captain. That means one way or the other, he's going to exactly line up with everybody else. The ship wrecked. He was to captain.

That means one way or the other, he's going to get court-martialed. And since all of surviving warrant officers and the dead ones, fucking logbooks, are going to testify that they urged him to act otherwise that he did, there's a very high chance he's going to get drummed out of the Navy all together and live out his life in abject poverty. But if they turn back, there's also the possibility he'll be convicted of cowardice. And the sentence for that one is death. So eventually he refused. He told everybody that they were going to rejoin the flotilla just as soon as they could launch their new schooner. I should point out that according to the rules of the British Navy shipwreck or no, the chain of commands stays

the same. Cheap is still in charge. So if they do anything other than what he says, that's mutiny. And the penalty for mutiny is also deaf. Okay. What if the captain tells everyone to do a mutiny? Do we that note? No, because then no matter what we do, we're all dead, right? All of us. It killed.

So a group of people coalesce around, and they start making plans for how they could legally depose the captain. And then the captain made it way easier on him by shooting a midshipman in the face. Okay, to be fair, that strategy worked really well for Dick Chaeon, okay? Right, yeah, right, and he had this warning to go on. So, so, so, cheap as having an increasingly difficult time maintaining order in a situation that people increasingly blame him for. Oh sure, blame the guy in charge for every little decision he made.

Right? And at the same time, yes. But they really need order at this point, right? They have dwindling supplies of food, people are stealing it left and right to keep theft at a minimum. Cheapest having people flogged if they are caught stealing. And that's a punishment that half the strivers think is too harsh and the other half think is too light. And eventually a fight breaks out, cheap decides to break it up by murdering one of the combat. I like to think of flogging is like pre tenderizing your cannibal happy meal. That's a really good stop.

Sure. The process. Hello, flush to be clear. Um, cheap is within his legal right as the ship's captain to have someone killed for insubordination. And that's what he said. This guy was being insubordinate, but you have to do that like officially. Right. You could have a fine documents. Right. Exactly. Yeah. You can't just declare it. You can't just shoot a guy in the face of point blank range. He's not even on Fifth Avenue at this point. So to make it into the paperwork first,

or you can go wrong, you need shooting people in the face paperwork, exactly, thank you Tom. So to make matters worse, cheap refused medical treatment to the dude that he shot, and it took him 10 agonizing days to die. Now there is some dispute about whether cheap actually refused medical care or just refused to use medical supplies on the guy. But either way, the people who favor root knee were finding all kinds of new justification.

Listen, we had the doctor stitch up your bullet holes, but thread is being rations. So it was really just, it's just the needle making more holes. I guess, actually that counts as medical care, though. We did care for you. I think it was like, it would be a rough 10 days for everyone involved. Fuck my fucking face, ow! Still going at it, huh?

Yep, yep, yep, yep. I gotta tell you, shooting someone that is not how it looks in the puppet shows. No, I know, I know. What do you mean no bandages? Go ask again, Jesus! But I mean, you saw how it was out there. I had to keep order. No, I get it.

I get it. You were in a tough spot. But can I say? Oh my God, you're gonna talk about feeling good. Again, aren't you? If you would just read feeling good, maybe you'd understand that nobody can make you mad. Only you can make you mad, Captain. Oh, what does that mean?

That is nothing. That's nothing. He's not nothing. Think about it. Oh, my face hurts so bad. Ow, ow, fuck, ow, fuck. I mean, look, I do not know how much longer I can take this. He's gonna keep whining like this forever

and then the crew is gonna mute. Fornchin telling mind reading. What? Your fortune telling mind reading, just those are the thought distortions you're doing right now. I shot the wrong guy in the face. Labeling. Ah!

Ah! Ah! Ah! So it's also worth noting that while all of this is going on, labeling. AHHHHH! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA among the wager's screw, the natives ultimately fucked off in the middle of the night without warning. Yeah. So we're just going to go to the gas station to get some cigarettes. Guys need anything? We're going to. We're going to.

Crews all like, yes, food, please. Okay. Bye. So anyway, so ultimately, bulkly it is would be mutiners figured they had the veneer of legality. They were going to arrest cheap promoter, which they sort of technically were allowed to do right? Um chain of command promotes one of Bulkley's guys to act in captain and then he orders them to head back towards Brazil They even drew up a little cover your ass contract and got a bunch of guys to sign in so they could spread the blame around late

We shall sail to Brazil. I said with palpable courage, which is the opposite of cowardice, everybody heard that. It was definitely heard by the undersigned, yes. Yes. Palpable. Super close to that. But there's like a logistical problem with this plan, right? Namely, there's no fucking way that you're gonna be able

to combine a man on this biggest life wrap with scores of other people and it's like everything's uncovered. You're not gonna be able to hold him in chains for several weeks. And especially when he still commands the loyalty of a significant percentage of the crew. So ultimately they decided the only real solution was to maroon the captain and his loyal inner circle and take the life raft for themselves. Yeah, so let's see, let's see, we can't kill the captain quickly. We would get in trouble for that. But let's see, we can kill him slowly and then get in trouble for that. Yes, I can solve the problems.

Of course, marooning the captain isn't what most of the people on the life raft agreed to and it's way more obviously and clearly mutiny and It's really slow murder and that ends up being important because the new schooner Which they had chris in the speedwell barely even made it off a wage rion before the sail tour They're like wow, we're gonna need more spare sales So they sent the smaller boat that they had Which was supposed to be like be able to go ashore and gather supplies along the way. They sent that boat back to get a couple of tents from wager island to use as spare sails.

That's a lot of momentum. Really, man. Right? Yeah, oh shit, we forgot a couple of things. Hi guys. We forgot some stuff. But here's the thing. We're gonna be really quick. Don't even look at me. Don't even look at me. It's crazy. Well, but here's the, it was so fucking awkward that the people that they set back just decided like they didn't want to be part of the mutiny anymore and they stayed with the captain on the island.

A interesting side note. One of the guys on that little boat was a dude named John Byron, whose grandson, George Gordon Byron, would help inspire the genre of science fiction by being so boring that when Mary Shelley faced spending a weekend with him, she said, what if we all wrote novels? Wouldn't that be funny? Okay, he wasn't just boring, Noah. He was also probably trying to fuck her. So there was a lot of good reason, like trying to boring Lee fuckers, clearly.

But ultimately, the speedwell set out with 81 men and 30 of them would make it to Brazil. 33 of them would starve in root, and the other 18 were just fucking abandoned. Like, when Bulkley did the math and so they didn't have enough supplies to keep everybody from starving, he just picked 10 men and abandoned them on an island along the way.

And then people like made him sign a consent form for doing it and everything. And then he checked, yeah, right, no, so that he won't trouble. But then he checked the math again later and decided like he hadn't like left enough guys. We abandoned another. She's good.

So many arguments about how that rock paper says this tournament was gonna work and like say it was on three or four. That was a long argument. Look, you ate or just gonna have to stay one night with grandma just one night. Daddy and mommy have to toss and things out just one night. You know, at this point, it's like they're just leaving a trail of like meat bread crumbs for their retelling, you know. Yeah.

So eventually though, the speedwell made its way to Brazil and they were given some of a heroes welcome since everybody had long since given them up for dead. And since they didn't exactly come right out and say, well, yeah, we actually left a trail of meat bread crumbs all the fucking way from K porn to Rio, the international press lionized their daring tale of survival. Uh, Bulkley managed to actually turn a healthy profit off that celebrity by publishing his narrative of the voyage, which served the dual purposes of making him a bunch of money and allowing him to craft the first version of the narrative that most people would hear. Needless to say, it wasn't exactly honest.

And that's when 18 men stood up and said, no, new captain who we all agreed to. I want to starve on this reef. You have to let me. Let me say that. You'll scoot on their desks literally. Oh, captain, my captain. It was'll scoot on their desks literally. Oh, Captain Mike Captain, it was crazy. We had desks also there. Well, of course, none of the mutineers were going to contradict

Bulkley's narrative so long as it was, you know, keeping them out of the gallows. So things might have gone fine for them except that cheap didn't die on Wager island like he was supposed to See about the time that him and his remaining retinue just threw up their hands and gave up a couple more indigenous nomads happened upon them after a bit of negotiation They agreed to trade their remaining supplies in exchange for passage to the nearest Spanish settlement Now this was a fucking four-month track most of the people who started it died along the way

But four guys made died along the way, but four guys made it all the way, cheap among them. He was a Spanish prisoner at this point, but he was an alive Spanish prisoner. Oh, I knew I should have played Duolingo along the way. Yes. This is why you always shoot him now, never wait till you get home.

I don't understand how like they thought it was more ethical to slowly kill them by marooning. That's worse and dumber. Right. Yes. Thank you. So, so the war of Jenkins ear technically carries on to 1748, but the hostility's wrap up around 1742. And around that time, Spain and England agreed to release all the POWs that they're holding. Well, that includes cheap Byron and the other two surviving loyalists. And needless to say, their accounts didn't line up with bulklies. And perhaps even worse for them,

three of those last eight guys that they kicked off of the speed well also managed to survive and make a miraculous return to England. They spent months like stoning sea lions to death for food and then they made a 300 mile overland trek towards Pinellas ares, but then they got like Captured by natives and enslaved and sold the Spanish colonists and then imprisoned for refusing to convert to Catholicism and then released in the big prisoner exchange

Okay, look all religions made up nonsense, but I am in awe of this kind of tenacity I convert to the fucking metric system if I got a ham sandwich out of it. Yes. Much less out of a Spanish prison. You fucking kidding me? So I just learned that to kill a sea lion, you have to stone it. Well, you don't have to. So by the time everybody makes it back to England, there are half a dozen competing narratives,

none of them true, and a public desperate for more details. So naturally, the Navy holds a court marshal and puts everyone on trial. And ultimately they find that nobody did much of anything wrong and everybody should just forgive and forget. I feel like that's right though. It's like you have to, if everybody's going to die unless you like kill 18 people, you should kill 18 people, right? So you can't shoot people in the face

and you can't maroon your cat. You don't have to finish it. You can't, maybe in the face. I don't know, that's fast. Like do it better. So, but here's the thing, the whole situation is a huge embarrassment for the Navy. From the criminally undermined mission to the speed

with which British subjects descended into barbarism and since their whole colonial identity Rested on the fiction that British people were inherently better and more civilized than you know people that they were colonizing The fact that they're subjects and even their fucking military officers turned out to be far more savage than any of the natives They encountered along the way Well, that like that the Navy brass fear that any genuine effort to honor the truth they encountered along the way, well, that, like, that, the Navy brass fear that any genuine effort to honor the truth might accidentally honor the truth, right? So instead, there were just slaps on the wrist all around.

All right, guys, look, it's not about who marooned who to die on a desert island. We all made mistakes. Hey, bulky, let those 18 guys who insisted on dying for him do it. He feels terrible about that all right no that only makes sense so no more failed colonialism for england starting now now yes 1748 or whatever yeah right now it's going to go swimmingly from here

um so in an interesting post script to the story by by the way, I should add that despite the loss of the wager and several more of his ships and more than 90% of his crew and despite the fact that the wager was carrying most of the ammunition Commodore Anson ultimately did manage to capture the Minilia Galean in one of the most lopsided victories in British naval history Then he returned to England via the Indian Ocean meaning that he and his meager band of 187 survivors also managed to circumnavigate the globe along the way. Nice work. All right, if you had to summarize what you've learned in one sentence, what would it be?

I don't name your ship after gambling words. You're just asking. All right. And are you ready for the quiz? Oh, hell yeah. Point's about to schooner. All right, Noah. In the style of the War of Jenkins ear, what should the United States have called the war in Iraq? Hey, the war of Dick Cheney's oil interest

B, the Battle of Iranian troop positions. See the conquest of George W. Bush's daddy issues War crimes It's very obvious. It's definitely D. I was worried that I wouldn't get it right and then you said D. It was very clear It's correct. It's D. No, what's one thing you get tired of eating on this deserted island? Hey a wage salad B. Oh nice. Oh shit. It's between beach cobbler and a round round. I'm going to go see beach cobbler. Oh, I am. You don't know you win. Yeah, it's absolutely sea beach cobbler. You're right. You're right. All right. No, the HMS wager seemed doomed from this start. Why? Hey, the whole voyage was too much of a gamble.

Be if that pundit and grab you. I bet I've got another one. See, no, I do not. Those are the puns. I'm going to go with C, no, you do not. Yeah, no, it definitely wins. Nice. All right Also why wanna Tom Essay next then, Dammit? Alright, excellent. For Cecil, no, Tom and Eli on Heath, thank you for hanging out with us today. We'll be back next week, and Tom will be an expert on something else. Between now and then, you can hear Tom and Cecil on Cognitive Distance, and you can hear Eli knowing myself on God off of movies, The Skating Atheist, Skeptocrat, and D&D Minus.

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