![]() Fewer than half of Bulkeley’s group survived their nearly 3,000-mile journey through the Strait of Magellan and up the coast of Argentina, but he was treated as a hero, until Cheap miraculously appeared back in England and accused him of mutiny. Five months after they’d been marooned, Bulkeley and 80 other crew members commandeered the Wager’s longboat and two other small vessels and set sail for Brazil, abandoning Cheap and his few remaining loyalists to their fate. The starving crew soon disintegrated into rival factions, including one led by gunner John Bulkeley, who became increasingly critical of Capt. Part of a squadron sent to capture a treasure-laden Spanish galleon during the War of Jenkins’ Ear, the Wager became separated from the other ships while rounding Cape Horn and wrecked several weeks later. Bestseller Grann ( Killers of the Flower Moon) delivers a concise and riveting account of the HMS Wager, a British man-of-war that ran aground on a barren island off the Chilean coast of Patagonia in 1741. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |