HMS Wager was a square-rigged 6th rate Royal Navy ship of 28 guns, previously an East Indiaman, purchased in 1739 and wrecked on the south coast of Chile on 14 May 1741 when she formed part of the squadron of George Anson, sent into the Pacific by the British Government to attack Spanish interests along the west coast of South America. The wreck of the Wager was to become famous due to the subsequent adventures of the survivors who found themselves initially marooned on a desolate island in the middle of a Patagonian winter, and in particular because of the Wager Mutiny which followed.
John Byron, who sailed on the HMS Wager as a midshipman.
References
There are three first-hand accounts of the voyage and wreck of the Wager, and one other survivor's account that starts after the wreck. Titles and imprint information are often curtailed in this listing.
John Bulkeley and John Cummins. A Voyage to the South-Seas in the Years 1740-1. London: Jacob Robinson, 1743. Second edition, with additions, London, 1757. Bulkeley was the gunner of the Wager and Cummins the carpenter. Bulkeley led (although Lt. Beans or Baynes was nominally in command) the group that took the longboat south from the wreck through the Straits of Magellan and up the east coast of South America. This account was written by Bulkeley, often using the first person singular, from the journal he and Cummins kept up together. This book is on the web in Kerr, A General History, at Google Books, http://books.google.com/books?id=kNw6AAAAIAAJ.
Alexander Campbell. The sequel to Bulkeley and Cummins's voyage to the South-seas. London: W. Owen, 1747. Campbell was a midshipman who accompanied Capt. Cheap and Byron to Santiago. There he was alienated from his companions, converted to Catholicism, and entered Spanish service; chronology, cause and effect in this series of events are difficult to sort out. He crossed the Andes to the River Plate and thence to Europe. His book is on the web at http://patlibros.org/mac/index.php?lan=eng. For notes on his life, with references to many Spanish documents as well as to the English mariners' accounts, see http://patlibros.org/mac/crono.php?lan=esp#rms.
An Affecting Narrative of the Unfortunate Voyage and Catastrophe of His Majesty's Ship Wager.... London: J. Norwood, 1751. This anonymous publication has been attributed to the ship's cooper, John Young, the only person who could have written it were it authentic, but it is actually a pastiche copied from Bulkeley's work with inserted comments and interpretations by a hired writer, and no new information. See Edwards, below, pp. 75-76.
Isaac Morris. Narrative of the Dangers and Distresses which befel Isaac Morris and seven more of the crew.... London: S. Birt, 1752. Morris, a midshipman, left the wreck with Bulkeley and then, with his seven companions, was put ashore in Atlantic Patagonia to look for water and food. The account begins as the longboat sails away leaving them behind. On the web at http://patlibros.org/mim/index.php?lan=eng.
John Byron. Narrative of the Hon. John Byron; Being an Account of the Shipwreck of The Wager; and the Subsequent Adventures of Her Crew, 1768. Second? edition, 1785. Byron was a midshipman who traveled with Captain Cheap north up the coast to the Spanish colonial capital Santiago and then by a French ship to France and finally to England. This book is on the web in Kerr, A General History, at Google Books, http://books.google.com/books?id=kNw6AAAAIAAJ. For the frontispiece drawing of the wreck, see http://www.panoramio.com/photo/3251122.
Voyage a la mer du Sud, fait par quelques officiers commandants le vaisseau le Wager: pour servir de suite au Voyage de Georges Ansons. Traduit de l'anglois. Lyon: Chez les freres Duplain, 1756. This is not in actuality a translation of any text, but a single narrative cast in the first person plural put together from the accounts of Bulkeley, Campbell, and Morris. At Google Books, http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=NLoTAAAAYAAJ.
Robert Kerr. A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Arranged in Systematic Order..., XVII. Edinburgh and London, 1824. Includes Byron's account, pp. 313-414 (327-428 of the pdf), and Bulkeley's, pp. 415-529 (429-543 of the pdf). At Google Books, http://books.google.com/books?id=kNw6AAAAIAAJ.
A voyage to the South seas in His Majesty's ship the Wager in the years 1740-1741, by John Bulkeley and John Cummins, Gunner and Carpenter of the Wager; with an Introduction by Arthur D. Howden Smith. London, 1927. Stated to be 3rd edition. Comprises the narratives of Bulkeley, Morris, and Byron.
The Wreck of the Wager. The Narratives of John Bulkeley and the Hon. John Byron. Edited and Introduced by Christopher Hibbert. London: The Folio Society, 1983. This is a re-edition of the 1927 compilation, with a new introduction.
The Loss of the Wager: the narratives of John Bulkeley and the Hon. John Byron. With an introduction by Alan Gurney. Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK; Rochester, NY: Boydell Press, 2004. New re-edition of The Wreck of the Wager, 1983.
Philip Edwards. The Story of the Voyage: Sea-Narratives in Eighteenth-Century England. Cambridge, 2004. On the Wager accounts, pp. 53-78. A very important discussion. Much of it can be read on Google Books.
In late 2006, a Scientific Exploration Society expedition searched for the wreck of the Wager and found, in shallow water, a piece of a wooden hull with some of the frames and external planking. Carbon 14 dating indicated a date contemporary with the Wager. There does not seem to be any formal publication so far. For a photo of the wreck, and another of a musket ball, see http://www.ses-explore.org/gallery.php?tag=34&large=true. Also see the comment to http://www.panoramio.com/photo/3251122.
In 2007, the Transpatagonia Expedition visited the wreck site and saw more remains. For photos and narrative, see http://www.paginadeseguimiento.blogspot.com/ with a very interesting detailed account of Admiral Pizarro's Spanish fleet sent to block Anson, of Anson's expedition, of the Wager's wreck, and of the series of Spanish expeditions from Chile to recover the guns and materials of the Wager and establish a foothold in the area, as well as details of several 18th-century maps and an excellent modern map of the vicinity of the wreck. Some of the photos with a much shorter narrative in English are at http://onlineexpedition.blogspot.com/. The remains of the ship were not taken up, but photographed through some meters of water. Some artifacts were also seen on shore.
Pack, S. W. C. (1964). The Wager Mutiny. A. Redman. OCLC5152716.
Somerville, Henry Boyle Townshend (1934). Commodore Anson's Voyage Into the South Seas and Around the World. W. Heinemann. OCLC5914627.
