A Voyage to the South-Seas, in the Years 1740-1: Containing a Faithful Narrative of the Loss of His Majesty’s Ship the Wager on a Desolate Island

The tale of the ill-fated HMS Wager gripped the public’s imagination, feeding its taste for dramatic accounts of survival against the odds. Part of George Anson’s squadron that had been sent to harass Spanish ships in the Pacific, she was wrecked after rounding Cape Horn in 1741. The majority of the survivors, led by ship’s gunner John Bulkeley, mutinied against their irascible and unpredictable captain and chose to make their own way home in what would become one of the most hazardous journeys ever recorded. Their journey took them over 2,000 miles in an open boat through ferocious seas, enduring starvation and extreme privation. Two years after the disaster, the thirty remaining men arrived back in England. Bulkeley and ship’s carpenter John Cummins published this account in 1743. Also reissued in this series is the 1768 account of John Byron, who had been midshipman aboard the Wager.