In November 1740, lieutenant Cheap was promoted to command the ‘Trial’ (a sloop)
In May of the following year he was in command of HMS Wager
He sailed in the expedition around the world with Anson.
Among his crew was the grandfather of Lord Byron, poet.
The ship was wrecked off an island near Patagonia. The island is now called Isla Wager.
The following is an extraction from the book written by Richard Walter, titled ‘Anson Voyage Round the World’
Chapter 12
The wreck of the Wager- A mutiny
CHAPTER 12.
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 neighborhood 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