The Wager Mutiny, Narrated by the Mutineers
BULKELEY, John; John CUMMINS. 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 Whole Compiled by Persons Concerned in the Facts Related. London: Jacob Robinson. 1743.
8vo. Modern full calf, gilt red morocco lettering-piece to spine; pp. xx, 220; woodcut headpieces and initials, printed on thick paper; a few light scuffs to boards, boards slightly bowed; slight offset to first and final pages; sporadic light foxing (heavier to quires G and I), old repair to inner margin of a1~sup~v~sup~; ownership inscription at head of title, cancelled in ink; nonetheless an attractive copy.
First edition, the variant with the authors’ names on the title page (priority not established), of this account of the 1741 mutiny aboard the Wager, stranded on a remote island off the coast of present-day Chile, now considered one of the most harrowing naval disasters of the eighteenth century.
During the 1739–48 War of Jenkins’ Ear between Britain and Spain – named for Captain Robert Jenkins, whose ear was purportedly cut off by Spanish coast guards in 1731 – a British squadron under Commodore George Anson was sent to ‘annoy and distress’ Spanish possessions in the Pacific. Whilst rounding Cape Horn, the HMS Wager was struck by hurricane-force winds and ran aground on an uninhabited island (now Wager Island) on 14 May 1741. Following the deaths of several crew members due to starvation or hypothermia, and the desertion of several others, the authors of the present work – gunman John Bulkeley and carpenter John Cummins – staged a mutiny against Captain David Cheap (who by this time had shot another crew member), abandoned the islands, and set out for Brazil with over eighty crew members.
Of these, only about thirty survived; Bulkeley and Cummins published the present work, dedicated to Edward Vernon, Vice-Admiral of the Blue, in an attempt to clear their names. They were never charged for mutiny due to lack of legislation about officers’ authority over crew in the event of the loss of their ship.
Following Cheap’s return to England and subsequent acquittal, Bulkeley immigrated to the Pennsylvania Colony; another edition of his Voyage to the South Seas was published in Philadelphia in 1757.
ESTC T142350; Sabin 9108.
SKU: 2120235