Commodore Anson News Today

David Grann's latest book The Wager, A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder tells the story of the disastrous voyage of the 28-gun frigate The Wager across the Atlantic and round Cape Horn as part of a Royal Navy flotilla to attack Spanish shipping in the Pacific during the War of Jenkin's Ear. It is a dramatic change from his previous book Killers of the Flower Moon, set in the rolling hills and open prairie of Osage County that runs north from Tulsa, Oklahoma and dealing with the mur...

Katrina Gulliver on “The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder” by David Grann.

It all began in 1731 when Robert Jenkins, the captain of the Rebecca, had his ear sliced off by Juan de León Fandiño of the Spanish patrol boat La Isabela. Storming the British brig in the Caribbean, Fandiño accused Jenkins of smuggling sugar from Spanish colonies. He would cut King George’s ear off too, Fandiño

In 1740, the 28-gun ship HMS Wager was wrecked off the coast of an uninhabited island in South America. Its crew turned to in-fighting and cannibalism as they tried to survive.

Published: April 8, 2021 at 10:40 am In the long annals of the Royal Navy, there have been many triumphs and disasters. The story of HMS Wager, wrecked off the coast of Patagonian Chile in 1741, must be one of the most sensational and dramatic catastrophes of them all. Advertisement Surprisingly, history has never given it much attention. Compared to the mutiny on the Bounty, for example [the 1789 rebellion against the captain of a ship that had been sent to the Pacific Ocean to acq...