An interesting story about
John Bulkley.
As the Wager, now on her own, continued beating to the west, the question was when to turn north. Do it too early and the risk of running the ship aground was very high - something that the crew were already very aware of given the previous near miss. However, the crew were severely depleted with scurvy; every day more victims were going down with the condition and there was a shortage of seamen to handle the ship. The question of when to turn north became contentious when Captain Cheap stated his intention to make for the Island of Sirocco. The Gunner, John Bulkley objected strongly to this proposal and instead argued that the secondary rendezvous, the Island of Juan Fernandez should be their destination since it was not as close to the coast as Sirocco and therefore less likely to result in wrecking the ship on a lee shore. It should be noted that although Bulkley's executive responsibility was as Gunner onboard the Wager, an officer rank in the Navy at the time, he was undoubtedly the most capable seaman on the ship. Navigation was technically the responsibility of the Master, Thomas Clark, but he, along with most of the officers on board, was held in thinly-disguised contempt by Cheap.
Bulkley tried to persuade Cheap to change course, arguing that the ship was in such a poor condition that the ability to carry the required sail plans to beat off a lee-shore or come to anchor was compromised therefore making his decision to head for Sirocco very dangerous, especially as the land was poorly charted. In the event Bulkley was to prove exactly right, but Cheap refused to change course.
On 13 May 1741, at nine in the morning, John Cummins, the carpenter, went forward to inspect the chain plates. Whilst there he thought he caught a fleeting glimpse of land to the west. The lieutenant, Baynes, was also there but he saw nothing, and the sighting was not reported. At the time, sighting land to the west was thought to be impossible, however the Wager had entered a large uncharted bay, and the land to the west was later to be called Peninsula Tres Montes. At two in the afternoon land was positively sighted to the west and northwest and all hands were mustered to make sail and turn the ship to the southwest. During the frantic operations which followed, Cheap fell down the quarterdeck ladder and dislocated his shoulder, and was confined below. There followed a night of terrible weather. The ship was in a disabled and worn-out condition, severely hampering efforts to get clear of the bay. At four thirty am, the ship struck rocks repeatedly, broke its tiller, and although still afloat was partially flooded. Invalids below who were too sick to get out of their hammocks were drowned.
Bulkley and another seaman began steering the ship with sail alone towards land, but later in the morning the ship struck again, this time fast.
[edit] Shipwrecked on Wager Island
The Wager had struck rock on the coast of what would subsequently be known as Wager Island. Some of the crew broke into the spirit room and got drunk, armed themselves and began looting, dressing up in officers' clothes and fighting. Aside from this, 140 other men and officers took to the boats and made it safely on shore, however their prospects were now desperate. The island was far into the southern latitudes at the start of winter with little food. In addition to this, the crew were dangerously divided, with many of them blaming the Captain for their predicament. On the following day, Friday 15 May, the ship bilged amidships and many of the drunken crew still on board drowned. The only members of the crew now left on the Wager was the Boatswain, John King and a few of his followers. King was a rebellious character, and as events would prove an extremely dangerous murderer.
[edit] Mutiny
Cast ashore in dreadful conditions, the crew of the Wager were frightened and angry with their Captain. Dissent and insubordination soon became increasingly common. King even fired a four pounder from the Wager at the Captain's hut to induce someone to collect him and his mates once they began to fear for their safety on the wreck.
The rebellious thoughts of the crew was a great fear. Any dissent by seamen or officers within the contemporary Royal Navy was met with a brutal and energetically-pursued vigour. Anyone found guilty of mutiny would be pursued for the rest of their lives across the globe, and to be found guilty required very little insubordination by today’s standards. There could only be one rapidly executed sentence; death.
The crew knew they were playing an extremely dangerous game and there was a continual effort to build a narrative to justify their rebellious actions. Full mutiny indeed would not even have occurred had the Captain agreed to a plan of escape devised by Bulkley, who had the confidence of most men, to convert and improve the boats for open sea and make their way home via the Magellan Straits to Portuguese Brazil or the British Caribbean and then home to England. Bulkley was certainly skilful enough to give the plan at least some chance of success. Despite much prevarication in the ensuing negotiations, Captain Cheap would not agree to Bulkley's plan. If discipline for ordinary seamen was brutal, the officers were no better off. The importance of doing one's utmost to complete a mission was implicit.
Aware that he had lost his ship, Cheap was in a predicament; in such a situation a court martial was automatic, and if found guilty he could be thrown out of the Navy and into a lifetime of poverty and isolation at best. At worst he could be found guilty of cowardice and executed by firing squad. Cheap wanted to head north along the Chilean coast to rendezvous with Anson at Valdivia. This was essentially the impasse which led to the mutiny. Many other events occurred which were used by the mutineers to justify their actions, including the shooting by Cheap of a drunken insubordinate midshipman called Cozens, who shot in the face at point blank range. He was refused medical aid on the orders of the Captain and took ten days to die in agony. Outrageous as this action was, Cheap was only feeding ammunition to the mutineers who were now trying to claim that he was guilty of murder and therefore could be forced to return to England for trial.
The carpenters continued modifying the boats for an as-yet undecided plan of escape. Most importantly they were lengthening the pinnace to increase the number of men it could carry. Once this boat was ready, events must necessarily come to a head. On 9 October, armed men entered Cheap's hut and bound him, claiming that he was now their prisoner and they were taking him to England for trial for the murder of Cozens. To further justify their actions the mutineers managed to convince the incompetent and weak First Lieutenant, Baynes, to assume command of the expedition. At this point a still-bound Cheap said “you will doubtless be called for account for this hereafter”. The die was cast, but these words terrified those who heard them, especially Baynes. The gunner and carpenter also began to have doubts, however all were committed now to Bulkley's plan, with their Captain bound and their prisoner.
Exactly why Cheap allowed things to escalate over so many months, continually referred to further prosecution of the mission when this was unrealistic, and failed to take any precautions to prevent a conflict arising is unclear. He may have been thinking that the Admiralty would place the prosecution of a mutiny in precedence over some neglect in sailing orders. In such a situation support for the Captain would need to be applied to successfully prosecute the mutineers.[2]
[edit] The Voyage of the Speedwell
Satellite image of the Straits of MagellanAt noon on Tuesday 13 October 1741, the Speedwell got under sail with the cutter and barge in company. Cheap refused to go in the Speedwell and to the relief of the mutineers he agreed to be left behind with two marines who were earlier shunned for stealing food. Everyone expected Cheap to die on Wager Island, making their arrival in England much easier to explain. Bulkley even assumed this by putting in his journal that day, "this was the last I ever saw of the Captain". In the event, both would make it back to England alive to tell their version of events, Cheap some two years after Bulkley.
Initially the voyage of the Speedwell got off to a bad start. After repeatedly splitting sails, the barge was sent back to Wager Island where there were additional stores. Two midshipmen, John Byron and Alexander Campbell, were part of the nine who returned. Once back at Wager Island they were greeted by an overjoyed Captain, delighted at their wish to remain with him. By the time Bulkley sailed back to Wager Island in search of the missing barge and men, all had disappeared. The Speedwell and the cutter therefore turned and made south once more. The journey was arduous and food was in very short supply. On 3 November the cutter parted company; this was serious as the cutter was needed for inshore foraging work. By now Bulkley was despairing of the fifty nine men in the Speedwell. Most were in the advanced stages of starvation, exposed in a desperately cold open boat and had lapsed into apathy; others were ready to resort to murder to survive. Some weeks later however there was some good news, the cutter was sighted and re-joined company, but it was not to last. Some days later, at night she broke loose from her consort and was wrecked on the coast. Of the 81 men originally who had sailed ten had now perished.
As food began to run out and the situation became desperate, ten men were picked out and forced to sign a paper consenting to being cast ashore on the uninhabited frozen bog-ridden southern coast of Chile. It was a death sentence. Sixty men now remained in the Speedwell. Eventually they entered the Strait of Magellan, in monstrous seas which threatened the boat with every wave. Men were now dying from starvation regularly. Some days after exiting the Magellan Straights, the boat moved closer to land in order to take in water and hunt for food. As the last of these supplies were being taken on board, Bulkley made sail abandoning eight men on the shore, for what he thought was certain death. Once again such actions would return to haunt Bulkley far into the future. Only 33 men now remained in the Speedwell.
After a brief stop at a Portuguese outpost in the River Plate, where the crew were fleeced by the locals for provisions and cheated by a priest who disappeared with their fowling pieces (shotguns) on the promise of returning with game, the Speedwell set sail once more and eventually on 28 January 1742 sighted the Rio Grande after a journey of over 2000 miles in an open boat full of desperate and starving men which took 15 weeks. Of the 81 men who set off, 30 had now arrived into Rio. Even if returning to England was now more likely, Bulkley and the other survivors were now thinking hard about how to explain what had happened.
[edit] Captain Cheap's Group
Title Page of Byron's BookTwenty men remained on Wager Island after the departure of the Speedwell. Poor weather during October and November continued. One man died of exposure after being marooned for three days on a rock for stealing food. By December and the summer solstice, it was decided to launch the barge and the yawl and skirt up the coast 300 miles to an inhabited part of Chile. During bad weather the yawl was overturned and lost, with the quartermaster drowned.
The loss of this boat meant that there was not enough room for everyone in the barge, and therefore 4 of the most helpless, all marines, were left on the shore to fend for themselves. Fourteen now were left in the barge. After repeated failed attempts to round a headland, it was decided to return to Wager Island and give up all hope of escape. The four stranded marines were looked for but had disappeared. Two months after leaving Wager Island, Captain Cheap's group returned; there were only 13 left now, after another man died of starvation.
Back at the island Captain Cheap did himself little credit by claiming captain's privileges to take more food than the others and do less work. Fifteen days after returning to Wager Island the men were visited by a party of astonished Indians.
After some negotiation, with the surgeon speaking Spanish, it was agreed that they would guide the castaways to a small Spanish settlement up the coast, for which the barge would be traded. John Byron, in his book [3] gives a detailed account of the journey to the village of Castro in Chile, but suffice to say it was a horrific ordeal that took four months and during which ten men died of starvation, exhaustion and fatigue, leaving only one marine, Midshipmen Campbell and Byron, and Captain Cheap as survivors.
[edit] Bulkley & the Speedwell survivors return to England
The 30 mutineers in Rio Grande had an anxious time before eventually securing passage to Rio de Janeiro on the brigantine Saint Catherine which set sail on Sunday 28 March 1742. Once in Rio de Janeiro internal and external diplomatic wrangling continually threatened to terminally complicate either their lives, or at least their return to England. John King didn't help. He formed a violent gang that spent most of its time terrorising their shipmates, who in turn spent most of their time moving to the opposite side of Rio to wherever King was [4]. However, Bulkley, the Carpenter and Cooper eventually secured passage to Bahia in the Saint Tubes, which set sail on 20 May 1742, where with great relief they left the Boatswain John King behind to continue creating havoc in Rio de Janeiro. On 11 September 1742, the Saint Tubes left Bahia bound for Lisbon, and from there they embarked on HMS Stirling Castle on 20 December bound for Spithead, England, arriving on New Year's Day 1743 after an absence of more than two years. On the orders of the Admiralty the three returning Wagers were detained onboard pending a decision.
[edit] The Survivors of Captain Cheap's group return to England
In January 1742, as Bulkley was returning to Spithead, the four survivors of Cheap's group had spent seven months in Chaco. Nominal prisoners of the local governor, they were actually allowed to live with local hosts and were left unmolested. The biggest obstacle in Byron's efforts to return to England at this time was the old lady who looked after him, and her two beautiful daughters, all of who became very fond of him and were extremely reluctant to see him go. The small group were then shipped to Valparaiso, where they were flung into a prison cell, and their destiny now became very difficult to predict.
[edit] The abandoned survivors of the Speedwell group return to England
Left by Bulkley at Freshwater Bay, in what is today the resort city of Mar del Plata,[5][6] were eight men who were now in dire straits. Alone, starving, sickly and in hostile remote country any thoughts of making it back to England must have seemed fantastic. After a month of living on seals killed with stones to preserve ball and powder the group began the three hundred mile trek north to Buenos Aires. At this time the greatest fear were the Tehuelche natives, who were known to live in the area. After a 60 mile trek north in two days they were forced to return to Freshwater Bay because they were unable to locate any fresh water. Once back they decided to wait for the wet season before making another attempt, but this again failed in May, this time due to a lack of food. They now became more settled in Freshwater Bay, built a hut, tamed some puppies they took from a wild dog and even began raising pigs. This relatively peaceful existence was disrupted when one of the group spotted a what they described as a tiger (likely a cougar or even a jaguar) reconnoitering their hut one night, and another sighting of a big cat shortly after had the men hastily planning another attempt to walk to Buenos Aires.
When most of the men were out hunting, a group of four returned to find the two left behind to mind the camp were murdered, their hut was torn down and all their possessions taken. Two other men who were also out hunting in another area disappeared and their dogs made their way back to the devastated camp. The four men left alive now left Freshwater Bay for Buenos Aires accompanied by 16 dogs and two pigs.
They didn't get very far, and once more, for the third time, were forced to return to Freshwater Bay where shortly after a large group of Indians on horseback surrounded then and took them all prisoner and enslaved them. After being bought and sold four times, they eventually were taken to the local chieftain's camp. Here they were treated much better when he learned that they were English and more importantly were at war with the Spanish. By the end of 1743, after eight months as slaves, they eventually represented to the chief that they wished to return to Buenos Aires. This was agreed, with the exception of John Duck, who was mulatto and who therefore the Indians felt should remain. An English trader in Montevideo, upon hearing of their plight, put up the ransom of $270 for the other three and they were released. On arrival in Buenos Aires, the governor flung them in jail after they refused to convert to Catholicism. In early 1745 they were moved to the ship Asia where they were to work as prisoners of war. After this they were thrown in prison once more and chained and on a bread and water diet for 14 weeks before a judge eventually ordered their release. They arrived back in London via Portugal on 5 July 1746.
John Bulkley wrote
a book about it.
And there is
another one as well.
And it was reported in the
Dutch newspapers.
