“I imagined”: Ibid., 27–28.

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  “great insolence”: Ibid., 42.

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  “most cruelly”: Ibid.

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  “A mutiny!”: Campbell, The Sequel to Bulkeley and Cummins’s “Voyage to the South Seas,” 103.

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  “These eleven Indians”: Morris, A Narrative of the Dangers and Distresses Which Befel Isaac Morris, 45.

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  “revolted again”: Jill Lepore, These Truths: A History of the United States, 55.

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  “Thus was the”: Morris, A Narrative of the Dangers and Distresses Which Befel Isaac Morris, 47.

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  “I believe”: Ibid., 37.

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  “make a monopoly”: Thomas, A True and Impartial Journal of a Voyage to the South-Seas, and Round the Globe, in His Majesty’s Ship the Centurion, Under the Command of Commodore George Anson, 10.

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  “undoubtedly of the”: Philips, An Authentic Journal of the Late Expedition Under the Command of Commodore Anson, ii. There was no one named John Philips onboard the Centurion, but the account appears to have been based on an actual officer’s logbook.

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  “done his utmost”: Walter, A Voyage Round the World, 155.

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  the “ringleader”: Ibid., 158.

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  “men conceived”: Ibid., 156.

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  “Though prudence”: Ibid., 444.

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  something odd: For more information on the mystery of who wrote A Voyage Round the World, see Barrow’s The Life of Lord George Anson and Williams’s The Prize of All the Oceans.

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  had been ghostwritten: Anson’s biographer Barrow concluded that Walter “drew the cold and naked skeleton,” while Robins “clothed it with flesh and muscles, and, by the warmth of his imagination…caused the blood to circulate through the veins.”

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  “aversion to writing”: Quoted in Lavery, Anson’s Navy, 14.

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  “I got sight”: Letter from Anson to Duke of Newcastle, June 14, 1744, TNA-SP 42/88.

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  “an enterprise”: Walter, A Voyage Round the World, 2.

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  “constantly exerted”: Ibid., 218.

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  “always kept up”: Ibid., 342.

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  “remarkable for”: Ibid., 174.

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  “Everybody has”: Barrow, The Life of Lord George Anson, iii.

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  “un capitaine”: Quoted in Mahon, History of England, vol. 3, 33.

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  “the ingenious author”: James Cook, Captain Cook’s Journal During His First Voyage Round the World Made in H.M. Bark Endeavour, 1768–1771, 48.

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  “a classic story”: Glyndwr Williams’s introduction to his edited version of A Voyage Round the World, ix.

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  “one of the”: Thomas Carlyle, Complete Works of Thomas Carlyle, vol. 3, 491.

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  “the most popular”: Bernard Smith, Imagining the Pacific: In the Wake of the Cook Voyages, 52.

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  EPILOGUE

  “honour” to reveal: Letter from Cheap to Admiralty, January 13, 1747, printed in Layman, The Wager Disaster, 253–55.

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  “dead on the”: Derby Mercury, July 24, 1752.

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  Foul-Weather Jack: A ballad about John Byron went:

  Brave he may be, deny it who can,

  Yet Admiral John is a luckless man;

  And the midshipmen’s mothers cry, “Out, alack!

  My lad has sailed with Foulweather Jack!”

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  “the universal”: John Charnock, Biographia Navalis, or, Impartial Memoirs of the Lives and Characters of Officers of the Navy of Great Britain, from the Year 1660 to the Present Time, 439.

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  “rash and hasty”: Byron, The Complete Works of Lord Byron, 41.

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  “great injustice”: Carlyle, Anecdotes and Characters of the Times, 100.

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  “simple, interesting”: Quoted in Emily Brand, The Fall of the House of Byron, 112.

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  “hardships were”: Byron, The Complete Works of Lord Byron, 720.

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  Reversed for: Byron, The Collected Poems of Lord Byron, 89.

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  Stay, traveller: Barrow, The Life of Lord George Anson, 419.

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  decayed into pieces: Nothing survived of the lion’s head but a portion of the carved leg, which was salvaged by a descendant of Anson’s.

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  “remarkable and most”: Melville, White-Jacket, or, The World in a Man-of-War, 155–56.

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  Wager Island remains: The description of the island is based on my visit there.

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  rotted wooden planks: These remnants of the hull, some of which I observed during my own visit to the island, were first discovered in 2006 by an expedition organized by the Scientific Exploration Society with support of the Chilean Navy. For more information on its findings, see both “The Quest for HMS Wager Chile Expedition 2006,” which was published by the Scientific Exploration Society, and “The Findings of the Wager, 2006,” by Major Chris Holt, a member of the expedition, which is printed in Layman’s The Wager Disaster.

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  Andrewes, William J. H., ed. The Quest for Longitude. Cambridge, MA: Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments, Harvard University, 1996.

  Anon. An Affecting Narrative of the Unfortunate Voyage and Catastrophe of His Majesty’s Ship Wager, One of Commodore Anson’s Squadron in the South Sea Expedition…The Whole Compiled from Authentic Journals. London: John Norwood, 1751.

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  Byrn, John D. Crime and Punishment in the Royal Navy: Discipline on the Leeward Islands Station, 1784–1812. Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1989.

  Byron, John. The Narrative of the Honourable John Byron: Containing an Account of the Great Distresses Suffered by Himself and His Companions on the Coast of Patagonia, from the Year 1740, Till Their Arrival in England, 1746. London: S. Baker and G. Leigh, 1769.

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  Byron, George Gordon. The Collected Poems of Lord Byron. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth, 1995.

  ———.The Complete Works of Lord Byron. Paris: Baudry’s European Library, 1837.

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  Codrington, Edward. Memoir of the Life of Admiral Sir Edward Codrington. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1875.

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  Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1857.

  Conboy, Martin, and John Steel, eds. The Routledge Companion to British Media History. London and New York: Routledge, 2015.

  Conrad, Joseph. Lord Jim. Ware, Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions, 1993.

  ———. Complete Short Stories. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2007.

  Cook, James. Captain Cook’s Journal During His First Voyage Round the World Made in H.M. Bark Endeavour, 1768–1771. London: Elliot Stock, 1893.

  Cooper, John M. Analytical and Critical Bibliography of the Tribes of Tierra del Fuego and Adjacent Territory. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1917.

  Cuyvers, Luc. Sea Power: A Global Journey. Annopolis: Naval Institute Press, 1993.

  Dana, R. H. The Seaman’s Friend: A Treatise on Practical Seamanship. Boston: Thomas Groom & Co., 1879.

  ———. Two Years Before the Mast, and Twenty-Four Years After. London: Sampson Low, Son, & Marston, 1869.

  Darnton, Robert. The Literary Underground of the Old Regime. Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Press, 1982.

  Darwin, Charles. A Naturalist’s Voyage. London: John Murray, 1889.

  ———. The Descent of Man. Vol. 1. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1871.

  ———, and David Amigoni. The Voyage of the Beagle: Journal of Researches into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries Visited during the Voyage of HMS Beagle Round the World, Under the Command of Captain Fitz Roy, RN. Wordsworth Classics of World Literature. Ware: Wordsworth Editions, 1997.