Britain sends Commodore Anson's squadron to intercept Spanish treasure ships, with David Cheap serving as first lieutenant on the flagship Centurion.

Captain Kidd dies of fever mid-voyage, triggering a chain of promotions that places David Cheap in command of the Wager.

Anson's squadron enters Drake's Passage, where violent storms and a deadly scurvy outbreak kill dozens of sailors across the fleet.

The Wager strikes underwater rocks in the Golfo de Penas and sinks, stranding approximately 145 survivors on an uninhabited island.

John Bulkeley organizes the construction of shelter for survivors from the wreckage, emerging as a practical leader among the castaways.

Kawésqar Indigenous people arrive by canoe and help the starving survivors by supplying food including sea urchins and other marine resources.

Captain Cheap shoots midshipman Henry Cozens in the head during a heated argument over food rations on the island.

Cozens dies from his gunshot wound after two failed surgical attempts to remove the bullet, deepening the crew's rage at Cheap.

Armed with weapons, Bulkeley and his supporters formally arrest Captain Cheap for the murder of Cozens and confine him as a prisoner.

Bulkeley and his mutineers depart the island on three boats, leaving Captain Cheap and a few loyalists behind with minimal supplies.

After battling the Strait of Magellan's treacherous channels and storms, Bulkeley's surviving crew finally reaches the open Atlantic Ocean.

Bulkeley's battered ship washes ashore at the Brazilian port of Rio Grande, where the governor declares their survival a miracle.

After a failed escape attempt, Cheap's group is guided to the mainland by the Chono people and then captured by Spanish soldiers.

A court martial convenes in Britain with thirteen naval judges examining responsibility for the Wager's wreck and the mutiny that followed.

The court martial issues a unanimous verdict acquitting Captain Cheap, with only Lieutenant Baynes receiving a mild reprimand for dereliction of duty.

Commodore Anson's squadron is dispatched to attack Spanish treasure ships during the War of Jenkins' Ear, with David Cheap serving as first lieutenant before being promoted to captain of the Wager. The ship survives violent storms in Drake's Passage but eventually sinks in the Golfo de Penas, stranding roughly 145 survivors on a remote Patagonian island. Captain Cheap struggles to maintain order and shoots midshipman Cozens dead during a dispute over rations, an act that turns most of the crew against him. Gunner John Bulkeley leads the mutiny, arrests Cheap, and departs the island with most survivors on three boats headed for the Strait of Magellan. After a harrowing journey, Bulkeley's group reaches Brazil while Cheap's remaining loyalists are eventually captured by Spanish soldiers and held in Chile. All survivors are returned to England and tried in a court martial that acquits nearly everyone, with only Lieutenant Baynes receiving a mild reprimand.

The headline events of the Wager's voyage, mutiny, and trial.

Press gangs forcibly recruit sailors and invalid soldiers for Anson's fleet, filling the ships with unwilling and already-sick crewmen.

At Madeira, captain assignments are reshuffled and Anson orders a secret nighttime departure after learning Spain has sent an armada to intercept them.

A typhus outbreak strikes the ships on the Atlantic, killing sailors and forcing the crew of one cargo vessel to be released for home.

Repeated storms in Drake's Passage scatter the squadron's ships, ultimately leaving the Wager completely isolated and alone on the ocean.

Despite the Wager's severe damage and crew unrest, Cheap insists on pressing forward toward Valdivia to attack Spanish settlements, overruling Bulkeley's protests.

As the Wager sinks, boatswain King and carpenter's mate Mitchell refuse to evacuate, staying aboard to drink the entire liquor supply.

Bulkeley discovers that most of the Wager's logbooks were deliberately destroyed during the evacuation, apparently to conceal evidence of wrongdoing.

John Byron climbs the island's highest peak to survey the surrounding terrain, discovering the landscape offers no apparent escape for the survivors.

A salvage team ventures out to the sunken wreck and recovers food, tools, clothing, and alcohol, temporarily easing tension in the camp.

James Mitchell forms a gang that terrorizes the island camp, robbing and reportedly murdering fellow castaways to steal their meager supplies.

Mitchell's gang seduces Kawésqar women and schemes to steal their canoes, causing the Indigenous people to permanently abandon the survivors' island.

Cheap's small remaining band attempts to escape the island on the repaired barge but is forced back by severe weather and is stranded again.

A sudden squall drives Bulkeley's ship from the South American shore, stranding eight men including the carpenter and boatswain on the mainland.

Anson's Centurion captures the Spanish galleon Our Lady of Covadonga in a naval battle, seizing the largest treasure ever taken by a British commander.

Three of Bulkeley's crew members, left stranded on the South American mainland, are rescued by Indigenous people and eventually return to England.

Even before the Wager set sail, the mission was troubled by forced recruitment through press gangs, outbreaks of typhus, and ships in poor repair. After a resupply stop at Madeira, the squadron battled Atlantic storms that weakened the fleet before it ever reached Drake's Passage, and the ships were eventually scattered and left sailing alone. On Wager Island, the breakdown of order played out through specific acts of violence and betrayal, including Mitchell's gang terrorizing the camp and driving away the Kawésqar people who had been the survivors' most reliable source of food. Cheap's own failed escape attempt left his remaining loyalists stranded once more on the island, while Bulkeley's group faced the additional catastrophe of losing men to a sudden squall on the South American coast. Elsewhere, Anson's flagship completed its mission spectacularly by capturing a Spanish treasure galleon worth millions, a triumph that would later be used to overshadow the Wager's disgrace. The full human cost of the ordeal only became clear when three abandoned crewmen, rescued by Indigenous people, finally straggled back to England long after the trial had ended.

The supporting events that shaped life aboard ship and on Wager Island.

Anson's squadron departs despite being dangerously undermanned, with many sailors forcibly pressed into service and several ships in disrepair.

The squadron's navigators realize they have drastically miscalculated their position, placing the ships hundreds of miles farther from their intended safe harbor.

Cheap falls while repairing the ship's rigging during a storm, breaks his shoulder, and is confined below deck as the Wager sails on leaderless.

Cheap publicly strikes boatswain King before the assembled survivors as punishment for permitting looting and disorder during the ship's evacuation.

Survivors begin arguing that the Wager's sinking decommissioned the ship, meaning they are no longer bound by naval law or obligated to obey Cheap.

Three survivors caught stealing supplies are publicly flogged over three days and banished to a barren islet, yet the thefts continue regardless.

A petition signed by the majority of survivors is presented to Cheap, demanding the group abandon the mission and sail for Britain via the Strait of Magellan.

Under direct pressure from Cheap during a confrontation, Lieutenant Baynes temporarily switches back to the captain's side, stalling Bulkeley's mutiny plans.

Byron initially departs with Bulkeley's group but reverses his decision during the voyage and returns to Wager Island to remain with Captain Cheap.

Bulkeley's crew survives a near-fatal storm by sheltering in a cove within the Strait of Magellan, which Bulkeley names the Port of God's Mercy.

Bulkeley's starving crew successfully hunts seals on an uninhabited island but suffers dangerous refeeding syndrome after consuming too much food too quickly.

Lieutenant Baynes secretly departs Brazil ahead of Bulkeley and races back to England to give the Admiralty his account of the mutiny first.

Bulkeley publishes his journal publicly as a defense against mutiny charges, appealing to common readers and winning widespread popular support against Cheap.

Cheap returns to England furious about Bulkeley's published journal and demands the Admiralty convene a formal hearing to challenge the mutineers' account.

Anson's ghostwritten official account of his voyage becomes a bestseller, while the story of the Wager mutiny is deliberately suppressed from the public record.

The Wager's fate was shaped by a series of turning points, beginning with the mission departing dangerously ill-equipped and the squadron's navigators discovering a catastrophic miscalculation that left the fleet deep in Drake's Passage with no safe harbor nearby. On the island, authority collapsed through escalating confrontations: failed punishments, a formal petition demanding mutiny, and a critical moment when Lieutenant Baynes briefly defected back to Cheap's side before the mutineers prevailed. Byron's personal reversal—choosing to remain with Cheap after initially joining the deserters—illustrated the impossible choices every survivor faced between loyalty, survival, and honor. Bulkeley's careful documentation of every decision, from naming a cove the Port of God's Mercy to recording the abandonment of stranded men, was itself a calculated act to control the eventual narrative. Back in Britain, the battle over that narrative consumed the survivors as Baynes raced to England first and Bulkeley published his journal to win over the public. The final revelation was that no one would be punished—not because justice was served, but because the British Empire could not afford the truth, choosing instead to elevate Anson's glory and erase the Wager from memory.