0:01

Prescription weight loss injections are all

0:03

over the news right now. People want them. People

0:06

can't get them. Everyone is talking about them. They

0:08

seem to work by removing hunger,

0:11

but what does that really mean? This episode of Gastropod,

0:13

we talk to people who've taken these drugs and felt

0:16

their hunger suddenly disappear. We also

0:18

talk to the researchers who are figuring

0:20

out the science of hunger and fullness, how

0:22

it works and how it shapes our lives,

0:24

plus why each of us experiences

0:27

it so differently. Come with us behind the

0:29

headlines to hear what these drugs can tell us about

0:31

the feelings that bookend each and every

0:33

meal. Listen to Gastropod wherever you

0:35

get your podcasts. I'm

0:39

Kara Swisher.

0:39

And I'm Scott Galloway. And this

0:42

week on Pivot, we're talking to Chasten Budajic

0:44

about his new young adult memoir, I

0:47

Have Something to Tell You. And we'll hear

0:49

about his nationwide book tour, which

0:51

will take him through areas where anti-LGBTQ

0:54

legislation book bans are on the rise.

0:57

Join us for new episodes every Tuesday and Friday

0:59

as we break down all things tech and business.

1:06

These are among, if not the worst seas

1:08

in the world. They're

1:11

at the very tip of the Americas and

1:13

off the very end of Patagonia. And

1:16

it's the only place on earth where

1:18

the seas flow uninterrupted

1:20

around the globe. So over a span

1:23

of 13,000 miles, these

1:25

seas and these waves accumulate enormous

1:27

power. You can have a wave

1:29

that can dwarf a 90-foot mast.

1:35

It is also the strongest currents on

1:37

earth. And then there are the winds,

1:39

which can accelerate routinely to

1:41

hurricane force and even reach as

1:44

much as 200 miles per hour. This

1:47

is author David Grahan. He's

1:49

talking about the ocean around Cape Horn, the

1:52

southernmost point in South America.

1:55

Herman Melville, the novelist

1:57

who made it around the horn.

1:59

described it or compared it to

2:02

a descent into hell in Dante's

2:04

Inferno.

2:07

There's

2:07

an old sailor saying, below 40

2:09

degrees latitude, there is no law.

2:12

Below 50 degrees, there is no

2:15

God.

2:16

Cape Horn is at nearly 56 degrees

2:19

latitude. Before

2:22

the Panama Canal was completed, the

2:24

only way to sail from the Atlantic Ocean into

2:27

the Pacific was to sail around

2:29

the bottom of South America.

2:31

Hundreds of ships wrecked, trying it.

2:34

It's said that sailors who survived going around

2:36

Cape Horn wore a small gold hoop

2:39

in their ear to show that they'd made it.

2:42

In 1740, five British

2:44

warships set off on a secret mission

2:47

that would send them around Cape Horn.

2:50

They were going after a Spanish ship. Twice

2:53

a year, Spain sent a ship to the Philippines

2:56

filled with silver to trade for silks and

2:58

spices. People knew

3:00

about it. It was called the

3:03

Prize of All the Oceans, and

3:05

the British decided to steal it. I'm

3:09

Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.

3:11

A Commodore named George Anson would

3:14

lead the mission. He was told that

3:16

he should create as much trouble

3:18

for the Spanish as possible, quote, taking, sinking, burning, or otherwise destroying

3:21

enemy

3:25

ships along the way. But there's a problem. They didn't have

3:27

enough sailors. So

3:32

the Navy began sending out something

3:34

called press gangs. And

3:37

these press gangs would rove about. They would go into

3:39

pubs, they would roam around

3:41

towns, they would

3:43

board ships coming

3:45

into ports, and they would look for

3:47

anybody who looked like a mariner. If you

3:49

had a certain hat, and they'd say, oh, that

3:51

looks like a mariner, you would have

3:53

to go in and do that. And they would

3:55

look for a little bit of a seagull. And they

3:58

would say, oh, that looks like a mariner. or

4:00

if you had tar on your fingertips, which

4:02

was used on ships, to say, oh, that must be a mariner.

4:04

And they would essentially seize you and

4:07

place you on a little boat, a tender, which was like

4:09

a prison. You were held below. And you were

4:11

brought onto the ship and sent

4:13

on this voyage, this perilous voyage,

4:16

which might last three years with no expectation,

4:18

just moments before that this was about to

4:20

happen.

4:22

The use of press gangs wasn't unusual

4:25

at the time. There's one newspaper

4:27

account of a man who was surrounded by a press gang

4:29

while he was inside a church

4:31

and eventually snuck away dressed in,

4:33

quote, an old genowoman's long

4:36

cloak, hood, and bonnet.

4:39

Some press gangs would even wait in boats to

4:41

capture sailors

4:42

returning home on merchant ships. The

4:46

British Navy brought George Anson 500 men

4:49

from a pensioner's home, a home

4:52

for elderly or injured veterans who'd

4:54

previously been considered unfit

4:56

for active service.

4:59

Many of them couldn't board the ships by themselves

5:02

and had to be carried on with stretchers.

5:06

There were also children working on board.

5:07

David Grant says it's possible

5:10

some were as young as six years old.

5:13

Once on board, it was almost impossible

5:16

to leave.

5:17

In those days, most seamen, the majority of

5:19

seamen, couldn't swim. And part

5:22

of the tactic was to anchor far enough away because

5:24

when they were at shore, so many

5:26

of the men ran and deserted. At

5:29

any opportunity, many of these people were trying to get

5:31

the hell out of this expedition.

5:33

250 men and boys were

5:36

put on board the smallest warship,

5:38

the wager, about double

5:41

the number it was meant to hold. By

5:44

the time the expedition departed, sailors

5:46

were getting sick. It was typhus,

5:50

or as they called it, ship's fever.

5:53

The surgeon on board the wager moved the infected

5:56

men to the lower deck. This was

5:58

a common practice with sailors who got sick.

5:59

at sea, and it's where the term

6:02

under the weather comes from. Three

6:06

months into the journey, the warships

6:08

reached Brazil. While

6:10

in Brazil, George Anson wrote to the Admiralty

6:13

to say 160 sailors had died since they'd

6:15

left England. And when

6:18

one of the ship's captains got sick and died,

6:21

a man named David Cheepe took over

6:23

as captain on the wager.

6:25

David Cheepe was somebody

6:28

who had always dreamed of becoming

6:30

a captain. He was somebody who

6:33

struggled on shore. He was kind

6:35

of plagued by debts and chased by

6:38

creditors. He had run off to sea

6:40

many years before, and he kind of found refuge

6:42

at sea. And on this expedition,

6:44

through a twist of fate, he finally

6:47

attains his dream of captaining

6:49

his own ship and having a chance

6:51

to potentially capture a lucrative

6:54

prize ship.

6:56

The wager and the other ships kept heading south

6:59

along the coast of South America.

7:01

Once they went ashore to fix a broken mast

7:04

and saw armadillos,

7:06

the sailors called them hogs in armor.

7:09

As they got further south, they saw penguins

7:12

and sea lions.

7:13

And once, a sailor on board the wager

7:16

wrote that they nearly hit a whale.

7:19

Sometimes it snowed.

7:22

Eventually, it was time for the ships to

7:24

turn west and enter the waters

7:27

around Cape Horn.

7:30

And it was also at that very moment where many

7:32

of the men could no longer get out of their hammocks. Their

7:34

skin is starting to change texture

7:36

and color. It's becoming blackened in places.

7:39

They're feeling aches and pains. Then

7:42

many of them, their teeth began to fall out. Then

7:44

their hair began to fall out because

7:46

they were suffering from this mysterious

7:48

illness of scurvy.

7:52

Incredibly, even the cartilage that

7:54

seemed to be kind of holding together the bones

7:56

seemed to be coming undone. So there was one

7:59

man in

7:59

who had fallen in a battle 50 years earlier,

8:02

had broken a bone at that time, it

8:04

had long since healed, and suddenly it just

8:07

mysteriously fractured again in the very

8:09

same spot. And

8:11

some of the men lost their

8:13

senses. They were described by one observer

8:15

on board as going raving mad. The

8:18

disease had gone into their brains and

8:20

they had gone raving mad. And of course

8:22

what they didn't know is that the solution was so

8:26

simple.

8:27

All they needed was more vitamin C. When

8:30

they stopped in Brazil, there were plenty of limes,

8:33

but they didn't know that eating them would help. No

8:35

one knew that yet.

8:38

What happens when the group

8:41

enters the waters around

8:43

Cape Horn? Tell me a little

8:45

bit about where the wager is and

8:47

what happens to the wager.

8:48

So as they're coming around

8:51

the Horn in just these tremendous

8:53

seas, I mean, even the most experienced

8:56

seaman all described it as the

8:58

largest seas, they almost seemed unable to describe

9:01

the seas. They almost used the same phrase

9:03

just in their log books. They just kept describing

9:05

it as these were the biggest wells we had ever seen.

9:08

And the ships start

9:10

to kind of, bits start

9:12

to break apart. The wager loses one of its mass,

9:14

and they're all striving to stay together because

9:17

they know if they separate, there

9:19

will be nobody there to rescue them if

9:22

something were to happen to their ship. And

9:24

so they are frantically firing their guns

9:27

to signal their location. And

9:29

yet around Cape Horn, they eventually,

9:32

all the ships eventually scatter in the storm

9:35

and the wager suddenly finds itself all

9:37

alone and by itself.

9:39

And there's no break. It's

9:42

not like the winds and the seas

9:45

die down. So everyone can get good

9:47

eight hours of sleep. It's constant. It's

9:49

constant. It is, you know,

9:51

they in their own logs would describe

9:54

it as, one described it as the perfect hurricane,

9:57

but it really was a series of unending

9:59

typhoons.

9:59

that just kept battering them with unrelenting

10:02

waves and unrelenting winds. And

10:05

another critical part that

10:08

is happening to them is they have to—so imagine

10:11

this. They're coming around Cape Horn. They're

10:13

battling these

10:14

unfound

10:16

large waves, waves that

10:18

are dwarfing their mass. They're

10:20

top men who are kind of hanging off the

10:23

mass at the very top. The ships are

10:25

rocking so far. Sometimes they touch the water.

10:28

And yet

10:30

they are also sealing on the

10:32

wager and on the other ships partially blind because

10:34

they do not know their longitude.

10:36

Because navigation at this point is pretty rudimentary.

10:40

It's very rudimentary. They could determine their latitude by reading the

10:42

stars. That was pretty

10:44

easy. People had done it all

10:46

the way back from Magellan and Columbus. But your longitude, to

10:48

measure that, you really needed a very reliable clock,

10:50

and such a clock did not yet exist. And

10:57

so they were forced to do

10:59

what was called dead reckoning, which essentially

11:03

amounted to informed guesswork and a leap of faith. And

11:06

so as the wager, Captain

11:09

Cheepe decides once he's all alone,

11:11

he's going to try to get to a point off

11:13

the coast of Chile that Anson

11:15

had told them they should rendezvous if they were ever separated. So

11:18

he's determined to do that. He manages to guide them

11:20

around the Horn. But

11:24

it turns out that their longitude is

11:26

not only wrong, it's wrong

11:28

by hundreds of miles.

11:32

They thought they'd gone far enough west to

11:34

clear the Chilean coast. But

11:37

they miscalculated and were too close

11:39

to shore.

11:40

And suddenly, one

11:43

of the junior officers, petty officer,

11:46

who has climbed the mast to fix one of

11:48

the sails, looks out and he sees they are barreling

11:50

toward the coast. They are barreling toward land.

11:55

We'll be right back.

12:06

Weight loss empire Jenny Craig is

12:08

going out of business. That announcement

12:10

was made on social media after a couple of weeks

12:13

of rumors and after 40 years

12:15

of being a leader in the dieting business.

12:19

She promised you would look like you want

12:21

to look. 1-800-86 Jenny. But

12:25

frozen food and diet culture couldn't keep

12:28

up. 1-800-86 Jenny. Well

12:32

this is it, Jenny Craig is so done.

12:35

1-800-86 Jenny. But

12:38

what'll survive the Ozambic Revolution?

12:41

1-800-86 Jenny.

12:44

Jenny Craig filed for bankruptcy recently.

12:48

A sign that a certain type of weight loss

12:50

program is on its way out? Coming

12:52

up on Today Explained, the expansion

12:54

and contraction of Jenny Craig.

13:00

1-800-86 Jenny.

13:05

Every week it seems

13:07

like we hear about something else that AI can do. Whether

13:10

it's write poetry, figure out your workout plan,

13:12

or even be your new boyfriend. It's

13:14

weird and a little sad. But as

13:17

fun or as weird as artificial intelligence

13:19

can be, experts are worried about what the future

13:21

holds and so am I. I'm Neha Miraza,

13:23

that's Kerris Wisher, and we make the podcast on

13:26

with Kerris Wisher. This week we took a look

13:28

at the dangers that AI poses with Tristan

13:30

Harris, the former Google design ethicist

13:32

who co-founded the Center for Humane Technology.

13:35

From job displacement to deepfakes and more disinformation,

13:38

to the fear that AI will become a golem.

13:40

Which guys, is not just from Lord of the Rings. No,

13:43

it's a really famous old thing. But anyway,

13:45

it's never good. But don't worry, it's not

13:47

all sinister here, we'll acknowledge much of the good

13:49

that AI can unleash too. It's a fantastic

13:51

episode and a thought-provoking one, and it's live

13:53

now. Search for On with Kerris Wisher wherever

13:56

you get your podcasts.

14:05

So what do you do if you've got a gigantic

14:07

ship barreling towards, I mean

14:09

it's not like you can put the motor in reverse.

14:11

No, and not only that, this isn't

14:13

like modern sailboats, these sailboats

14:16

to turn around took, you

14:18

know, it could

14:20

take as long as an hour, I mean to try to get

14:23

one of these ships to turn around because you

14:25

have to rework the sails,

14:27

have men climb the mast. And

14:30

so they,

14:31

in a great panic, they do manage

14:33

to come around, they narrowly

14:36

miss the land, but they

14:38

are still pinned against the shore and

14:40

the wind is blowing them toward the

14:42

shore. And so they are still in a

14:44

completely perilous situation.

14:47

They're desperately trying to get away from the

14:49

rocks and the coast, and it's just

14:52

about then where they feel the ship

14:54

suddenly jolt and shudder

14:56

and they have hit a submerged rock.

15:01

They are caught in a

15:03

gulf, which is known as the Gulf, El

15:06

Gulfo de Penas, which translates as the

15:08

Gulf of Sorrows, or as some

15:10

prefer to call it, the Gulf of Pain.

15:14

And so

15:15

when they hit that rock, initially

15:18

the rudder shatters and about

15:20

a two ton of anchor falls and ends

15:22

up plunging through the floor of the ship, leaving

15:24

a gaping hole. And then another wave

15:26

comes and it kind of propels the wager

15:29

careening through the

15:31

Gulf of Pain, through a mine full of rocks

15:34

until it lasts, it hits another bunch

15:36

of rocks. And at that point begins

15:38

to completely rip apart. So when the mast

15:40

come down, the decks cave

15:43

in, the planks shatter.

15:45

But the

15:47

ship managed to kind of wedge itself

15:49

between two pillars of rocks. And

15:52

so it did not yet immediately sink.

15:55

And so some of the men, they climb up onto

15:57

the ruins of their ship, would have been their

15:59

home. the place

16:00

they knew, their security,

16:03

their fortress. They climb up to the

16:05

top of these ruins and they peer out in the mist,

16:07

and there they see a desolate

16:09

island. Sailors

16:11

began evacuating in the few

16:13

small boats that the wager had on board.

16:17

At first, some of them refused to leave

16:20

and broke into the wager's liquor supplies. I

16:23

mean, I think you saw all sorts of reactions

16:25

as one does in extreme circumstances. You

16:28

saw some behave very heroically and

16:30

helping to get people off the ship, but you saw

16:32

others behave selfishly, and you

16:34

saw some kind of just,

16:38

you know, almost lose it after all the suffering

16:40

and just begin to drink and break

16:43

into the officer's chest and

16:46

put on their clothing, but that's

16:49

how some of them conduct themselves until

16:51

they are eventually retrieved from the ship.

16:54

What is the island like that they've

16:57

landed on? Yeah, so the island, which

17:00

is off the Chilean coast of Patagonia,

17:04

you know, they hoped it might be their salvation,

17:07

but when they get there, it turns out to be

17:09

freezing cold. It turns out

17:11

to be constantly raining or sleeting.

17:14

They have no shelter, and worst

17:16

of all, they can find no food whatsoever.

17:20

And so, well, they find a little bit. They find

17:22

some muscles which they soon exhaust, but there's

17:24

virtually no food. And

17:26

one British officer later compared

17:28

the island to a place in which the soul

17:31

of man dies in him.

17:35

Captain Cheat believes

17:38

that he was the commander of the ship.

17:40

He should remain commander on the island, and he

17:42

believes they should be governed by the same

17:44

rules and that their only way of surviving was

17:47

to work in this kind of cohesive,

17:49

almost machine-like quality with him

17:52

guiding the way.

17:55

But

17:55

there is some discontent, the

17:58

fact that they had shipwrecked.

17:59

grumblings about Captain Cheap

18:02

who could be very temperamental. And

18:05

at the same time, Cheap decides that they

18:08

must try to salvage some food from

18:10

the ship. They begin taking these small

18:13

rowboat out to the ship, which

18:15

is, you know, three-quarters underwater. Waves

18:18

are smashing against it, and they

18:20

are trying to see if they can

18:22

get supplies, almost, you know, an

18:24

excavation so that they can try

18:27

to survive.

18:29

They were able to recover some flour, meat,

18:32

peas and oatmeal, and casks

18:34

of liquor. And Captain Cheap

18:36

made a plan to ration everything out. There

18:39

are about 150 men left.

18:42

They started calling the place they had landed, Wager

18:45

Island.

18:46

And initially,

18:48

they try to try to see

18:51

if they can build an outpost and survive

18:54

on this desolate, barren, windswept,

18:56

cold, hopeless place.

18:59

So they'll set up the society just as they had

19:02

on the wager. Captain Cheap will be

19:04

in charge. They'll be law. They'll

19:06

be order. We'll monitor the provisions.

19:09

And this is the way we'll keep ourselves sane

19:11

and alive. Exactly.

19:12

Exactly. That

19:14

is his vision, and that's what he

19:16

believes. And initially, despite

19:19

some grumbling from some of the men, for the most

19:21

part, they do do that. And

19:24

they begin to try to build like a little,

19:27

almost like a little village. They build various

19:29

huts and little thatched

19:32

dwellings, and they begin to try

19:34

to extract food and to parcel it out. But

19:37

gradually, as they

19:39

run lower on food,

19:42

order begins to break down. And

19:44

the first fracture comes from a kind

19:47

of group that is a smaller

19:49

group, maybe about a dozen or so,

19:52

who the others describe as

19:54

the seceders. They break apart

19:56

from the camp. They set up their camp

19:58

elsewhere on the island. But they're kind of roaming

20:01

wild on the island. They're like these marauders,

20:03

these thieves, and the rest of the

20:05

camp is afraid of them, afraid they may come

20:07

and attack and pillage. And the leader,

20:10

or one of the main figures within

20:12

those marauders is believed

20:15

to have already or early on

20:17

killed at least one man for his

20:19

supplies, his rations.

20:23

One day, some of the sailors spotted

20:25

men in canoes. It was a

20:27

group of indigenous people called the Koweskar

20:30

who lived as nomads traveling up and down

20:32

the Chilean coast.

20:34

For a while, they helped the men from the

20:36

wager. They brought them fish,

20:39

mussels, and even sheep.

20:41

But according to David Gran, some

20:43

of the sailors began mistreating the Koweskar

20:46

and made a plan to steal some of their canoes.

20:49

So the Koweskar left.

20:53

The food stores are running low on the island

20:56

and Captain Cheep made the decision to

20:58

cut back on rations.

21:00

And you start to see

21:02

as some of them in their desperation,

21:05

they begin to break into the store tent

21:07

to steal food, which is one

21:09

must understand when you're stealing food,

21:12

when you have no food and that's your last

21:14

bit of sustenance, it is equivalent

21:17

or close to the equivalence of taking

21:19

a gun and shooting you because you're taking

21:21

away your only means of staying alive.

21:24

And so they decide

21:27

they need to kind of create order

21:30

and Cheep is determined to create order.

21:32

And so he creates a system

21:35

of punishment. They hold trials,

21:37

they hold the court-martial. The

21:40

denouement of these trials is not in doubt.

21:43

They happen fairly hastily. And

21:46

then these men are whipped

21:48

and they are whipped severely. They

21:50

are lashed in some cases 600 times

21:54

in an amount that if it was done consecutively, they

21:56

would have killed them. So they have to break it out over

21:58

a few days. And then after that,

21:59

After that, Cheep decides with

22:02

some of his other followers that they

22:04

shall then banish

22:06

these, condemn these thieves

22:08

to a little islet that's kind of

22:10

off the island. They would row them out there and

22:13

leave them to themselves.

22:18

David

22:18

Gran says that Captain Cheep was starting

22:20

to feel like he was losing control over

22:22

the men on the island.

22:25

He began having problems with a sailor named

22:27

Henry Cousins. He seemed to

22:29

be constantly drunk and once

22:31

ignored a simple order from Captain Cheep to

22:34

roll a cask of peas into the tent

22:36

where they kept their food.

22:37

And then there comes a point

22:39

where Cheep hears

22:42

a fight outside his hut

22:46

and he hears somebody cry,

22:48

you know, kind of accuse Cousins

22:51

of mutiny, even though he wasn't committing mutiny. Cheep

22:54

bursts out of his hut.

22:56

He's holding a pistol in his hand.

22:59

He approaches Cousins who he calls

23:01

that villain. He takes his

23:03

pistol and without asking any questions,

23:07

he proceeds to what he calls extremities,

23:11

which the other men in their own account say, Cheep

23:13

shot the man right in the hat and killed him, or

23:16

eventually killed him. He didn't die instantly.

23:19

And what was the reaction within the group to

23:21

this? That was really in some ways

23:24

the beginning of the end of his authority because

23:26

even though at that moment of horror,

23:29

he comes out and he says, I am still your commander.

23:32

And there's a moment of tension they eventually retreat.

23:36

But at that point on, more

23:39

and more of the men turn on Captain

23:42

Cheep. And so rather than in this kind

23:44

of mad, violent act

23:46

of desperation to kind of maintain

23:48

authority, it does the exact

23:51

opposite and it

23:51

diminishes authority, creates greater

23:54

levels of discontent.

23:57

Many of the sailors had begun to gravitate.

24:00

a man named John Bulkeley, who'd

24:02

been in charge of the weapons on the wager. Some

24:05

of the men helped John Bulkeley build a thatched

24:07

hut, a hut that was bigger than Captain

24:10

Cheaps. John

24:12

Bulkeley wrote in his journals that sometimes

24:15

he disagreed with how Captain Cheap was

24:17

running things.

24:20

Soon the wager's carpenter, a close

24:22

friend of John Bulkeley's,

24:24

came up with an idea to get off the island.

24:27

They

24:27

would build a boat.

24:29

So the castaways together,

24:32

the two main factions, one led

24:34

by Cheap and a few of his followers, and

24:36

the one led by Bulkeley, which has now the

24:39

majority of the followers. For a brief moment

24:41

they unite around a scheme

24:43

to try to build the castaway boat to

24:46

get off the island. And so they begin

24:48

to collect bits of wood, they

24:50

take a kind of shattered transport boat,

24:53

which they got off the wreck, and they

24:55

begin to try to expand it and build it into

24:57

this into a castaway boat.

24:59

They're art, but even while they're

25:01

building this, tensions

25:04

and the war between the factions breaks out

25:06

anew. And partly it breaks out because

25:09

how they want to use this castaway boat, if

25:11

they complete it, are very different.

25:14

John Bulkeley wanted to sail through the sometimes

25:17

very narrow Strait of Magellan to

25:19

get back to the Atlantic Ocean without

25:21

going around Cape Horn.

25:23

He thought that they might be able to navigate the Strait,

25:26

since they would not be in a large ship. John

25:30

Bulkeley wrote in his journals that

25:32

people might think it was a mad undertaking.

25:36

The Strait was known for its unpredictable storms

25:39

and maze-like channels, and

25:41

they had no good maps.

25:44

But he believed that if they could get to the Atlantic

25:46

Ocean, they could find safety in Brazil.

25:49

And the main point of his plan

25:51

is,

25:52

we're done with this expedition. We want to

25:54

get the hell out of here. We want to get home.

25:57

But Captain Cheep wanted to continue. Chief's

26:00

idea is to take this arc, this castaway

26:03

boat when it's completed and sealed

26:05

north, and try to see if they

26:07

can then capture a Spanish

26:09

ship despite their weakened

26:12

condition and eventually continue

26:14

with the expedition.

26:16

One day John Bulkeley brought a petition

26:19

to Captain Chief that had been signed by the

26:21

majority of the crew.

26:23

John Bulkeley read it aloud.

26:26

We think it the best, surest, and most safe

26:29

way to proceed through the Strait of Magellan

26:31

for England,

26:32

dated at a desolate island on the

26:35

coast of Patagonia.

26:38

Captain Chief didn't agree. Two

26:41

days later he told them the petition had

26:43

given him, quote, a great deal

26:45

of uneasiness. He

26:47

said he hadn't been sleeping.

26:50

Nearly three weeks passed. And

26:52

then John Bulkeley had a secret meeting

26:55

with a small group of men he trusted.

26:57

And Bulkeley

26:59

and his men begin to discuss that forbidden

27:01

subject of mutiny.

27:09

We'll be right back.

27:24

Early one morning, a few days after

27:26

the sailors completed construction on their

27:28

boat, named the Speedwell, John

27:31

Bulkeley and a group of men surprised Captain

27:33

Chief in his hut and tied his hands

27:36

behind his back.

27:38

They said they were arresting him for shooting Henry

27:40

Cousins.

27:42

They forced Captain Chief into a tent that served

27:44

as a makeshift prison.

27:47

Five days later, John

27:49

Bulkeley and about 80 men

27:51

left Captain Chief on Wager Island,

27:54

along with his two remaining supporters,

27:57

and headed for Brazil.

28:01

You have to imagine, these are men who

28:03

have battled typhoons,

28:07

tidal waves, scurvy, shipwreck.

28:11

They are then on an island for months, starving.

28:14

Many of them died of starvation in

28:16

the party that was on the island. They

28:18

have watched their men die left and right.

28:22

And now they have to get on this little boat, packed

28:25

so tightly that they can

28:28

barely move. They

28:30

don't have provisions, they have a little bit of flour,

28:32

and somehow, you know, they have to try

28:36

to navigate this journey, led

28:38

by, for the most part, led by Bölkli.

28:41

The trip took three

28:43

and a half months, and most of

28:45

the men died. You know,

28:47

by the time they're starting to drift toward

28:49

the coastline in Brazil, they're delirious.

28:53

There's only, you know, by that time their numbers

28:55

dwindle to about 30. Bölkli

28:59

is one of the few, has any strength whatsoever,

29:01

but he imagines he sees kind of butterflies

29:04

snowing from the sky and falling

29:06

all around him. And eventually they drift

29:08

to shore, and they're so weak they can barely even

29:11

stand.

29:11

They arrived at a port in southern

29:14

Brazil. And Bölkli then

29:16

reveals that they are the survivors of

29:18

his Majesty's ship, the Wager. They

29:21

were welcomed and treated like heroes.

29:24

John Bölkli wrote a letter to notify

29:26

the British Navy and

29:28

noted that Captain Cheepe

29:30

had, quote, at his own

29:32

request, tarried behind.

29:37

John Bölkli knew many people in England

29:40

might see what they did as mutiny. So

29:43

when Bölkli gets back, he knows

29:46

if he doesn't tell a convincing tale, he

29:48

might get hanged. And so he decides

29:51

to get his story out there first and

29:53

to release his account. He had

29:55

actually kept a contemporary in his journal on

29:58

the island and during the voyage,

29:59

It was kind of remarkable. He had a quill

30:02

and salvaged a mink from the voyage.

30:04

He was a compulsive diarous and writer. And

30:07

so he takes his account, he

30:09

publishes it, it becomes a sensation,

30:12

and probably to some degree sways the

30:14

public.

30:15

John Bokely wrote, the

30:18

reader will find that necessity absolutely

30:20

compelled us to act as we did.

30:23

His journals included his account of Henry Cousin's

30:26

death, how Captain Cheep had

30:28

shot him,

30:29

and how John Bokely considered it murder.

30:32

He also wrote that he blamed Captain Cheep

30:35

for wrecking the wager in the first place. His

30:39

journal was serialized in the London magazine

30:42

and published as a book. It

30:44

was so popular that a second printing

30:47

was ordered. As a result,

30:49

he's not tried yet. And

30:51

it seems like the whole wager of fear may

30:54

just blissfully fade away, which

30:56

you kind of sense the admiralty and

30:58

the authorities wanted because it was such a disaster.

31:02

And years would

31:04

go by before one day, about

31:08

nearly six years after they

31:10

had originally departed England on

31:12

the expedition, on the wager,

31:16

a boat arrives, a vessel arrives, and on

31:18

board is Captain Cheep.

31:23

Captain

31:24

Cheep had returned to England with

31:26

two other sailors who'd been left on wager

31:28

Island. Captain

31:30

Cheep said several months after John

31:32

Bokely and the others left, another

31:35

group of native Patagonians, the Chono,

31:38

arrived in canoes and rescued them.

31:41

But

31:41

soon after they were rescued, the sailors

31:44

were captured by the Spanish and

31:46

imprisoned. They remained in Spanish

31:48

custody for two and a half years.

31:52

Captain Cheep said they were eventually allowed to

31:54

live outside the prison, as long

31:56

as they didn't contact anyone back home.

31:59

Eventually, Britain and Spain came to an agreement

32:02

to trade prisoners, and Captain

32:04

Cheeep was able to return to England. They

32:07

had to sail past Wager Island and

32:10

back around Cape Horn.

32:13

When

32:13

Captain Cheeep returned home, he

32:15

learned that John Bulkeley had accused him of murder.

32:18

He wrote a letter to an Admiralty official

32:21

and said John Bulkeley was a liar

32:24

and a coward and had most inhumanly

32:27

abandoned them.

32:30

The Admiralty summoned every surviving

32:32

sailor from the Wager to appear at a court-martial.

32:36

If Captain Cheeep was found guilty of murdering

32:38

Henry Cousins, he could be

32:41

sentenced to death.

32:43

John Bulkeley also faced a possible

32:45

death sentence for mutiny. And

32:48

they go into that court-martial and,

32:52

well, remarkably,

32:55

the judges don't ask any questions

32:58

about the mutiny or what

33:00

happened on the island. They only ask

33:02

them about why

33:04

the ship had wrecked, what had caused the ship to wreck.

33:06

Anytime a ship wrecked in the British Navy, there was always an inquiry.

33:09

And that's all they're asking about. It

33:11

was like the equivalent of pulling somebody

33:13

over driving a car and finding a dead body

33:16

in the trunk and asking the driver only

33:18

why he had a busted tail light. And

33:20

that's basically what happens. And so they

33:22

decide not to press

33:25

them about all

33:27

the alleged crimes on the island.

33:31

And while we'll never know precisely

33:34

their reasoning, they had

33:36

many incentives

33:39

or reasons for wanting to look the

33:41

other way. And so ultimately, all

33:44

the defendants are let go. That's the

33:47

end of the proceedings. And

33:49

the British Navy and

33:51

the authorities, you get

33:53

the sense, looked around and said, you know what,

33:56

we are supposed to be, you know, these

33:58

officers supposed to be the van. of the

34:01

Empire, there's supposed to be these apostles of

34:03

British civilization. They

34:05

are supposed to be gentlemen. Instead, they look like brutes who

34:07

committed all these crimes against each other

34:09

and descended into a Hobbesian state of

34:11

depravity. And at the same time,

34:13

the disastrous wager fair was a reminder

34:15

of how bad and bungled the war

34:18

had generally gone. And so they let all

34:20

the men go, and it becomes, as one

34:23

historian described it, the mutiny that never

34:25

was.

34:30

And what happened to David Cheap

34:33

and John Bokely? So

34:35

Bokely, you know, Bokely, it's

34:37

funny, people end up kind of doing things that reflect

34:40

their characters. And so Bokely kind

34:42

of escapes to a place where you can reinvent

34:44

yourself, and that would later become a hotbed

34:47

of rebellion and revolution. He goes to Philadelphia

34:50

in the colonies, and the last

34:53

we hear from him is in an account where

34:55

he's kind of, he reprints

34:57

his journal there, an American

34:59

edition of it, and that's the last we hear from

35:01

him. He kind of inserts himself

35:04

into history

35:04

in this brief, bold way, and

35:07

then he disappears.

35:08

And Captain Cheap returns

35:11

to the Navy, and he does actually

35:14

capture, not long after, he

35:16

does capture a Spanish

35:18

ship with a good deal of treasure

35:21

on board, not like the prize

35:24

they were chasing, but enough to then retire

35:26

from the Navy and to live comfortably. But

35:29

he couldn't ever fully escape the

35:31

shame and the disgrace

35:34

of what had happened on Wager

35:37

Island, and even in one of his

35:38

obits that described how

35:40

he had shot a man dead on the island. In the end, despite

35:46

losing the Wager,

35:48

the British Navy did successfully capture the

35:50

Spanish ship.

35:52

The treasure they found on board, silver,

35:54

jewels, and money, was worth what

35:56

would be $80 million today.

36:01

David Gran says the story of the wager

36:04

went on to inspire Herman Melville, who

36:06

called it

36:07

a remarkable and most interesting

36:10

narrative.

36:12

And today,

36:13

when you look at Google Maps of the Gulf

36:15

of Pain,

36:16

you can see Wager Island.

36:19

A few years ago, someone wrote a review

36:22

that says, not the best

36:24

place to be shipwrecked, worse

36:26

to deal with drunken mutineers.

36:42

David Gran's book is The Wager, a

36:44

tale of shipwreck, mutiny, and murder. Criminal

36:48

is created by Lauren Sporr and

36:50

me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer.

36:53

Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our

36:56

producers are Susanna Robertson, Jackie

36:59

Sajico, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison,

37:01

and Megan Kinane. Our technical

37:04

director is Raoul Byers, engineering

37:06

by Ross Henry. Julian Alexander

37:08

makes original illustrations for each episode

37:10

of Criminal. You can see them at thisiscriminal.com.

37:14

We're on Facebook and Twitter, at Criminal

37:17

Show, and Instagram,

37:18

at criminal underscore podcast. We're

37:21

also on YouTube, at youtube.com

37:23

slash criminal podcast. Criminal

37:26

is recorded in the studios of North Carolina Public

37:28

Radio, WUNC. We're

37:31

part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

37:34

Discover more great shows at podcast.voxmedia.com.

37:38

I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.

37:40

I'm Raoul. We'll see

37:42

you next time. Thanks for listening. We'll see you

37:44

next time.

38:00

you