The Rise and Fall of Captain Cheep

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There are about 150 men left on Wager Island. Captain Cheep made a plan to ration everything out. Initially, despite some grumbling from some of the men, for the most part, they do do that. But gradually, as they run lower on food, order begins to break down. The first fracture comes from a kind of group that is a smaller group called the ceseters.

There’s an old sailors’ saying about the ocean at the southernmost part of the world — “below 40 degrees latitude, there is no law; below 50 degrees, there is no God.”

David Grann brings us the story of what happened when five British warships set off on a secret mission to steal a ship filled with treasure. They’d have to sail around the very bottom of South America — at 56 degrees south.

David Grann’s book is The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder.

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Artwork by Julienne Alexander.

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