The End of Captain Cheep's Authority

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David Graham says that Captain Cheep was starting to feel like he was losing control over the men on the island. He began having problems with a sailor named Henry Cousins, who seemed to be constantly drunk. And then there comes a point where Cheep hears a fight outside his hut, and he accuses Cousins of muting - even though he wasn't committing muting. That was really in some ways the beginning of the end of his authority, said Graham.

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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