1740 And the British in the Spanish are fighting over the Americas again (I).

This particular war had partially started over trade disagreements in battles between English smugglers in the Spanish authorities, which led to 1 Katherine Jenkins having his ear cut off by the Spanish during a smuggling raid. War would thus be understandably called the War of Jenkins ear. Despite having a silly name, Bush adulte were dead set about winning this war decisively. Jenkins ear had of course been a pretext by the English not to just fight a war, but to try and take over a large part of the Spanish Empire, or at the very least inflict the maximum amount of damage on the Spanish colonies as possible. Their plan was simple, and had no chance of ever succeeding. They wanted originally to try and capture all of the Spanish Philippines, but after the Prime Minister decided that was too expensive, they decided to tone down the plan and only decide to capture the city of Lima capital Peru. Leader revolt in Peru and Spain, going capture Panama in these are like entire colonies by the way. Oh, and intercept the Spanish treasure galleons, which were notoriously difficult to capture. Even for a nation that was known for its privateers.

To attempt to accomplish all of this was one relatively unknown Commodore George Anson, who had only recently been promoted from captain. He was to be given six ships, 1400 sailors, and 500 soldiers to take. Wait, what? They only gave him 500 men in six ships to try and conquer all of Peru and Panama. They did not even bother to assign the mission real soldiers. They just told him to collect 500 men who are classified as invalids from the nearby military hospital. And it would have been 500 to 500 ever even showed up. The pensioners were brought in from the military hospital, quite literally brought in as somewhere on stretchers, unable to walk, but presumably upon hearing what they are supposed to do, those that actually could run ran away. This new gap of 259 men, which was created by the fleeing invalids, was filled with new recruits. Can I meet new 241 Marine recruits, apparently so fresh they've not been taught how to fire a gun. Something you think would be important if these men were supposed to capture entire colonies by force.This ragtag crew and fleet, under the command of the freshly minted Commodore George Anson, would suffer not just from the hubris of the Admiralty, would also from storms, disease, shipwreck, war, and starvation. They would encounter volcanoes, phantom islands in Spanish fleets seeking to hunt them down. They would accidentally circumnavigate the globe. They would succeed.

This is the story of the disastrous voyage. Comment or answer and how he and his crew survived. By the middle of August 1740 ships had their crew and their Commodore, but we still haven't discussed the ships would be sailing on the HMS Centurion. A fourth rate ship of the line 60 guns in a compliment of 400 men was to be the flagship. It was actually the ship that George Anson had been captain of before. Used remote, it's be Commodore of this new fleet having sailed her to Africa and the Caribbean. Anson was already well acquainted with the Centurion. The other ships that were to make up the fleet with Glouchester, Severn, Pearl Wager and try out plus an additional two small cargo vessels, leaving from Portsmouth. Their first delayed by winds keeping them in harbour and by their duty to escorting merchant fleet of 152 ships out of the channel due to the war with Spain. But even this simple routine escort mission went poorly as some of the merchant ships crash into each other .They finally set sail for real on September 18th, 1740, but all the delays they suffered before barely leaving England came at the price of the Spanish being informed there were British fleet on its way to South America.

The first leg of the journey ended at the small, neutral Portuguese island of Madeira to get supplies before crossing the Atlantic, and then a simple show of how much bad luck they were already having. This first leg of the journey, which was supposed to take two weeks, took six, arriving on the 25th of October, while Commodore George Anson discovered that a fleet of five Spanish warships under Admiral Pizarro have been dispatched to try to intercept them and who were already caught on their trail. This would subsequently had a great sense of urgency for the foreseeable future as Anson’s ship was carrying so many supplies for the long voyage. The gun ports were in fact blocked by the supplies and holds, meaning any fight they got into would mean having to dump their supplies overboard to enable the use of their cannons and thus having to give up on their boys because they would have no food.

Madara is also where the first ship in the fleet turned back. Although it was only one of the small merchant cargo ships is worth recognising, fleet of eight was down to seven. After only six weeks with the news that a Spanish fleet was searching for them and not looking to fight, they slipped out of the harbour and started the next leg of their journey to Brazil on the 3rd of November 1740.

While crossing the Atlantic, we found that the crew encountered their first major hurdle of the voyage disease. The ships, thanks to the expert management from the Apple T, was simultaneously understaffed and overcrowded, which is quite the achievement. The soldiers, who ideally would have had separate transport ships, were all packed below decks aboard the main vessels with no real ventilation to speak of, since the ships were lying so low in the water they couldn't even open gun ports, placing hundreds of weak, sick men in a poorly ventilated space in close proximity. What could possibly go wrong? Typhus and dysentery soon spread through the cruise. Typhus, often called ships fever, is transmitted by lice that thrive in the hot. In closed conditions that were especially bad on this voyage. Typhus causes fevers, headaches, neurological disturbances, and tends to be more lethal the older you are, on the other hand dysentery is essentially extreme diarrhoea.  Actually, that might be worse. At the next stop for supplies in Brazil, there were forced to send a short a lot of the sick crew while they cleaned their ships. This took a month, although sending assure the sick men got them out of the way, it also put them in the tropics, which hosts all sorts of new diseases.

By the time the ships had been cleaned and we were ready to continue on, there were more crew sick than when they had arrived. Soon after leaving, they found themselves in bad weather, which soon turns into the first serious storm of the voyage. A major risk during bad weather was that the ships would lose each other, become separated, and in the era before GPS or wireless, it would be very tricky to find each other again.  So voyages like this had planned head in advance, the ships all agreed on a series of points along the route in an effort to not hang about, just in case a certain someone caught up with them. The plan was just to keep going for now and then wait for each other and regroup at the slightly safer agreed upon stops.

But this storm hits one, shared the Pearl, particularly hard. As you might expect for me, just explaining all that, it does get swept away from the rest of the fleet. That's alright, the captain can just sell for the next rendezvous point. That's fine, but the storm also kills the Captain. A shame. Not just because he had a fantastic name, but he was supposed to be in charge. That is more unfortunate, but not quite catastrophic. The first lieutenant could just take over. Who in this case was called. But the bad luck continues.

After the storm passes, HMS Pearl heads for the rendezvous point in Argentina, and in doing so spies a group of ships on the horizon flying the Union Jack. That is lucky. They have run into their fleet earlier than expected, or at least, friendly ships. But this was not Anson. Also in the area were the Spanish vessels under the command of Admiral Pizarro and flying false British colours. Their captain, the Pearl was sailing directly towards them. Only within range of the canons did they realise their mistake. They couldn't seriously attempt to take on the entirety of the Spanish fleet single handedly, so the Pearl turned and tried to run the crew in an effort to lighten the load. Threw everything they could overboard, only just managing to get away, although now without a lot of their supplies.The next order of business once the fleet was successfully regrouped was to stock back up on what was lost in the chase.
Although it was risky since the Spanish were still in the area, they attempted to stop and resupply before attempting to navigate Cape Horn. However, this turned out not to be much help as the island had very few of the things they actually needed. No fresh water to drink or wood for repairs, so the expedition continues on towards Cape Horn without the planned amount of provision. Because of all the delays, Anson reached Cape Horn at the wrong time of year, meaning it happened to him most deadly time of year to try and reverse the passage due to one reason. Cape Horn is notorious for its stores. The conditions are brought about by a strong westerly wind and frequent storms, meaning the wind and storms go westies while a sailing ship is trying to go east to West.This is not a good combination of things if you rely on wind.That was prone to freezing temperatures. Dangerous and brutal nature of the Horn would be one of the reasons for future explorations for Northwest Passage and the building of a Panama Canal just to avoid this single route.The squadron arrived yet linear straight on the 7th of March 1741 on the entrance to the Horn. Surprisingly common in good weather, but writing in retrospect, one crew member wrote, it was the last cheerful day in the greater part of us would ever lived to enjoy.This statement was, unfortunately, horrifyingly accurate.

Before they were even all the way through the straight, there were clouds on the horizon. There was actually a storm coming that wasn't in it.This would mark the beginning of a desperate month long journey of fighting the wind and storms to make it around Cape Horn. It was also unfortunate for the crew that this was when scurvy struck for the first time during the voyage. Infamous sickness scurvy, which is often associated with the sea, is caused by vitamin C deficiency and can actually be had by any. It was just much more common for sailors do not have access to vitamin C rich foods online voyages it symptoms amongst Ansons fleet included lethargy, depression, ulcers, swollen legs, featured guns, rotting teeth and rotting flesh. Not a very great thing for crew to have when they're battling some of the worst storms on the planet, which were so bad that the crew in their accounts noted that sailors. I have never seen anything as terrible as it storms they now face. Pearl noted he had never seen waves so large in his entire life. In fact, the winds were so strong that the Centurion, the largest ship in the fleet despite being over 1000 tonnes, was apparently thrown around like a toy ship. Everything above deck was either extremely damaged for simply washed overboard. There were below freezing temperatures during this. Such as those who are up in the rigging often simply lost feeling in their hands and fell overboard for the general crew who had to suffer from frostbite as it was impossible to start a fire due to wetness from the constant storms.  They endured this for an entire month. Crew was so exhausted, men were dropping dead on deck in the surviving crew did not even have the energy to throw them overboard and just let them brought. The combination of sickness in sailing around the Horn cost hundreds of sailors and soldiers their lives. But due to the endurance killed the crew, not a single ship had been lost in the storms, which was a stunning success considering how disease ridden in week they were. For contrast, the Spanish fleet that was trying to locate them by going through the Horn ahead of them lost an entire ship and well over half the men of its fleet and had to turn back in that same timeframe.

So before they even reached Peru, ship had run head first into the Spanish fleet and had its captain killed. They suffered a month of some of the roughest seas on the planet, caught typhus, dysentery, malaria, and, according to one modern source, had suffered one of the worst outbreaks of scurvy in maritime history. It took about a month in total, declared the Horn, and by the beginning of April they turned N ahead for Peru. For once, the Pacific was actually living up to its name. Whether on this side was, in contrast, rather calm, and they made the most of that by trying to make as much progress in this time as possible. Some ships, however, just faster than others. The Pearl and the Seven in this case made faster than the rest of the fleet Data plan for this just rendezvous at the next point and on the 10th of April as they disappeared ahead into the rapidly descending fog. Anson wasn't worried. He should've been ships of this period figure out that. Not from the stars, but for estimating it from their speed and their last known location. But the speed is only half the story, because the water moves as well, and for this part of the world it moves in a way unknown. To answer in his crew, they thought they were 300 miles west of the archipelago of southern South America. They were sailing at top speed.
Active in particular of the slightly ominously named in North Ireland on the night of the 13, the crew of the Anna finally spotted land looming out of the fog just two miles ahead of them. They just managed to steer around it and fired cannons to alert the rest of the fleet. They had just come unspeakably close to maybe losing hundreds of men an entire ships in the poem and the Seven one nowhere to be seen. The crew hope, perhaps that they had also seen the landing. Time would be waiting there, the next rendezvous point. Rocks at night sank ships even in waters close to home. He must have been in their thoughts, how likely it would be that they didn't see the landing time and what that would mean. In either case, they were forced to continue on a further two ships, down three in total from what they had started with. If it wasn't bad enough already, what was left of the fleet was now plunged into a vicious storm, separating the remaining ships and scattering them. They may not have felt lucky, and in many ways they really were not, but in one small way they were very lucky indeed, although they were now scattered across a mysterious. Neither the storm or the island had managed to sink a single ship, and the Pearl and the Seven and their crews were still out there, afloat and alive.presumed loss for the rest of the fleet on april 10th. The two ships had actually survived as they had spotted the same surprise of the cliffs of newer island and having been ahead of the fleet they saw during the day it was very much less of an emergency for them in the easily steered clear after attempting to look.

In retreat around the Horn, back to safety. Captains would later be accused of abandoning their duties by retreating. Their fate would remain unknown. To answer for the rest of the voyage in would be presumed lost. 6th rate ship The Wager, which if you remember was the ship that had the most invalids and marines aboard, had a much different faith and that of the Pearl and Seven. After being separated from the other ships after the storm, the captain once again decided to head west to make sure they are clear of the coast as to not have another run in with cliffs like at newer island. Their plan was to go to the first round of viewpoint at Socorro Island to meet back up with the rest of the ships.

On the 13th of May one of the crew thought they had spotted land to the West of the ship, which clearly should not have been the case since they specifically sailed West to leave the coast and they're off the West Coast of South America. How could there be land to their West therefore deciding was ignored. They however soon realised to their dismay that they were in a bay. And even more unfortunately for them, they only had 12 able crew out of the 105 they started with, so they were not able to turn the Wager in time and on the morning of the 14th of May 1741 crashed onto the rocks and what is now an island off the coast of Chile.

 

To be followed