Captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader or highest rank officer of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police depa ...

David Cheap (1697 – 21 July 1752) was a Scottish

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...

officer. David Grann, '' The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder Simon & Schuster, London'' (2023). He is known for a major incident in his career. He was in command of when it was wrecked in May 1741 on the shores of

Wager Island Wager Island () is an uninhabited island in Guayaneco Archipelago, a remote part of western Patagonia. Located south of Santiago, the island is part of Capitán Prat Province of the Aysén Region, Chile. The island was the location of the Wag ...

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

an Patagonia. Spain and Great Britain were at war in 1739. Cheap, then just a

lieutenant A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a Junior officer, junior commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations, as well as fire services, emergency medical services, Security agency, security services ...

, was appointed to serve under

Commodore Commodore may refer to: Ranks * Commodore (rank), a naval rank ** Commodore (Royal Navy), in the United Kingdom ** Commodore (India), in India ** Commodore (United States) ** Commodore (Canada) ** Commodore (Finland) ** Commodore (Germany) or ' ...

George Anson, commander of an expedition to the Pacific Ocean. The original captain of ''Wager'' died, at sea, while the expedition was still navigating the South Atlantic. Anson gave Cheap acting command of the vessel. Cheap's management of ''Wager'', prior to the wreck, and his attempts to manage his former crew, after the wreck, continue to be discussed to the present day. Cheap had been an unpopular commander, and, after the ship was wrecked, most of his crew would not follow his instructions. Officer's commissions, at the time, only appointed them to command ships. Seamen's pay ended when a ship was sunk. His former crew thought his formal authority over them ended when the ship was sunk. Most of the surviving crew attempted to sail to safety in the ship's

longboat A longboat is a type of ship's boat that was in use from ''circa'' 1500 or before. Though the Royal Navy replaced longboats with launches from 1780, examples can be found in merchant ships after that date. The longboat was usually the largest bo ...

, the ''Speedwell'', under the command of the ship's former gunner, John Bulkeley. After being brought to the Chilean coast by Chono guides, Cheap and three of his former officers were captured by Spanish authorities and arrived back in Britain years after Bulkeley, and after Bulkeley had published an account of the voyage that showed Cheap in a poor light.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cheap, David 1697 births 1750 deaths Military personnel from Fife Royal Navy captains