Byron took service as a midshipman in one of those ships--all more
or less unfortunate--called "The Wager." Being a bad sailor, and heavily
laden, she was blown from her company, and wrecked in the Straits of
Magellan. The majority of the crew were cast on a bleak rock, which they
christened Mount Misery. After encountering all the horrors of mutiny and
famine, and being in various ways deserted, five of the survivors, among
them Captain Cheap and Mr. Byron, were taken by some Patagonians to the
Island of Chiloe, and thence, after some months, to Valparaiso. They were
kept for nearly two years as prisoners at St. Iago, the capital of Chili,
and in December, 1744, put on board a French frigate, which reached Brest
in October, 1745. Early in 1746 they arrived at Dover in a Dutch vessel.
This voyage is the subject of a well-known apostrophe in _The Pleasures of
Hope_, beginning--
And such thy strength-inspiring aid that bore The hardy Byron from his
native shore. In torrid climes, where Chiloe's tempests sweep
Tumultuous murmurs o'er the troubled deep, 'Twas his to mourn
misfortune's rudest shock, Scourged by the winds and cradled by the
rock.
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