WEBVTT - Ep. 455: The Wager with David Grann 0:00:08.800 --> 0:00:13.320 If this is the me Eater podcast coming at you, shirtless, severely, 0:00:13.520 --> 0:00:18.599 bug bitten, and in my case, underwear, listencast. You can't 0:00:18.600 --> 0:00:24.480 predict anything presented by First Light, creating proven versatile hunting 0:00:24.520 --> 0:00:28.880 apparel from Marino bass layers to technical outerwear. For every hunt, 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:36.720 First Light, Go Farther, Stay Longer, Good Lord. David Grant 0:00:36.760 --> 0:00:40.800 is here staff writer at New Yorker Magazine, number one 0:00:40.840 --> 0:00:47.920 New York Times bestselling author of, among other books, the 0:00:47.960 --> 0:00:50.440 book I'm probably most jealous of because it was one 0:00:50.440 --> 0:00:52.480 of those books you just see so much you get 0:00:52.640 --> 0:00:56.600 sick of seeing it. The Lost City of z I mean, 0:00:56.720 --> 0:01:00.000 how what a huge success? 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:01.000 Yes, yeah it was. 0:01:01.080 --> 0:01:01.360 It was. 0:01:01.520 --> 0:01:03.160 It was a big success. You would have done much 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:05.560 better on your journey through the Amazon, and I get 0:01:05.760 --> 0:01:07.400 that way, Yeah, it would have been a totally different 0:01:07.440 --> 0:01:09.200 book had you done it. 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:13.039 The Los Cities, the Killers of the Flower Moon, the 0:01:13.080 --> 0:01:16.760 oce Age Murders, and the Birth of the fbi Ano 0:01:16.800 --> 0:01:21.080 They're like just huge book, Los Cities. He became a movie, 0:01:21.080 --> 0:01:22.880 So some people are probably sitting there being like, is 0:01:22.920 --> 0:01:23.720 that a movie? 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:24.640 There's a movie? Yes? 0:01:24.680 --> 0:01:28.440 Yeah, yeah, uh, Killers of Power Moon becoming. 0:01:28.080 --> 0:01:30.400 A movie, becoming a movie be out in October. 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:36.640 Perhaps you've heard of uh fellers like Martin Scorsese, Leo DiCaprio, 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:39.640 de Niro. I don't know. Maybe those names are ring 0:01:39.640 --> 0:01:41.840 a bell. These are people who would be affiliated with. 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:43.520 This. 0:01:43.720 --> 0:01:47.080 But the one that makes me most jealous is a 0:01:47.160 --> 0:01:50.400 lot of jealousy in the room today, Stergil Simpson. I 0:01:50.440 --> 0:01:52.160 didn't know this, ty. I read it in Krin's note. 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:53.840 Yeah, I saw that in there. 0:01:53.920 --> 0:01:54.720 What the hell is he doing? 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:58.000 That's you know, Scorsese loves his musicians. So you have 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:01.080 and you have Adjason is spell too is another great 0:02:01.240 --> 0:02:03.919 they're both terrific in it too. And yeah they're they're terrific. 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:06.400 I don't know if any of them acted before. They're fantastic. 0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:09.760 Oh that's great, man. But what we're here taught about 0:02:09.880 --> 0:02:14.880 is uh David Grand's latest book, The Wager, the Tail 0:02:14.919 --> 0:02:21.560 of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder. Just as a quick little 0:02:22.120 --> 0:02:23.679 just a quick little thing that we got. We got 0:02:23.680 --> 0:02:25.120 to touch on a couple of quick things and we'll 0:02:25.120 --> 0:02:25.680 come back to you. 0:02:25.960 --> 0:02:26.400 I was. 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:31.600 The I could tell this amused you too. I was 0:02:31.639 --> 0:02:35.160 amused by Uh. Well, first I say, you know, it's 0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:38.880 a tail of shipwreck, So it involves ships. Obviously. How 0:02:38.919 --> 0:02:42.600 many things we say today are nautical terms. 0:02:43.440 --> 0:02:46.280 Yeah, there there's so many there. It's kind of wonderful. 0:02:46.320 --> 0:02:47.840 It's like and I had no idea how I did 0:02:47.840 --> 0:02:50.160 this book. So, I mean, there are just so many ones. There's, 0:02:50.200 --> 0:02:53.560 for example, scuttle butt, Yeah, scuttle but with this barrel 0:02:53.800 --> 0:02:56.080 on the ship where the seamen would gather around they 0:02:56.120 --> 0:02:58.520 get their water rations, what would they do around their breath? 0:02:58.560 --> 0:03:01.000 They gossip? The other one that really well, there were 0:03:01.000 --> 0:03:03.400 so many there was like piping hot was the Boson's 0:03:03.400 --> 0:03:06.320 whistle for a hot meal. Pipe down was the Bosn's whistle. 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:09.480 To quiet down under the weather. Under the weather is 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:11.680 the best. I mean, I always just let under the weather. 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:14.080 It was this perfect metaphor for sickness, but it turns 0:03:14.080 --> 0:03:16.920 out it's completely literal. When you were on a ship 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:19.239 and you were sick, you could not serve on deck 0:03:19.280 --> 0:03:22.240 on watch, so you stayed below. You were quite literally 0:03:23.000 --> 0:03:25.760 under the weather. And perhaps the most popular one was 0:03:25.760 --> 0:03:29.760 was to turn a blind eye, which was when Vice 0:03:29.800 --> 0:03:35.440 Admiral Horatio Nelson wanted to ignore his superior's signal flag 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:39.880 to retreat in battle, he took his telescope and he 0:03:39.960 --> 0:03:41.760 put it up to his blind eye. So that's why 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:44.280 we say, to turn a blind die to this thing. Yeah. 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:47.800 Yeah, it's like it's look that it's tied to, it's 0:03:47.840 --> 0:03:49.120 tied to an actual person. 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:50.040 Yeah yeah. 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:55.360 I Unfortunately, once I knew where they all came from, 0:03:55.480 --> 0:03:58.480 I felt weird that I use them all without knowing 0:03:58.520 --> 0:04:04.320 what I'm saying. Yeah, what am I? What was I saying? 0:04:04.360 --> 0:04:06.960 I don't know, I knew what I meant, But the 0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:09.440 fact that you could live your whole life with an 0:04:09.480 --> 0:04:14.000 expression and it never occurs to say when I say that, 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:15.120 what am I talking about? 0:04:15.720 --> 0:04:17.479 I think that's always just because this is like another 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:20.360 example of like how history completely shapes us even more 0:04:20.560 --> 0:04:22.440 utterly oblivious to it. 0:04:23.440 --> 0:04:30.800 Uh someone, Yeah, we're gonna get this story has Oh 0:04:31.120 --> 0:04:36.400 it's just it just turns into uh, just a sickening 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:45.680 just sickening aspects to the story. Heartbreaking. But some people 0:04:46.000 --> 0:04:49.440 live to tell the tale. So and not only that 0:04:49.480 --> 0:04:52.200 they live to tell the tale, they live to argue 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:55.400 about the tale. And we're gonna get pretty heavy into 0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:59.960 into this story of the Wager in a couple minutes, 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:01.839 so we'll come right back to that. But we got 0:05:01.880 --> 0:05:05.640 a couple things to hit on in the This is 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:12.560 now the fourth time we've discussed the fifth time. Actually 0:05:12.760 --> 0:05:14.440 this might be the this might be the end. Yeah, 0:05:14.920 --> 0:05:18.320 I think you're honest. If you honestly, I don't know. 0:05:18.240 --> 0:05:20.960 If I've been in these conversations. 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:24.320 A lot of companies came out and and just and 0:05:24.440 --> 0:05:29.040 have recently distanced themselves from kangaroo leather. And so we've 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:33.640 been talking about where how all this kangaroo leathers generated 0:05:33.880 --> 0:05:40.360 in Australia and how just the the geopolitics around kangaroo leather. 0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:42.680 And we were talking, someone was saying that it's not 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:45.280 a popular food item, all right. 0:05:45.320 --> 0:05:46.920 That was Morgan on the Cape Buffalo. 0:05:47.680 --> 0:05:50.640 Yeah he was from That's right. We had a genuine Australian. Yeah, say, 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:53.039 it's not a you know, I grew up in Australia. 0:05:53.040 --> 0:05:56.680 It's not a common food item. This guy says, I 0:05:56.720 --> 0:06:01.880 am Australian and currently we have kangaroo tenderloins in supermarkets. 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:04.920 He eats it every week. He says, one reason why 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:07.480 ozies don't eat kangaroos because it's part of our coat 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:11.360 of arms. And he tries to equate it to uh, 0:06:11.440 --> 0:06:13.120 if we were to eat the bald eagle. 0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:18.440 Right, we're trying to figure out, you know, like why 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:22.880 is it like tainted in people's minds when it's you 0:06:22.880 --> 0:06:27.480 know potentially I mean the numbers of kangaroo are so 0:06:27.480 --> 0:06:28.120 so insane. 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:31.440 I mean, yeah, they're like they're for crop damage purposes. 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:33.000 This is kind of the crux of what we're talking about. 0:06:33.040 --> 0:06:38.320 For crop damage Australia is killing millions of kangaroos. You 0:06:38.600 --> 0:06:45.760 not buying the products has no impact on that. That's happening. 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:48.800 Oh the killing of the end, it's like and looking 0:06:48.800 --> 0:06:50.840 at the issue there and how it's worked and how 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:54.800 the government approaches it. That's happening, that will continue to happen. 0:06:55.360 --> 0:06:56.960 Whether or not they go into a hole in the 0:06:56.960 --> 0:06:59.279 ground or not is a completely different issue. But you 0:06:59.440 --> 0:07:02.279 saying no wor kangaroo leather is not having it's not 0:07:02.839 --> 0:07:09.440 a social activism. That is that it has consequences on 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:09.840 the ground. 0:07:11.680 --> 0:07:16.760 I imagine it probably has a pest like uh you know, 0:07:16.800 --> 0:07:19.760 aura around it, and that probably prevents people from eating it. 0:07:19.920 --> 0:07:24.080 I mean there's so many just everywhere. He's sort of like, eah, 0:07:24.520 --> 0:07:27.520 hit him with cars. They're eating your garden and. 0:07:27.200 --> 0:07:29.640 They see human advertizing. 0:07:29.040 --> 0:07:33.000 People at restaurants. They're also it's served at fine dining 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:36.160 establishments in Australia. So we were just trying to figure out, like, 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:39.440 what's what the issue is. 0:07:40.160 --> 0:07:42.480 The Audubon society. Man, I don't know how. I didn't know. 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:45.440 I didn't know as much detail this. I just read 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:50.880 Dan Floy's very great book, Wild New World, which is 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:57.120 a ecological history of Well, he came on the damn Show, 0:07:57.200 --> 0:08:00.160 so he wrote an ecological history of the continent. It 0:08:01.480 --> 0:08:05.960 where do you begin? He began with the chick Salube strike, 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:10.800 which is the asteroid that collided with into the Gulf 0:08:10.840 --> 0:08:14.880 of Mexico off of tells that place over there off 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:19.920 the Yucatan Peninsula, at a angle that he described very 0:08:19.920 --> 0:08:23.280 eloquently when it struck, I used to think of it. 0:08:23.280 --> 0:08:26.080 I don't know, I thought of the asteroid. I never 0:08:26.080 --> 0:08:28.280 thought of the angle. The impacts of the angle at 0:08:28.280 --> 0:08:34.800 a very shallow angle, struck the earth and blasted, you know, 0:08:35.240 --> 0:08:39.880 like the sun died for years, all the dinosaurs, a 0:08:39.960 --> 0:08:43.320 most all the dinosaurs died, the biggest sort of ecological 0:08:43.320 --> 0:08:46.600 disaster to ever befall the earth, and then takes it 0:08:46.600 --> 0:08:52.959 from there. Eventually he gets to this fella Audubon and 0:08:53.200 --> 0:08:57.240 Audubon and Dan Floyd's Wild New World. Audubon is a 0:08:57.280 --> 0:09:03.880 somewhat celebrated figure because he he starts to paint all 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:07.319 these these endemics. He starts to paint these beautiful paintings 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:12.520 of birds from North America, including the ivory will build woodpecker, 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:15.400 which when extinct. He has paintings of the passenger pigeon, 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:18.200 and he he he brought them to life. He would 0:09:18.200 --> 0:09:24.520 paint them in uh, in a sort of context of 0:09:24.760 --> 0:09:28.120 how they interact with them each other, how they interact 0:09:28.160 --> 0:09:33.319 with their environment. And so he became synonymous with American 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:38.840 wildlife birds in particular. He did not found the Audubon Society. 0:09:40.760 --> 0:09:43.240 Later when they when they created the Autobon Society, they 0:09:43.400 --> 0:09:48.320 named it after this individual who was had such a 0:09:48.320 --> 0:09:52.920 profound impact on the way people perceive wild birds and 0:09:53.000 --> 0:09:59.320 celebrate wild birds. Uh. The dude own slaves and the 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:02.200 guy he owned slaves, and not only that I don't 0:10:02.280 --> 0:10:05.720 understand the details of this, but he was rolled into 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:09.200 efforts to dig up Native American burial sites. I don't 0:10:09.200 --> 0:10:12.640 know the details on that. Damn sure own slaves. Was 0:10:12.679 --> 0:10:18.200 not an abolitionist, and it came up with the Audubon Society. 0:10:18.040 --> 0:10:25.640 They conducted this like internal this internal review that recommended 0:10:25.679 --> 0:10:29.719 that the Audubon Society change its name. The board rejected 0:10:29.760 --> 0:10:35.600 the recommendation, and now in places where you could picture, 0:10:36.320 --> 0:10:38.520 places that you could picture just saying we're going to 0:10:38.640 --> 0:10:41.840 change our name anyway, changing the name anyway. And saw 0:10:41.880 --> 0:10:48.360 this little fight brewing within the Audubon Society about what 0:10:48.400 --> 0:10:51.559 does Audubon stand for? Does he stand for his work 0:10:51.600 --> 0:10:55.560 on behalf of Birds? Does he stand for slavery? I 0:10:55.600 --> 0:11:01.360 don't need to. I mean, you know, uh, culturally, we've 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:05.000 been talking for a long time and about what one 0:11:05.040 --> 0:11:09.719 should do about that. The end of this, the end 0:11:09.720 --> 0:11:14.920 of this conversation Will Will will someday land On, Does Washington, 0:11:15.040 --> 0:11:22.440 d C. Become something different? And do we throw away 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:27.560 the Constitution because of the the what what the people 0:11:27.600 --> 0:11:31.880 that wrote that were up to? If we throw away 0:11:31.920 --> 0:11:38.040 the Constitution because it was drafted by people who held slaves, 0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:44.480 then what framework do we use to have debates about 0:11:44.520 --> 0:11:47.960 what's legal? I don't really know. It's very puzzling, It's 0:11:48.240 --> 0:11:51.079 it's a tremendous intellectual exercise. What do you think, David, 0:11:52.040 --> 0:11:53.040 just your top bosch shit. 0:11:57.120 --> 0:11:58.200 Just hit you with that light. 0:11:59.520 --> 0:12:04.199 So that's that's a thing. That's a conversation happening out 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:08.040 there in the in the wildlife. Uh, in the wildlife space. 0:12:08.360 --> 0:12:10.240 We should give a shout out. I read that article 0:12:10.280 --> 0:12:12.280 too that Karin has paceded in here. That was a 0:12:12.280 --> 0:12:12.880 good article. 0:12:12.920 --> 0:12:14.320 I thought it was a great Did. 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:14.720 You read it all? 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:15.520 I read the whole thing. 0:12:15.920 --> 0:12:19.040 Adam pop Aescu, I don't know how to pronounce his name. 0:12:19.200 --> 0:12:20.280 Where do you find that article? 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:23.760 Kri Karinn pointed out that the quote she uses from 0:12:23.800 --> 0:12:28.760 someone defending Audubon and defending the name. They follow up 0:12:28.760 --> 0:12:35.160 the quote. It's very subtle, so the writer quotes it's 0:12:35.160 --> 0:12:38.280 almost like I don't believe it. The writer quotes someone 0:12:38.400 --> 0:12:40.680 defending Audubon. 0:12:40.440 --> 0:12:41.920 And not changing the name, and. 0:12:41.760 --> 0:12:47.880 Then it's like they give his quote comma as he 0:12:48.040 --> 0:12:51.600 nudged a dead catfish with his foot by the side 0:12:51.640 --> 0:12:52.160 of the pond. 0:12:55.200 --> 0:13:00.440 Sure, it was bizarre because some of the interviews canducted 0:13:00.559 --> 0:13:04.719 for this piece were conducted over the phone and some 0:13:04.800 --> 0:13:07.559 of them were conducted in person, so you can picture 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:14.599 the writer walking and talking and recording and then transcribing 0:13:14.800 --> 0:13:17.440 notes from there. But it was the first and I 0:13:17.480 --> 0:13:22.000 think almost only time in this multi page piece of 0:13:22.040 --> 0:13:28.440 writing where the quote, this quote was juxtaposed with like 0:13:28.480 --> 0:13:37.440 a pretty profound, substantial, like well written, uh thought by 0:13:37.559 --> 0:13:41.960 people who were in favor of changing their Audubon chapter's name, 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:46.960 so juxtaposed with this one quote. I mean, I don't 0:13:47.000 --> 0:13:50.320 know how much this individual said and how much there 0:13:50.480 --> 0:13:54.680 was the writer you know, could pull from, but it 0:13:54.760 --> 0:13:57.280 was just kind of like basic plane speak and then 0:13:57.520 --> 0:14:02.079 qualified with as he a dead catfish by the end 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:04.559 of the pond, And it was just very bizarre. I 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:08.120 was like wondering if that was some kind of covert 0:14:09.679 --> 0:14:12.200 I don't know, I just felt a certain way reading that. 0:14:12.640 --> 0:14:15.200 Well, maybe it was right. Maybe the guy was like, yeah, 0:14:15.240 --> 0:14:16.959 I don't know if he asked me, it's a bunch 0:14:17.000 --> 0:14:18.080 of bs. And then. 0:14:19.760 --> 0:14:24.240 Kick he I mean the first three paragraphs are there 0:14:24.320 --> 0:14:26.800 really is three or four sentences, but I mean he's 0:14:26.840 --> 0:14:30.000 talking about a seventy six year old bird watcher at 0:14:30.040 --> 0:14:33.280 a sewage treatment pond, and he goes on to describe 0:14:33.320 --> 0:14:36.960 this and he even uses uh he says it one 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:41.240 guy uh says there's this quote says on dale side 0:14:41.240 --> 0:14:44.280 stepping a human turd. I mean, I was I was 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:46.040 like hold on, what are we talking about again? 0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:46.360 Here? 0:14:46.440 --> 0:14:49.520 This is a story about Audubond, but he's side stepping 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:50.200 human turns. 0:14:50.240 --> 0:14:53.000 He's painting the picture for where the conversation's taking place. 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:54.720 But he did a good job of getting hooked. 0:14:55.000 --> 0:14:55.040 No. 0:14:55.760 --> 0:14:57.760 I think that they were like, well, you can come 0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:01.040 to two events. We have one of at a sewage 0:15:01.080 --> 0:15:04.720 facility and one is at a beautiful park. And the 0:15:04.760 --> 0:15:12.920 writers like dude as one that likes a good metaphor. 0:15:11.040 --> 0:15:13.520 That was in the free press. Yoh, need just to 0:15:13.720 --> 0:15:15.160 ask your question, answer your question? 0:15:15.680 --> 0:15:19.840 Uh uh, data graand we almost bumped you for this. 0:15:20.280 --> 0:15:23.920 We got a note that says a guy writes in 0:15:24.040 --> 0:15:25.680 I can tell his name, says, if you're looking for 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:29.400 a podcast, guess with a crazy story, I can get 0:15:29.440 --> 0:15:32.120 you in touch with my brother in law. His wife 0:15:32.160 --> 0:15:35.280 slowly poisoned him over the course of a year or so. 0:15:35.320 --> 0:15:39.120 She also poisoned his mom and sisters. She's bad, shit crazy. 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:40.800 That'll be my next book. 0:15:42.320 --> 0:15:43.760 There's a title for it there. 0:15:48.720 --> 0:15:51.600 I laughed so many times that note, because I was 0:15:51.640 --> 0:15:56.520 kind of like, oh, I'm it, is this an exclusive figure? 0:15:56.880 --> 0:15:57.960 Well no, there's more. 0:15:58.080 --> 0:16:00.480 There's more to it. It could be an exclusive. 0:16:02.520 --> 0:16:04.920 All right diving in. I want I want to I 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:06.520 want to make sure we have tons of time to 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:09.320 talk about the wager. I want to you know how 0:16:09.360 --> 0:16:11.840 we talked about the all the terms that came up. 0:16:12.480 --> 0:16:13.600 I want to want to go a little bit out 0:16:13.600 --> 0:16:19.960 of order. Can you explain the the great details you 0:16:20.000 --> 0:16:23.320 have about the burial at sea and that you would 0:16:25.560 --> 0:16:29.960 with the needle, just explain it is the weirdest thing. 0:16:30.160 --> 0:16:32.320 Yeah, So when you when you died at sea is 0:16:32.760 --> 0:16:36.040 a last Unfortunately, many people died at sea on this expedition, 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:40.480 about nearly two thousand people went, and only about of 0:16:40.520 --> 0:16:43.760 them about more than thirteen hundred parish and many of 0:16:43.800 --> 0:16:46.600 them were buried at sea. And so when you when 0:16:46.640 --> 0:16:49.600 you died at sea, they would have a ceremony and 0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:53.000 they would usually wrap you in a hammock, your hammock, 0:16:53.640 --> 0:16:56.160 and they would put up some kind of weight, sometimes 0:16:56.160 --> 0:16:58.320 of cannonball or some other weight in the in the 0:16:58.360 --> 0:17:02.600 hammock attached. But before they they would sew you into 0:17:02.640 --> 0:17:06.200 the hammock, and before they dumped you overboard, they would 0:17:06.200 --> 0:17:09.200 make sure the last stitch they put through your nose, 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:13.000 just to make sure you were actually dead. They didn't 0:17:13.000 --> 0:17:15.960 want you waking up going down into the ocean with 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:18.760 a cannonball, dropping you to the depths of the bottom 0:17:18.760 --> 0:17:21.360 of the sea. So one of the rituals was they 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:22.399 would they would. 0:17:23.880 --> 0:17:27.240 Was there ever an account of the last stitch waking 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:27.760 someone up? 0:17:27.800 --> 0:17:30.320 Well, you know, you do have to realize medicine back 0:17:30.359 --> 0:17:35.000 then was so primitive that it actually it sounds absolutely naughty. 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:38.600 You know, you could seem comatose to somebody. They wouldn't 0:17:38.680 --> 0:17:42.160 have the mechanisms, so and you know, you're at sea 0:17:42.240 --> 0:17:44.840 in a storm, so you know, you kind of you know, 0:17:44.920 --> 0:17:49.239 it's it's both crude. But yet, yeah, I suspect there 0:17:49.280 --> 0:17:51.359 probably was sometime. I mean, the thing about seamen and 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:53.800 rituals that they did actually develop for a reason they 0:17:53.800 --> 0:17:56.520 wouldn't waste time. So I suspect there must have been 0:17:56.840 --> 0:17:59.359 in some story that they had that motivated to do it, 0:17:59.359 --> 0:18:02.160 because they're not gonna waste time sewing something through your nose. 0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:03.360 But that's what they did. 0:18:03.760 --> 0:18:03.920 Yew. 0:18:03.960 --> 0:18:06.920 There was a couple of successes of medical treatments that 0:18:06.960 --> 0:18:08.800 were you wrote about in the book. And I was 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:12.080 surprised to hear that, oh, there's a surgeon on the 0:18:12.080 --> 0:18:15.680 boat and he actually like had success doing this thing. 0:18:15.760 --> 0:18:16.800 It was christ surprising. 0:18:16.920 --> 0:18:19.960 Yeah, there were surgeons on board, but you know, but 0:18:20.080 --> 0:18:21.639 you know, the the you know, the key thing that 0:18:21.640 --> 0:18:24.320 the surgeon had to do was basically amputate. I mean, 0:18:24.320 --> 0:18:26.399 that was the thing they had to amputate. They had 0:18:26.400 --> 0:18:30.400 to amputate quickly with no you know, you had no anesthesia. 0:18:31.680 --> 0:18:33.320 You know, they didn't give you booze because it actually 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:36.520 would make it more dangerous and your two of your 0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:39.360 seamen would hold you down and they chop off your limb. 0:18:39.359 --> 0:18:41.439 That was usually the main, you know, the main thing 0:18:41.440 --> 0:18:43.520 a surgeon did on board. But they did have certain 0:18:43.560 --> 0:18:46.399 medicines that they would try to give you. But you know, 0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:49.960 they didn't know what germs were back then. So you know, 0:18:50.040 --> 0:18:54.040 on this expedition, first they suffered from typhus, and you 0:18:54.040 --> 0:18:55.920 know they're going around the ship trying to figure out 0:18:55.960 --> 0:18:58.440 what causes this. And of course this was during COVID too, 0:18:58.440 --> 0:19:00.520 when I was writing about a lot of this, and 0:19:00.640 --> 0:19:03.119 I'm leaving packages at the door, thinking I can't do 0:19:03.200 --> 0:19:05.919 I touch the package, get the package, come inside. Is 0:19:05.920 --> 0:19:08.280 it like twenty four hours outside and and you know 0:19:08.359 --> 0:19:10.280 these guys are all you know, there's like you know, 0:19:10.480 --> 0:19:12.359 often on the ship to be like five hundred people 0:19:12.400 --> 0:19:15.600 all cloister together. They're social distancing, and you know they're 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:17.400 going around thinking, you know, is it in the air, 0:19:17.760 --> 0:19:21.159 you know, you know, you know, you know malaria, you 0:19:21.280 --> 0:19:24.360 talk about words, it's the French or mill area bad ear. 0:19:24.520 --> 0:19:26.520 So in that day they were thinking, you know, so 0:19:26.560 --> 0:19:29.000 they're going around sniffing everything. Is it your breath? What 0:19:29.080 --> 0:19:30.600 is it? What causes these things? 0:19:30.760 --> 0:19:32.560 We should I want to set the scene a little 0:19:32.600 --> 0:19:38.679 bit and get to well. In order to set the scene, 0:19:38.720 --> 0:19:41.919 I want to like begin with the thing that that 0:19:42.200 --> 0:19:45.680 seems like a fairy tale. I want you to talk 0:19:45.680 --> 0:19:48.480 about the year and who and what and why. But 0:19:48.560 --> 0:19:52.520 this expedition that we're going to discuss, and the voyage 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:54.560 of the Wager and an accompaniment with a bunch of 0:19:54.560 --> 0:19:59.280 other boats. It seems so crazy to me that here 0:19:59.280 --> 0:20:04.680 we are in the seventeen hundreds and they get intel, 0:20:05.640 --> 0:20:09.639 the English get intel of a gold lace. It sounds 0:20:09.640 --> 0:20:11.600 like like a like a setup for a pirate movie. 0:20:11.960 --> 0:20:18.119 They get intel of a gold laden Spanish galleon that 0:20:18.359 --> 0:20:21.280 will be showing up at such and such time in 0:20:21.320 --> 0:20:26.119 the Philippines. Yes, let's send a two thousand people and 0:20:26.200 --> 0:20:30.359 I don't know how many boats to sail across the Atlantic, 0:20:31.040 --> 0:20:35.400 duck around Patagonia, get up to the Philippines and catch 0:20:35.400 --> 0:20:35.800 the boat. 0:20:36.040 --> 0:20:38.280 Yes, that was like, how is it? 0:20:38.760 --> 0:20:40.840 If that wasn't a movie, I would be like, this 0:20:40.920 --> 0:20:43.760 is a bad setup for that movie. It's so implausible, 0:20:43.800 --> 0:20:44.399 it's so crazy. 0:20:44.440 --> 0:20:46.199 And it's also crazy about it too, is that this 0:20:46.359 --> 0:20:49.120 was a naval mission, so you know, but it had 0:20:49.119 --> 0:20:51.399 a complete whiff of pirates. I mean, and I was like, 0:20:51.520 --> 0:20:53.840 is this part of the naval mission? But that ship 0:20:54.000 --> 0:20:56.560 was worth you know, it was laid in with treasure 0:20:56.720 --> 0:21:01.040 plunder taken by the Spanish from Mexico and Peru, and 0:21:01.080 --> 0:21:03.520 then they would haul it over to the Philippines where 0:21:03.520 --> 0:21:06.760 they would use that plunder to buy Asian commodities. So 0:21:06.800 --> 0:21:08.640 that's why it was filled, and that's why they knew 0:21:08.680 --> 0:21:09.280 it would be going there. 0:21:09.320 --> 0:21:12.200 And this is an annual and it's an annual trip 0:21:12.240 --> 0:21:12.920 to the market. 0:21:12.760 --> 0:21:16.399 An annual trip with exactly with lludic gold and silver 0:21:16.520 --> 0:21:19.199 and jewels and gems. And it was worth about you know, 0:21:19.359 --> 0:21:22.080 eighty million dollars. Eighty million dollars. 0:21:22.119 --> 0:21:23.800 Did you do the did you do that? What that 0:21:24.040 --> 0:21:24.240 I did? 0:21:24.240 --> 0:21:26.879 That little inflation cockcat. What does that mean now, Yeah, no, 0:21:26.920 --> 0:21:29.320 it's about eighty two million dollars, yeah, by in today's money, 0:21:29.720 --> 0:21:31.879 my little inflation caculat. But yeah, and the ship was 0:21:31.920 --> 0:21:34.320 known as the you know, to Europeans, the ship was 0:21:34.359 --> 0:21:36.639 known as the Prize of all the Oceans. I mean, 0:21:36.640 --> 0:21:38.240 that's how the seamen referred to it. 0:21:39.400 --> 0:21:47.200 Uh, layout who and and and how many ships? Because 0:21:47.400 --> 0:21:51.520 when I you know, it's it's it. It's about a ship. 0:21:51.640 --> 0:21:56.360 But there's a there's a narrowing processes where we would 0:21:56.440 --> 0:22:00.320 end up focusing very intently on this this one. But 0:22:00.400 --> 0:22:02.439 it's part of a much It's like not even the 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:03.560 most impressive ship. Yeah. 0:22:03.600 --> 0:22:05.240 No, In fact, it's kind of the ugly duckling of 0:22:05.280 --> 0:22:09.280 the squadron. I mean, the squadron consisted of five warships, 0:22:09.320 --> 0:22:15.520 including the Wager and a scouting sloop. The largest ship 0:22:15.680 --> 0:22:18.880 was the Centurion, which was led by the commodore Georgia 0:22:18.920 --> 0:22:23.159 Anson and the Wager. Yeah, it was a little bit 0:22:23.200 --> 0:22:25.320 the ugly duckling of the expedition because it was not 0:22:25.480 --> 0:22:28.200 unlike the other warships, it wasn't born for battle. It 0:22:28.240 --> 0:22:31.280 had actually been a merchant ship trading and they needed 0:22:31.280 --> 0:22:33.280 ships for the war, so they remade it. It was 0:22:33.280 --> 0:22:36.119 about one hundred and twenty three feet long, had twenty 0:22:36.119 --> 0:22:38.480 eight cannons, which made it the kind of lowest rank 0:22:38.560 --> 0:22:41.680 warship was known as the sixth sixth rate warship in 0:22:41.720 --> 0:22:45.080 the British Navy, which was the lowest rating, and on 0:22:45.160 --> 0:22:48.400