Meantime, the other vessels of the squadron did not put in an appearance. That two of them, the _Pearl_ and _Severn_, were not to be expected, we have already learned; but what had become of the _Wager_? It was learned afterwards that while making the passage to the island of Socoro, one of the rendezvous of the squadron, she had become entangled among the rocks and grounded, soon becoming an utter wreck. The Honourable John Byron, afterwards a commodore in his Majesty’s service, but then a youngster on board, has left an account of the disaster in his well-known work.(15) “In the morning, about four o’clock,” says he, “the ship struck. The shock we received upon this occasion, though very great, being not unlike a blow of a heavy sea, such as in the series of preceding storms we had often experienced, was taken for the same; but we were soon undeceived by her striking again more violently than before, which laid her upon her beam-ends, the sea making a fair breach over her. Every person that now could stir was presently upon the quarter-deck; and many of those were alert upon this occasion that had not showed their faces upon deck for above two months before; several poor wretches, who were in the last stage of the scurvy, and who could not get out of their hammocks, were immediately drowned.” Some seemed bereaved of their senses; one man was seen stalking about the deck flourishing a cutlass over his head, calling himself king of the country, and striking everybody he came near, till he was knocked down by some of those he had assaulted. “Some, reduced before by long sickness and the scurvy, became on this occasion as it were petrified and bereaved of all sense, like inanimate logs, and were bandied to and fro by the jerks and rolls of the ship, without exerting any efforts to help themselves.... The man at the helm, though both rudder and tiller were gone, kept his station; and being asked by one of the officers if the ship would steer or not, first took his time to make trial by the wheel, and then answered with as much respect and coolness as if the ship had been in the greatest safety; and immediately after applied himself with his usual serenity to his duty, persuaded it did not become him to desert it as long as the ship kept together.” The captain, who had dislocated his shoulder by a fall the day before, was coolness itself, and one of the mates did all in his power to inspire them with the belief that they would not be lost so near land. This wrought a change in many who but a few minutes before had been in despair, praying on their knees for mercy. It was another illustration of— “When the devil was sick,”