THE WAGEROn 28th January 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majestys ship the Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain. While chasing a Spanish treasure filled galleon, the Wager was wrecked on a desolate island off