HMS Wager was wrecked on a remote island off Patagonia in May 1741 during George Anson's circumnavigation expedition. The stranded crew divided into rival groups amid hunger, violence and accusations of mutiny. Survivors followed different routes through the hazardous coasts of southern Chile before returning home.

Accounts of the Wager disaster supplied Lord Byron with important material for the shipwreck episodes in Don Juan. Byron transformed documented suffering, quarrels and cannibalism into a darkly comic critique of heroic adventure and human pretension.