Byron observed that Cheap was “jealous to the last degree” of his power as captain—power that he saw “daily declining, and ready to be trampled upon.” On June 7, nearly a month after the Wager had run aground, he gave a simple order to Midshipman Henry Cozens to roll a cask of peas salvaged from the wreck up the beach and into the store tent. Cozens, appearing unsteady from liquor, insisted that the cask was too heavy, and began to turn away. A midshipman refusing his captain! Cheap shouted that Cozens was drunk.
