Pascal Couchepin's reading: «Les Naufragés du Wager» (Wrecked on the Wager)»

Each month, we feature a column by one of the personalities who give us the pleasure of alternating between the two. Current affairs, history, politics and philosophy: former Federal Councillor Pascal Couchepin's readings.

When I began reading Les Naufragés du Wager, I thought I'd find a Joseph Conrad-style tale, a sort of Lord Jim or Typhoon. Not so. Les naufragés du Wager is a faithful account of the appalling four-year tribulations of the crews of a British squadron. The squadron to which the Wager belonged left Portsmouth in 1740, on a mission to reach the Pacific and seize Spanish galleons bringing precious metals back to Europe. At the time, England was engaged in warlike and commercial competition with Spain. It wanted to impose on the Spanish colonies in America the orve