SUNKEN TREASURE..

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 211, 16 July 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

SUNKEN TREASURE. .

Tim: momoiy of the loss of £'200,000 of silvei and yold will t-ur\ive the loss of 1,000 souls in a coup. There was the Lutine, for inbt.inqo. She was of thirty-two guns, commanded by Captain Skynner, and she went a-Wioio on the bank of the Fly inland passage on the nieht of October 9, 1799. At first' she was repoi ted to h&\ c had £600,000 worth oi specie "on board. This was iftcrword' cuntuvlicledbya&tatementthat '• t^rdturn fio.n the Imllion office makes the \Vtiole amount £140,000 sterling." *• If," I nrid in 1 a contemporary account, " the wreck oFthe unfoituimtc Luline should be discoveJ'Sdy thoiv may be reason to hope for the rccov cry of the bullion.'' In tho reign of James 11. some English adventurers fitted out a vessel to search for and weigh up the cargo of a rich Spanish bhip which had been lost on the coast of South America. They succeeded and brought home L 300,000, which had bee_n forty-four years at the bottom of the sea* Captain Phipps, who commanded, had L 20,000 for his share, and the Duke of Albemarle L60,()0Q, A medal was. staucfc. ill honour- Of thia eVelife In 1087. There was a very costly wreck in 1767. She was a Dutch East Indiaman, and foundered within three leagues of the Texel, taking down all hands but six and £500,000. The price of four such armadas as that of 1588 went down in the last century alone in die shape of gold, silver and plate. She was the annual register ship, as the terra then was, and had in her 500,000 piastres and 10,000 ounces of gold on account of the King, and twice that sum on the merchants' account, making her a very rich ship. She foundered, and no man escaped to tell how and when. In the same year the Dutch lost the Antoinetta, an Indiaman, and with her sank L 700,000 sterling, besides jewels of great) value. The Royal Charter is the most notable modern instance of the wreck of a " treasure " ship that I can just now call to mind. She left Australia with L 350,000 in her. Of this sum, says Charles Dickens in his chapter on the dreadful shipwreck in "The Uncommercial Traveller," L 300,000 worth were recovered at the time of the novelist's visit to the spot; where she Avas driven ashore. "The great bulk of the remainder," writes Dickens, "was surely and steadily coming up. Some loss of sovereigns there would be, of coui'se ; indeed, at first the sovereigns had drifted in with the sand and been scattered far and wide over the beach like sea shells, but most other golden tieasure would be found. So tremendous had the force of the sea been when it broke the ship that it had beaten one great ingou of gold deep into a strong and heavy piece of her solid iron work, in which also several loose sovereigns that the ingot had swept in before it nad been found as firmly imbedded as though the iron had been liquid when they had been forced there." This is a curiosity of disaster, but mightily suggestive of the sea'a miserly trick of concealing her plunder.