ROMANCE OF TREASURE-TROVE
These are True Stories of Treasure, and they are as Strange as Fiction
INTERWOVEN with the story of the sea there is a vast amount of romance that wraps itself around hidden treasure. Ever since the days when the pirates roamed the seas at their own sweet will and took toll of shipping, these tales of treasure have been told. Dotted about here and there are small islands where tradition has it that the pirates hid their hoards of gold, silver, and precious jewels, intending to come back for them at some future date; but, being caught and hauled to justice, they died with their secret unrevealed, and the treasure remained. Then someone was told—or perhaps imagined—that such-and-such an island held it, and expeditions would be fitted out to seek for the treasure, which, as time rolled on, grew in size and value till it assumed fabulous proportions.
Of course, there are hidden treasures secreted by the old pirates, and there are, too, other hoards which it would be well worth while to salvage, if the exact places were known. One can go back as far as the reigns of Tiberius and Caligula and find mention of richly laden ships which foundered with all their treasure; two galleys, for instance, containing plate, gold, art treasures, and many jewels were lost in the Lake Nemi, and nothing has ever been recovered, although the lake at this spot is only little more than a hundred feet deep.
Coming to a much later date, the seventeenth century, there is an authentic record of the recovery of a vast quantity of lost treasure which was lost off Hispaniola, when a great Spanish galleon went down very many years before. A ship’s carpenter named John Phipps by some means became aware of this sunken treasure, and after some time prevailed upon the Duke of Albemarle to fit out an expedition to recover it. That expedition lasted a year, and folks at home began to think that Phipps’s idea had been all moonshine, and that nothing had come of it. Then one day the one-time carpenter turned up with treasure worth £300,000. The story was romantic. Phipps had been searching about the sea round Hispaniola, for he had no sure idea as to exact locality, and perhaps he himself had a suspicion that his information had been incorrect, for he could find no trace of the wealth he sought. Then one day, when off Port de la Plata, looking over the side of the Periaga, a man “spied,” says the account written by a New England historian, “a feather growing, as he judged, out of a rock, whereupon one of their Indians (whom they had brought for the purpose) dived in, and, bringing up the feather, brought them withal a surprising story that he perceived a number of great guns in the watery world where he had found his feather, the report of which great guns exceedingly astonished the whole company, and at once turned their despondencies for their ill-success into assurances that they had now lit upon the true spot of ground which they had been looking for; and they were further confirmed in their assurances when, upon further diving, the Indian fetched up a ‘Sow,’ as they styled it, or lump of silver, worth perhaps two or three hundred pounds. This news was communicated to Phipps. ‘Then,’ said he, ‘thanks be to God, we are made’; and so away they went, all hands to work.... Now, most happily, they fell upon that room in the wreck where the bullion had been stored up, and they so prospered in this ‘new fishing’ that in a little while they had, without the loss of any man’s life, brought up thirty-two tons of silver! For it was now come to measuring silver by tons. Thus did there once again come into the light of the sun a treasure which had been half a hundred years groaning under the water. Besides that incredible treasure in plate of various forms thus fetched up from seven or eight fathoms under water, there were vast riches of gold and pearls and jewels.”
Carpenter Phipps received a boisterous welcome in England when he returned, and was knighted, and in due course became Governor of Massachusetts.
Sometimes seekers after treasure go forth on their quest and are never heard of again. In 1888, for instance, there left the Thames a little steamer called the Seabird, which was destined, so it was said, for coastal work in South America. Some three months later she was seen off Descada, and from that time to this has not been heard of. Plainly one of those mysteries of the sea referred to in another chapter; but a mystery with something behind it. The accepted explanation is that the owners had gone to seek treasure-trove buried by La Fitte, a French pirate, in the early days of the nineteenth century, on one of the Leeward Islands, either Marie Galanti or Descada, where the Seabird was sighted. There might be little in that to connect the Seabird with treasure-hunting, were it not for the fact that when she left the Thames she had two divers aboard, who were ranked on the books as steward and cook’s mate. Twelve months after the Seabird disappeared the mother of Rider, the “steward,” heard from her son, who sent her a draft on a San Francisco bank for £100, and a letter saying that she would hear from him again, and that he and the “cook’s mate,” Cadman, had been “lucky.” He was as silent as the grave as to the fate of the Seabird; and neither he nor any of the crew has been heard of since.
If the pirates were alive, and would only speak! If Blackbeard, that picturesque scourge of the sea, could but reveal the place where he hid his treasure, unseen even by his own men, what a rush there would be! What a hoard might be found! Though not perhaps so large a one as the tales that are told lead one to suppose. Poor old Captain Kidd’s hidden wealth, for instance, started with £300—according to a man who sailed with him—and after the captain was hanged it grew and grew and grew until it was so large that not one, nor two, but dozens of places were necessary to hold it! So do myths arise from the flimsiest of facts.
During the sixteenth century, when English ships scoured the seas to wring wealth from Spain, many a Spanish ship was sunk, with all her treasure, rather than it should fall into the hands of the “English devils”; and when the Invincible Armada was put to flight, and, storm-tossed, sought to reach home by sailing round the north coast of Scotland and the west coast of Ireland, numbers of the vessels were wrecked; and, as they contained huge treasures, fortunes might be gained by properly organised search parties with the latest dredging and diving apparatus.
Sometimes the romance of treasure-trove is over-clouded by tragedy; and very often for nothing. The story is told of the foundering of the American ship Reliance, Captain Harding and his crew of twelve men barely escaping with their lives in the boats. Then a storm broke upon them and separated the boats, and Hiram Manly, mate, and nine men found themselves alone on the watery waste, being buffeted about, in danger every minute of being swamped. They worked desperately to keep her afloat, happy to be so far safe. Then one man was washed overboard by a huge wave, another fell dead from his exertions, and the survivors, day after day under pitiless sun, and night after night, held on their way, economising the few provisions and little water they had, becoming delirious as the anxiety told on them. Two more men were lost one night—perhaps the madness seized them, and they flung themselves overboard to end it all; perhaps a wave took them. But, whatever it was, they disappeared without a sound. The survivors, after what seemed an eternity of suffering, were at last flung upon a coral island, where they found water, which, because of the uncontrolled thirst upon them, killed two of them. Then fish was found; Hiram built a fire from drift wood, lighted it by the crystal glass of a watch and the sun’s rays, and then went to rouse his sleeping comrades. One man was dead.