Thetis Cove in calm weather, showing salvage operations.
Thetis Cove during the storm which wrecked the salvage equipment. (From lithographs made in 1836.)
"Nine o'clock arrived, and I had been watching for fourteen hours. The constant concussions had caused the gear of the derrick to stretch, and every blow from the sea caused it to swing and buckle to an alarming degree. Nothing more could possibly be done to save it, and I saw plainly that unless the gale soon ceased its destruction was inevitable. I therefore left an officer on watch, and quitted the cliff to go to my hut and arrange my parties for the work to be put in hand after the catastrophe. Presently he came down to meet me, and reported that a stupendous roller had struck the derrick on its side, and broke it off twenty feet from the heel. Thus in one crash was destroyed the child of my hopes, and in a very short time the derrick was dashed into six pieces, forming, with the complicated gear, one confused mass of wreckage."
Before the storm had subsided, the indefatigable seamen, blacksmiths, and carpenters were solving the problem afresh, just as if there had not been a clean sweep of their weary months of effort. This time it was a new scheme for a suspension cable that had occurred to Captain Dickinson. While this work was in progress he made another diving bell from a water-tank, and succeeded in finding his air pump at the bottom of the cove. Two men were drowned in the surf at this stage of operations, the only fatalities suffered by the heroic company. The diving bell was successfully slung from the suspended cable after a vast deal of ingenious and daring engineering, and by means of it much treasure was recovered, although the contrivance yawed fearfully under water and more than once capsized and spilled its crew who fought their gasping way to the surface.
After fourteen months of incessant toil, the men and officers worn to the bone and ravaged by fever and dysentery, they had found almost six hundred thousand dollars in bullion and specie, or three-fourths of the total amount lost in the Thetis. It had been magnificently successful salvage, achieved in the face of odds that would have disheartened a less resourceful and courageous commander than Captain Thomas Dickinson. He appears to have been the man in a thousand for the undertaking. Then occurred an inexplicable sort of a disappointment, an act of such gross injustice to him that it can be explained only on the theory of favoritism at naval headquarters. Captain Dickinson had a grievance and he describes the beginning of his troubles in this fashion:
"On the 7th and 8th of March, some more treasure was found in a part from which we had removed several guns, and here I had determined to have a thorough examination by digging, feeling assured that here would be found all the remaining treasure that could be obtained. Our labors were drawing to a close, but while I was enjoying the pleasing anticipation of a speedy and successful termination of the enterprise, on the 6th I was surprised by the arrival of His Majesty's sloop Algerine, with orders from the Commander-in-Chief to me to resign the charge to Commander the Honorable J. F. F. de Roos of that sloop. It appears that the Admiralty had been led to think that no more property could be rescued, and therefore ordered my removal. I could not but feel this a most mortifying circumstance. I had been the only person who had come forward to attempt the recovery of the large property which was considered to be irretrievably lost; I had devised the whole of the methods by which a very large portion of it was recovered; I had endured peril, sickness, toil, and privation during more than a year; and the work was now reduced to a mere plaything compared with what it had been, and yet I was not allowed to put the finishing hand to it. Notwithstanding this, the deep interest I felt in the undertaking remained unabated, and I was determined that nothing should be wanting on my part to ensure a successful termination of it."
Quite courteously, Captain Dickinson explained in detail to Commander the Honorable J. F. F. de Roos the plant and the operations, and even left for him to fish up a large quantity of treasure already located and which could be scooped up from the diving bell without difficulty. "With a feeling which I thought would be appreciated by a brother officer, I did not attempt to bring up this treasure, but left it for the benefit of our successors, observing at the time that the world should not say that I had left them nothing to do but the labor of removing rocks and rubbish."
The amount subsequently recovered by the Algerine was $161,500, so that by Captain Dickinson's efforts, and the use of his plans and equipment, all but one-sixteenth of the lost treasure was restored to its owners, and of this he himself had raised by far the greater part. When he returned to England and learned that salvage was to be awarded to the officers and men who had been engaged in the work, he naturally regarded himself as the principal salvor. The Admiralty, in its inscrutable wisdom, chose to think otherwise, and the underwriters of Lloyd's, taking their cue from this exalted quarter, regarded poor Captain Dickinson with the cold and fishy eye of disfavor. The case was argued in the Court of Admiralty, and the agents of Admiral Baker, he who had been in command of the squadron at Rio, set up the claim that he was the principal salvor, although the fact was plain that he had nothing whatever to do with recovering the treasure from the Thetis, and not even visited Cape Frio during the year of active operations.