The Book of Buried Treasure / Being a True History of the Gold, Jewels, and Plate of Pirates, Galleons, etc., which are sought for to this day

by Ralph Delahaye Paine

"There have been odd Collusions with the Pyrates of Quelch's Company, of which one instance is, That there was extorted the sum of about Thirty Pounds from some of the crew for liberty to walk at certain times in the prison yard. And this liberty having been allowed for two or three days unto them, they were again confined to their former wretched circumstances."

CHAPTER VII

THE ARMADA GALLEON OF TOBERMORY BAY

Between the western Highlands of Scotland and the remote, cloudy Hebrides lies the large island of Mull on a sound of that name. Its bold headlands are crowned with the ruins of gray castles that were once the strongholds of the clans of the MacLeans and the MacDonalds. Along these shores and waters one generation after another of kilted fighting men, savage as red Indians, raided and burned and slew in feuds whose memories are crowded with tragedy and romance. Near where Mull is washed by the Atlantic and the Sound opens toward the thoroughfares of the deep-sea shipping is the pleasant town of Tobermory, which in the Gaelic means Mary's Well. The bay that it faces is singularly beautiful, almost landlocked, and of a depth sufficient to shelter a fleet.

Into this Bay of Tobermory there sailed one day a great galleon of Spain, belonging to that mighty Armada which had been shattered and driven in frantic flight by English seamen with hearts of oak under Drake, Hawkins, Howard, Seymour, and Martin Frobisher, names to make the blood beat faster even now. The year was 1588, in the reign of Elizabeth, long, long, ago. This fugitive galleon, aforetime so tall and stately and ornate, was racked and leaking, her painted sails in tatters, her Spanish sailors sick, weary, starved, after escaping from the English Channel and faring far northward around the stormy Orkneys. Many of her sister ships had crashed ashore on the Irish coast while the surviving remnant of this magnificent flotilla wallowed forlornly home. Seeking provisions, repairs, respite from the terrors of the implacable ocean the galleon Florencia dropped anchor in Tobermory Bay, and there she laid her bones.

With her, it is said, was lost a great store of treasure in gold and plate, and ever since 1641, for more than two and a half centuries, the search for these riches has been carried on at intervals. More than likely, if you should go in one of Donald MacBrayne's steamers through the Sound of Mull next summer, and a delightful excursion it is, you would find an up-to-date suction dredge and a corps of divers, employed by the latest syndicate to finance the treasure hunt, ransacking the mud of Tobermory Bay in the hope of finding the Spanish gold of the Florencia. Many thousands have been vainly spent in the quest, but the lure of lost treasure has a fascination of its own, and after all the failure of Scotch and English seekers, American enterprise and capital have now taken hold of this romantic task.

With the history of the Florencia galleon and her treasure is intimately interwoven the stirring chronicle of the deeds of the MacLeans of Mull and the MacDonalds of Islay and Skye. Out of the echoing past, the fanfare of Spanish trumpets is mingled with the skirl of the pipes, and the rapier of Toledo flashes beside the claymore of the Highlanders. The story really begins long before the doomed galleon sought refuge in Tobermory Bay. There were island chieftains of the Clan MacLean, busy at cutting the throats of their enemies, as far remote in time as the thirteenth century, but their turbulent pedigrees need not concern our narrative until the warlike figure of Lachlan Mo'r MacLean, "Big Lachlan," steps into its pages in the year of 1576.

It was then that he came of age and set out from the Court of James VI at Edinburgh, where he had been brought up, to claim his inherited estates of Mull. His wicked step-father, Hector, met him in the castle of Duart whose stout walls and battlements still loom not far from Tobermory and tried to set him aside with false and foolish words. The astute youth perceived that if he were to come into his own, he must be up and doing, wherefore he speedily mustered friends and led them into Castle Duart by night. They carried this scheming step-father to the island of Coll and there beheaded him, which made Lachlan's title clear to the lands of his ancestors.

The next to mistake the mettle of young Lachlan Mo'r was no less than Colin Campbell, sixth Earl of Argyll, head of a family very powerful in the Highlands even to this day. He was for seizing the estate by force after plotting to no purpose, and Angus MacDonald of Dunyweg was persuaded to help him with several hundred fighting men. Thus began the feud between the MacLeans and MacDonalds which a few years later was to involve that great galleon Florencia of the Armada. Argyll and his force wasted the lands of Lachlan with fire and sword, and besieged one of his strongholds with twelve hundred followers.