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

The repeated references to molestation by the inhabitants round about were aimed at the Clan MacLean. The great Lachlan M'or had long since closed his stormy career, and, wrapped in his plaid, his bones were smouldering in a grave by Duart Castle. His kinsmen had good memories, however, and there was that debt for provisions which had been left owing by Captain Pareira of the Florencia some eighty years before. It might seem that young Donald Glas had squared the account when he blew the galleon and her crew to kingdom come, but the MacLeans were men to nurse the embers of a feud and set the sparks to flying at the next opportunity. They held it that theirs was the first right to the wreck, and cared not a rap for any documentary rights that might have been granted to the Campbells (the clan of the Earls of Argyll), by the Great Admiral of Scotland.

Hector MacLean, brother of Lachlan MacLean of Castle Torloisk, near Tobermory, rallied a force and drove the divers from the wreck. Then, in order that there might be no doubt about the views of the MacLeans, they built a small fort overlooking the bay and the scene of the wreck, the ruins of which still survive. There a detachment was posted with orders to make it hot for any interlopers who might try to find the sunken treasure without first consulting the MacLeans.

This interference found its way into the Courts at Edinburgh in the form of a petition of grievances suffered by Captain Adolpho E. Smith. He swore before a notary that John MacLean, of Kinlochalan, and John MacLean, a servitor to Lachlan MacLean of Torloisk, "had convocated six or seven score of armed men, and he had exhibited to them a royal warrant bearing his Majesty's protection and free liberty to Captain Smith and his servants to work at the wreck-ship at Tobermory, and prohibiting any of his Majesty's subjects from interrupting them. Captain Smith then required the MacLeans to dissipate the armed men, part of whom were in a fort or trench at Tobermory, newly built by them for interrupting the work, and the rest in the place or houses adjacent,—as John MacLean of Kinlochalan acknowledged,—and in his Majesty's name required them to give him and his men liberty to prosecute their work at the wreck.

"Upon this Kinlochalan answered that the men in arms were not commanded by him but by Hector MacLean, brother of Lachlan MacLean of Torloisk, and others; and he declared that not only would Captain Smith and his men be hindered, but that the men in arms would shoot guns, muskets and pistols at them, should any of them offer to duck or work at the wreck. Whereupon Captain Smith took this instrument, protesting against the aforesaid MacLeans and their accomplices, at Tobermory in Mull, 7 September, 1678." The militant and tenacious MacLeans struck terror to the heart of Captain Adolpho Smith, according to another official document called a "notorial instrument at the instance of William Campbell, skipper to the Earl of Argyll's frigate, called Anna of Argyll. This worthy sea dog, it appears, as procurator for the Earl," had compeared, desired, and required Captain Adolpho E. Smith and his men to duck and work at the wreckship and to conform to the minutes of contract betwixt the Earl and him, otherwise to give the bells, sinks, and other instruments necessary for ducking to William Campbell, and the men on board the Earl's frigate, who would duck them without any regard to the threatenings of the MacLeans.

"Notwithstanding this, Captain Smith and his men refused to duck and work, or to give over the bells, etc., necessary for the work to William Campbell who thereupon, as procurator for the Earl of Argyll asked and took instruments and protested against Captain Smith for cost, skaith, and damage conform to the contract. The instrument was taken by Donald McKellar, notary public, at and aboard the yacht belonging to Captain Adolpho E. Smith, lying in the Bay of Tobermory in Mull, 7 September, 1678."

The wreck of the galleon was fought over about this time, not only by the mettlesome MacLeans but also by the Duke of York as Lord High Admiral of Scotland and the Isles, succeeding in that office the Duke of Lennox. He challenged the rights of the house of Argyll to the Florencia and her treasure and instituted legal proceedings in due form which were decided in favor of the defendant, thereby confirming for all time the possession of the wreck, which belongs to the present Duke of Argyll. The verdict read in part as follows:

"The rights, reasons, and allegations of the parties, and the gifts and ratifications therein referred to, produced by Archibald, Earl of Argyll, being at length heard and seen, the Lords of Council and Session assoilized the said Archibald Earl of Argyll from the hail points and articles of the summons libelled or precept intended and pursued against him at the instance of said William Aikman, Procurator-Fiscal of the Admiralty, before said Lord High Admiral and his deputies, and decreed and declared him quit and free thereof in all time coming. Dated 27th, July, 1677."

There comes into the story, during the lifetime of the ninth Earl, the figure of Sir William Sacheverall, Governor of the Isle of Man, who was interested as a partner in one of the several concessions granted. He had left an account of his voyage to Mull in the year 1672, printed shortly after the event, in which he not only records sundry efforts to fish up the treasure but gives also a lively and vivid picture of the primitive Highlander on his native heather.

"About twelve o'clock," he wrote, "we made the Sound of Mull. We saluted the Castle of Duart with five guns, and they returned three. I sent in my pinnace for the boats, and things you had left there; and in the evening we cast anchor in the Bay of Tauber Murry, which for its bigness, is one of the finest and fastest in the world. The mouth of it is almost shut up with a little woody island call'd the Calve, the opening to the South not passable for small boats at low-water, and that to the North barely Musquet-shot over. To the Landward, it is surrounded with high Mountains cover'd with woods, pleasantly intermixed with rocks, and three or four Cascades of water which throw themselves from the top of the Mountain with a pleasure that is astonishing, all of which together make one of the oddest and most charming Prospects I ever saw.

"Italy itself, with all the assistance of Art, can hardly afford anything more beautiful and diverting; especially when the weather was clear and serene, to see the Divers sinking three-score foot under water and stay sometimes above an hour, and at last returning with the spoils of the Ocean; whether it were Plate, or Money, it convinced us of the Riches and Splendor of the once thought Invincible Armada. This rais'd a variety of Ideas, in a Soul as fond of Novelty as mine. Sometimes I reflected with horror on the danger of the British Nation, sometimes with Pleasure on that generous Courage and Conduct that sav'd a sinking State; and sometimes of so great an Enterprize baffled and lost, by accidents unthought of and unforseen....