British historian Earle (The Sack of Panama: Captain Morgan and the
Battle for the Caribbean, 2007, etc.) delves into the
late-17th-century surge in treasure hunting and the diving
technology that accompanied it.Shipwrecks were all too common in
this age of primitive navigation, when vessels frequently collided
with reefs, rocks or the coast. Scavengers focused particularly on
the routes traversed by riches-laden Spanish galleons as they
sailed from the Americas to the mother country. British strongholds
Jamaica and Bermuda were the sites of such fantastic Spanish
shipwrecks as the Maravillas and the Concepci-n. The latter,
reported to be carrying four million pesos worth of treasure when
it sank off the Bahamas, was unearthed in a spectacular 1683
salvage by Boston sea captain William Phips (under permission of
the British crown). Unearthed after only two days of searching by
four divers, the find made Phips rich and famous. It sparked an
epidemic of treasure fever, in particular among those hoping to
find Spanish silver in the wrecks from the 1588 Armada off the
coast of Ireland. Earle chronicles many of these mostly failed
endeavors, including quixotic schemes by Thomas Neale, Richard Long
and Collin Hunter, as well as the various attempts to repossess
scattered treasure from the fleet of Spanish galleons wrecked in
Vigo Bay. Among the numerous innovations in diving equipment that
also fueled treasure-seeking mania in the last decade of the 17th
century were the diving tub, the sea crab, the diving bell invented
by astronomer Edmond Halley and the pump system fashioned by the
Braithwaite family. However, Earle's focus is limited; except for
brief mentions of Jules Verne's work and the recovered logbooks of
William Evans, he largely ignores the rich tradition in literature
and the arts sparked by treasure hunters.Thorough, but too
restricted in scope to appeal to general readers. (Kirkus Reviews)
"Treasure Hunt" is the story of a national obsession. Dreams of
Spanish treasure, of unearned gold at the bottom of the sea, have
been a part of the English psyche since long before effective
diving equipment was invented. In 1687, Captain William Phips
weighed anchor in English waters with an incredible cargo - nearly
forty tons of silver and gold, the treasure of the Spanish galleon
Concepcion, wrecked over forty years before on a coral reef in the
middle of the ocean. This treasure in coins and bullion had been
raised by naked divers, unaided by breathing equipment. The great
British treasure-hunting boom had begun. Over the next two hundred
years, many such adventures, most based on extremely dubious
information, were begun, with many fortunes and lives lost in the
process. The real boom for underwater treasure hunting took place
in the 1690s, with the invention of crude, very dangerous diving
equipment. And, with the advent of the stock market, gambling and
treasure-hunting became closely connected to the birth of modern
capitalism. In the 18th and 19th centuries, treasure-hunting became
a professional occupation, with a new breed of diver emerging to
salvage the wrecks of English and Dutch East-Indiamen carrying
treasure to finance purchases in Asia. World-renowned naval
historian Peter Earle returns with an extraordinary and
little-known history of a peculiarly English phenomenon - of
outstanding bravery, of exceptional recklessness, and above all, of
dreams of treasure.
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