The first page (fol. 35) of the deposition in the High Court of Admiralty manuscripts HCA 13/68 regarding the wreck of the Hamburg ship the Fortune off Cornwall. The name of the captain and the ship can be seen in the first sentence upper right and the date of the deposition at the top. The scan is reproduced from the Marinelives website.
Following on from my last blog, the Marinelives project has revealed another previously unknown shipwreck off Cornwall among the High Court of Admiralty (HCA) manuscripts of 1627-77 held in the National Archives at Kew. In this case the location of the wreck is more precisely recorded, leading to the possibility that it may one day be found. Of particular interest is the richness of the cargo, including a silver ingot and many pieces of eight, and the fact that she was bringing goods largely procured from the Spanish New World. The following extracts are from a transcription made by Colin Greenwood in 2013 of more than 3,700 words related to the wreck in HCA 13/68, a volume of witness statements (depositions) to the High Court of the Admiralty in 1653-4. The extracts here retain his spellings and punctuation (for his complete transcription, go here).
The deposition (HCA 13/68, folios 35-7) was made on 8 October 1653 by several ‘merchants of Spayne and subjects of the King of Spayne for their goods lately laden on att the Island of Palma in the Canaries and Cast on shoare in the ship the ffortune whereof Phillip Duncar was Master upon the Coast of Cornwall.’ Their intention was to show that the goods were Spanish rather than Dutch, an issue at the time of the first Anglo-Dutch War (1652-4). The merchants included Joseph Markes (probably Marques), John (Juan) Baptista Margarita (also spelled Mogarita and Magherrita), Pedro (Petro) Soramo (Soranno, Saranno, Sararma) of Seville, Juan and Diego de Valetta of Dunkirk and Palma, John (Juan) Sallazar (Salazar) of Palma, Antonio Riche (or Reg(los?)), Don Juan de Monteverde and Juan Gomez Brito. Of these men, ‘El capitan’ Don Juan de Monteverde was a regidor (councillor) at La Palma in 1669, and Juan Gomez Brito is almost certainly the captain of that name who was wrecked in his ‘frigate’ La Gallardino off the coast of Cuba in 1660.
The first statement in the deposition was by the ship’s master, Philippe Doncker (here spelled Dunker or Danker), ‘aged four and twenty years or thereabouts’, ‘of Antwerp in Brabant Captaine or Commander of the sayd ship the ffortune’, which he had bought ‘for ready moneyes a yeare ago at Hamburg.’ A biography by a descendant shows that Philippe, who also styled himself ‘Doncker de Formestraux’, was probably born in Lille in France in 1629, the son of a prominent Antwerp merchant named Louis Doncker and his wife Marguerite de Formestraux.
A closeup of the second page of the deposition in the High Court of Admiralty manuscripts HCA 13/68 regarding the wreck of the Hamburg ship the Fortune off Cornwall. The word ‘Ramhead’ can be seen fifth line down. The scan is reproduced from the Marinelives website.
Having begun her outward voyage at Dunkirk in May 1653 and being ‘att or near the Island of Palma’ in August, the merchants in Palma ‘did Lade and putt on board the sayd ship, in addition to several barrels of ‘Tortle shells’,
… three thousand and seven hundred hides or thereabouts, one large barr of sylver the certayne value whereof he knoweth not, and a good quantity of moneyes in pieces of 8/8 but how much in certaine he knoweth not, four barrells of Spanish Tabacco, a great quantity of dry ginger loose and about four barrells and one Potaco more of Varinaes Tobacco, and forty Ratacos more of varinases tabaccoes, thirteen pipes of sugar or thereabouts, eighteene baggs of ginger, a great quantity of Brazil and Camp[?o]cha wood …
The statements that follow by several of the merchants show that she had been freighted for her outward voyage at Dunkirk with ‘linnens and piece goods of fflanders’, and that her return cargo from Palma included three Church bells, belonging ‘ to a Church in Palma … to be new cast and founded in fflanders.’ The ‘sayd sylver moneyes hides Tobaccoos ginger and Tortle shells were by the sayd merchants bought in the Indies where none but Spaniards doe usually trade’, the ‘Indies’ here referring to the Caribbean and Spanish America. Juan Gomez Brito stated that the silver comprised ‘one barr of sylver of the weight of eight hundred peices of 8/8 or thereabouts, and about one thousand peices of eight in moneyes,’ and Juan Salazar ‘one barr of sylver of the weight of about 900, pieces of 8/8 about 1500, pieces of 6/6 in moneys.’ The estimated weight of the bar, about 50 pounds, is consistent with the weight of silver bars found in 17th century wrecks such as the Atocha of 1622.
Having all the ‘sylver moneyes and goods aforesaid about her’, the ship set sail from Palma towards Dunkirk, with several of the merchants on board as well:
…and in her Course thither upon or about the first day of September last past the sayd ship neere unto a place called Ramhead upon the Coast of Cornwall mett with an exceeding great Storme and tempest and in the same was cast away. And saith that this deponent and the Mariners of her Company were saved and came safe on shoare upon the Coast of Cornwall, or neere thereabouts. And otherwise cannot depose, saving that the merchants passengers were alll likewise saved two only excepted.’
Thornton’s chart of Plymouth Sound from the early 18th century showing Rame Head on the coast lower left. Rame Head and Penlee Point mark the eastern extremity of the county of Cornwall along the coast, with Plymouth in Devon.
Juan Gomez Brito, himself on board at the time of the wrecking, and in all likelihood an experienced mariner – if he is indeed the man later described as a captain – and therefore a reliable judge of distances, stated that
… about a league from Plymouth mett with a violent tempest about the sixth day of September last past and in the same was cast away and the master of her and all her Company and passengers aboard three psons onely excepted were saved and came safe to shoare about a league from Plymouth the place otherwise he knoweth not And saith he knoweth the prmisses being a passenger aboard the sayd ship the voyage in question and aboard her when the sayd wrack hapned.
One league – three nautical miles – is the distance from the Plymouth waterfront to Rame Head (‘Ramhead’), so these accounts are mutually consistent. Doncker states that upon the casting away of the ship ‘a great part of the sayd lading of hides Tobacco wood money and plate came safe on shoare and was saved and preserved’, and Brito that ‘ … some of the English that came to the Strand upon the sayd wrack say that they had found some baggs of peices of 8/8’ and ‘he hath heard two of the sayd bells came safe to shoare’. Much was therefore salvaged, but this may leave one bell unaccounted for, as well as an unknown quantity of silver and other material, in a wreck lying close inshore somewhere off Rame Head near Plymouth.
Note
This vessel is not to be confused with the Fortune of 1652 listed in the South Cornwall section of The Shipwreck Index of the British Isles (R. & B. Larn, Lloyd’s, 1995), based on a document in the Cornwall Record Office. That ship was also of Hamburg but her captain was John de Val and she was wrecked in Mount’s Bay. Fortune was a common name for ships of the period.