This article was taken from our archives. It first appeared in the January 1995 issue of The Bermudian. It appears here as it did originally.
In the Archives of the British Museum in London lies a curious chart dated 1694 of the West End of Bermuda — also known as “Ireland Island” — detailing a hillock that supposedly hid a vast Spanish treasure.
The origin of the map and the mystery behind it has been lost over time, but its secret lies in the Age of Piracy, during the 17th and 18th Centuries. It possibly referred to a treasure that sank in a shipwreck on the Abrojos reef off Hispaniola (Haiti) and was secretly brought back to the Island in the 1680s by Bermudians, who were always on the lookout for Spanish wrecks in the Caribbean. The story of their treasure salvage is a fascinating one.
The map, itself, which portrays the catacomb of caves at Neriah Hill (now called Maria’s Hill) in Somerset, is also intriguing — especially since there are no official reports of a great treasure being found there. Indeed, the rumoured location of the treasure could have been a clever red herring to keep Crown-employed privateers and scavenging pirates at bay.
The story begins during the reign of King Charles, (1660-85), a Catholic who signed a treaty in 1670 with the King of Spain (also Charles II) to “restrain depredations” against His Majesty’s dominion in the New World. But Charles also had “a great liking for plausible rogues, with a good story to tell — especially if the tales had the lure of treasure, of which his sadly-depleted coffers were in sore need. So it was hardly surprising that in 1683, Charles had three Royal Navy ships fitted out to look for wrecks in the Bahamas, “or any other place or places thereabouts.”
Charles, through his lords at the Admiralty, Sir John Narborough and Sir Richard Haddock, first commissioned two ships — the Falcon and the Bonetta — to look for the treasure of the “abroxes,” as the English called the reef.
It was not long, how-ever, before another knock came on Narborough’s door. He found himself looking at a man “who was truly larger than life, a man tall beyond the common set of men and thick as well as tall and strong as well as thick.” The sunburned giant, whose personality loomed as large as he did, was Captain William Phips, from Boston. On his Caribbean travels, he told Narborough, he had heard about an immense treasure galleon being wrecked on a reef — the same reef where Narborough had just commissioned his two ships to “look for reks.”
Phips needed a charter and a ship to launch his search. Why not have three ships looking for the “rek”? thought Narborough, who introduced Phips to Charles II. The King and his courtiers were entranced by Phips’ tale of the Concepcion battling towering seas and the screams of victims, who along with a vast treasure had vanished in the boiling surf 40 years earlier. Phips’ story was one of the most impressive performances the King had ever heard, and he had the Rose of Algiers fitted out immediately. Two months after the first ships sailed, Phips found himself setting off in search of the treasure.
The Spanish galleon in question, Nuestra Señora de la Concepcion, wrecked in 1641 on reefs east of the large island then called Hispaniola (now Haiti). It had left Havana, Cuba, bound for Spain late in the hurricane season with an immense cargo of treasure, but just south of Bermuda was swept off course by a tropical storm, striking the Abrojas reef. Badly disabled, the Concepcion’s crew’s alarm rose with the water in the vessel’s hold. The crippled boat finally sank, but although a few crew members survived, none were able to pinpoint the exact location of the wreck.
Phips set sail for Boston to meet with traders from Bermuda. He was particularly interested in William Davis, whose sloop was known to carry a “Bermuda Tub” or wooden diving bell — brought to the island by Richard Norwood in 1613. Bermudians had been using this contraption for more than 60 years and were the first to use it in the Western Hemisphere. Phips teamed up with Davis in a bid to locate the galleon and took aboard his ship, Rose of Algiers, 103 Bermudians “of diverse character,” according to a King’s agent named Knepp.
Davis had another salvager, hired by the Spanish at times for his expertise with the Bermuda Tub. His name was Abraham Adderley, a native of either Jamaica or New Providence (a pirate stronghold of Panama from where, in the 1630s, Bermuda’s Governor Nathanial Butler launched his forays into the Spanish Main under the patronage of Robert Rich, an influential Briton considered little more than a pirate himself). In the spring of 1685, Phips searched far and wide with his “partners,” but they never came across the wreck. Neither did the Falcon nor Bonetta, although the crew of both vessels located the reef and dived on it.
Lady Luck, it seemed, was not with them.
Phips headed home to Boston, stopping off en route in Bermuda, where Governor Richard Coney was having a hard time with rebellious locals. The governor was only too happy to welcome anything that remotely looked like a ship representing the Crown. Phips obliged by taking away two instigators of the “rebellion” — Henry Bysshe and Sarah Oxford. Back in Boston, news reached Phips that two suspicious sloops were working with diving bells on the “site of an olde Spaniard.” The salvors were said to be Bermudians using diving tubs.
By 1685, Charles II was dead, and James II was on the throne. The devout Catholic King was on the war-path against Protestants. But Phips’ backers in London placated the King and appealed to his best interests — namely with a promise to fill his coffers. The result was that Phips soon found himself back on the Abrojos reef, this time aboard James and Mary. In short order, he “found immediately 84 (Spanish) dollars and 51 half-dollars.” In the next few days, his four divers brought up a staggering 20,000 dollars, or pieces of eight; they had each retrieved about 1,000 dollars per day. Not long afterward, Phips noticed “two sloops lazily tacking up to him.” They belonged to none other than Davis and Adderley, and had on board diving bells and a couple of hundred Bermudians and Jamaicans.
Phips made the best of the situation, drawing up a firm agreement over percentages, and all went to work on the wreck together. It would be fair to suggest these two sloops had already made a return to Bermuda laden with the best of the treasure – which they may or may not have divvied up to give Governor Coney his ‘king’s share’ of 10 percent. Perhaps it was not before a substantial amount was off loaded in quiet spot well away from the capital of St. George’s — a perfect hiding place somewhere in the West End caves.
Bermudians at this time were an interesting mixture of English, Scottish, Welsh, American Indians (shipped from Massachusetts during the Pequod and Sachem wars), blacks and Portuguese and Dutch pirates (called Sea Rovers) whom the Governor had just pardoned during a general amnesty. Many were renowned for their expertise as pilots, and in many a captured Bermudian craft in the Caribbean, the pilot was generally regarded as a fine addition to any crew.
A Virginian royalist at the time commented that “Bermudians are a little too affected with their own opinion…Those base Bermudians are natural knaves,” he added, “and want no governor from England.”
Interestingly, Phips’ voyage was partly bank-rolled by Christopher Monck, the second Duke of Albemarle — an ardent supporter of Welsh pirate Henry Morgan. Monck and Morgan had spent many a late night carousing during Morgan’s short spell in the Tower of London for his 1671 raid on Panama — a feat that poured much-welcomed loot into the royal coffers.
Morgan later received a knighthood from Charles II and the lieutenant governorship of Jamaica for his trouble. (He held the post until 1882, when his years of “drinking and sitting up late” in his favourite Port Royal haunts caught up with him.)
Morgan was hated by Bermudians for the his trickery during the Panama raid. He had pulled a fast one on the Bermudian fleet which had sailed south to Panama to “fiddle on the Main” slang for pirating. Morgan had been so fed up with the Islanders’ demands for a bigger share of the plunder, he and his crew stole out one morning after the raid and burned their cedar craft, leaving them at the mercy of the furious Spaniards. His treachery resulted in a two-year march home by land for the ill-fated Islanders.
In June, 1686, King James II received his “Royal Tenth” of the salvaged Concepcion treasure, which amounted to 20,872 pounds — a tidy sum in those days, though he must have been kicking himself for not financing the whole operation.
The six partners, who were now very rich men, found themselves planning a third trip out to the wreck — although the Spanish Ambassador had quietly told the King what he’d been given was “but a third” of the total haul landed. King James subsequently appealed to the Admiralty Court for his tenth to be upped to a “royal half” — a request that naturally was granted.
The third salvage group took off for the banks, Sir John Narborough in the Foresight was about to see the wreck he had been reading about for 40 years. Phips, who’d since been knighted, was in the Good Luck and a Boy and Frances Rogers sailed in the James and Mary. This time, they brought their own diving bells, divers and other specialised equipment so they wouldn’t have to deal with the Bermudians. But the latter had likely beaten them to it, sailing back to the shoals to fill their ships with booty.
To wit, subsequent loads of treasure. were declared in Bermuda (although probably much less than was landed) and again, the King got his tenth.
But James soon realised he was being cut out of the lion’s share and on January 15, 1688, the King sent Chief Judge Henry Hordzesnell to extract from the population the other four-tenths of the treasure. Davis and Adderley had already paid out more than 27,000 pounds to the King in silver, gold, emeralds and pearls, and they had no intention of handing over the other 108,000. As a result, during his examinations of the honest folk of the Island, the judge met with “nothing but innocence, poverty or insolent silence. There seems to be a combination against his Majesty’s profit, it being the maxim on the Island, that a man can never get an estate by being honest,” Hordzesnell noted. After several months of persistence, all he could squeeze out of the locals was a measly 600 pounds.
If Bermudians were able to outfox the Crown, it would not have been difficult. By 1687, the last year of James’ reign, locals were trading tobacco in return for goods from dubious sources. Such goods were not only cheaper than government varieties, but the quality was also a lot better. They also proved strong currency for bribery and many an officer could have been persuaded to fudge the facts. However it happened, the map drawn up by Dutchman Juliemus Hoch appeared in 1694. A year earlier, a survey was carried out on the Neriah Hill area by John Rowe, the King’s surveyor of Jamaica.
He recorded finding “a Spanish silver spoon” and noted: “People do imagine they tied their treasure on that narrow part of Ireland. Some fancy in the great cave, a strange and great place.” But he found no treasure. However, thanks to many well-embellished stories of hauntings and ghostly apparitions in the caves — no doubt dreamt up to scare off scavengers — the treasure tale soon became legend.
Phips and Narborough continued their salvage efforts without success.
Their third trip was not so successful, for, as Phips and Narborough noted, “the Jamaicans and Bermudians had been very thorough between their voyages.” Narborough caught a fever and died shortly afterward; his remains were disposed of in the salty depths near the wreck that had fascinated him for 40 years. Christopher Monck, Duke of Albemarle, was appointed governor of Jamaica, where he joined his old pal Henry Morgan at Port Royal and they proceeded to drink themselves to death within a few months of each other in 1688.
Phips, who’d been knighted for his contributions to the royal coffers, returned home to Boston and the governership, but it was not a happy episode. He arrived home amid mass hysteria over witchcraft and devils and died shortly afterward at age 44, on February 16, 1694 – the year the Spanish treasure map was drawn up.
As for the treasure, official records indicate it was never found. But the truth may have been known only be the lucky few who managed to keep the horde for themselves and divvy it up when the search was over and things had settled down.
