Red-Coat
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HMS Sussex was a British 80-gun ship of the line and the flagship of Admiral Sir Francis Wheler. She left Portsmouth on 27 December 1693 as part of a fleet of 48 warships escorting 166 merchant vessels to the Mediterranean. She was said to be carrying up to 10 tons of gold coins intended for Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy, to finance his campaign against King Louis XIV during the Nine Years’ War against France and to buy the loyalty of someone regarded by Britain as a wavering ally. The treasure could be worth as much as £5.2 billion today from a combination of bullion and numismatic value.
When the flotilla was approaching the Strait of Gibraltar on 27 February 1694, it was caught in a violent prolonged storm and Sussex sank on the early morning of the third day with the loss of all but two hands. Another 12 ships also sank.
After a three-year search using sonar and ROVs, the US company Odyssey Marine Exploration, announced in 2001 that it was “99 per cent” certain it had located the wreck at a depth of 821 metres in the western Mediterranean. In October 2003, the British government (the rightful owners of the ship and its cargo) agreed a deal with Odyssey to share the profits if the treasure could be recovered.
The ownership of the wreck itself is not in dispute (if it is the Sussex), but the authority to salvage it very much is. Gibraltar is a British Overseas Territory, but has long been the subject of an unrecognised claim to it by Spain which has created significant tension over the years. Although international law allows coastal states to claim up to 12 nautical miles of territorial sea, Britain has traditionally limited its claim to 3 nautical miles to avoid inflaming those tensions. The wreck is in what are effectively disputed waters.
[Graphic from 'The Telegraph']
For those reasons Spain sought to stymie Odyssey’s salvage operation in 2003, also citing that the wreck might be a Spanish galleon. There’s no evidence for that, and Odessey’s initial explorations identified a British-pattern iron cannon dating from the late 17th or early 18th century. Previously confidential cables released by Wikileaks and now published by the Telegraph newspaper reveal that British diplomats were concerned at the time about damaging the wider relationship with Spain and that the salvage might pose “an unnecessary threat” to relations between the two countries. The agreement with Odyssey was to be reviewed in an effort to “terminate” the contract (it ultimately expired). A separate US cable from 2005 reported that Carmen Calvo, Spain’s culture minister, had declared that Odyssey would salvage the wreck “over her dead body”.
In March 2007, Andalusian authorities in Spain finally gave assent for the salvage to start, on the condition that Spanish archaeologists would participate to verify that the wreck was not a Spanish Galleon. That went sour pretty quickly following the ill-feeling created by Odyssey after they sent one of their survey vessels from Gibraltar, to begin the Black Swan Project, in which they later covertly recovered an estimated £314 million worth of silver and gold coins from what they said was an unidentified colonial wreck or wrecks off the coast of Portugal. It was later proved in trial that the coins and other recovered items were from the Spanish frigate Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes, sunk by the British Navy in 1804. Odyssey was forced to return the treasure to Spain and, in 2015, a U.S. district court ordered them to pay Spain $1 million for "bad faith and abusive litigation.”
The UK Government is now being urged to approve a fresh expedition to recover the treasure from what is believed to be HMS Sussex, which could potentially proceed under UK jurisdiction if the UK chose to fully exercise its territorial rights under international maritime law.
When the flotilla was approaching the Strait of Gibraltar on 27 February 1694, it was caught in a violent prolonged storm and Sussex sank on the early morning of the third day with the loss of all but two hands. Another 12 ships also sank.
After a three-year search using sonar and ROVs, the US company Odyssey Marine Exploration, announced in 2001 that it was “99 per cent” certain it had located the wreck at a depth of 821 metres in the western Mediterranean. In October 2003, the British government (the rightful owners of the ship and its cargo) agreed a deal with Odyssey to share the profits if the treasure could be recovered.
The ownership of the wreck itself is not in dispute (if it is the Sussex), but the authority to salvage it very much is. Gibraltar is a British Overseas Territory, but has long been the subject of an unrecognised claim to it by Spain which has created significant tension over the years. Although international law allows coastal states to claim up to 12 nautical miles of territorial sea, Britain has traditionally limited its claim to 3 nautical miles to avoid inflaming those tensions. The wreck is in what are effectively disputed waters.
[Graphic from 'The Telegraph']
For those reasons Spain sought to stymie Odyssey’s salvage operation in 2003, also citing that the wreck might be a Spanish galleon. There’s no evidence for that, and Odessey’s initial explorations identified a British-pattern iron cannon dating from the late 17th or early 18th century. Previously confidential cables released by Wikileaks and now published by the Telegraph newspaper reveal that British diplomats were concerned at the time about damaging the wider relationship with Spain and that the salvage might pose “an unnecessary threat” to relations between the two countries. The agreement with Odyssey was to be reviewed in an effort to “terminate” the contract (it ultimately expired). A separate US cable from 2005 reported that Carmen Calvo, Spain’s culture minister, had declared that Odyssey would salvage the wreck “over her dead body”.
In March 2007, Andalusian authorities in Spain finally gave assent for the salvage to start, on the condition that Spanish archaeologists would participate to verify that the wreck was not a Spanish Galleon. That went sour pretty quickly following the ill-feeling created by Odyssey after they sent one of their survey vessels from Gibraltar, to begin the Black Swan Project, in which they later covertly recovered an estimated £314 million worth of silver and gold coins from what they said was an unidentified colonial wreck or wrecks off the coast of Portugal. It was later proved in trial that the coins and other recovered items were from the Spanish frigate Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes, sunk by the British Navy in 1804. Odyssey was forced to return the treasure to Spain and, in 2015, a U.S. district court ordered them to pay Spain $1 million for "bad faith and abusive litigation.”
The UK Government is now being urged to approve a fresh expedition to recover the treasure from what is believed to be HMS Sussex, which could potentially proceed under UK jurisdiction if the UK chose to fully exercise its territorial rights under international maritime law.
