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Book of Buried Treasure

<h3> CHAPTER XI </h3> <h4> THE MYSTERY OF THE LUTINE FRIGATE </h4> Harbored in the stately edifice of the Royal Exchange, down in the heart of London City, is that ancient and powerful corporation known to seafaring men the world over as Lloyd's. Its chief business is the underwriting of maritime insurance risks and its word is law wherever fly the house-flags of merchant shipping. More than two hundred years ago, one Edward Lloyd kept a coffeehouse in Tower Street, a thoroughfare between Wapping and the Thames side of the city, and because of its convenient situation the place became a popular resort for sea captains, underwriters, and insurance brokers who discussed such important matters as arrivals in port, wrecks, missing ships, and rumors of war. In time Lloyd's coffeehouse was recognized as a sort of unofficial headquarters for this special variety of insurance speculation, and the gentlemen most active there drifted into a loosely formed organization for the purpose of making the business less hazardous. In 1773, this association of underwriters moved into the Royal Exchange, taking the name of Lloyd's, and later appointed a governing body or committee to control the more adventurous spirits who were fond of gambling on the chances of war, on the length of Napoleon's life, and who would undertake to insure a man against the risk of twins in his family. From this beginning grew the vastly influential and highly organized Lloyd's of the present day which is something more than a corporation. It is also an aggregation of individual underwriters and brokers carrying on business, each for his own personal profit and on the strength of his good name and resources. As a corporation, Lloyd's has no financial liability in the event of the failure of any of its members or subscribers. All that Lloyd's does, in its corporate capacity, is to permit the admission only of men of stability and sound repute by means of stringent tests, and to exact a money guarantee or deposit from its members in the sum of £5000 or £6000, together with entrance fees of £400, and annual fees of twenty guineas. These payments form what may be called a reserve fund, and the individual underwriter writes his own policies. If the risk is heavier than he wishes to assume he divides it among his fellows. There are few more interesting places in London than Lloyd's, encrusted as it is with the barnacles of conservative tradition, and hedged about with all the exclusiveness of a club. The entrance is guarded by a burly porter gorgeously arrayed in the scarlet robes and gold-banded hat of a by-gone century. Having run the gauntlet of this dragon, one is likely to seek the underwriter's room where hundreds of members and their clerks are quartered at rows of little desks or "boxes," every man of them with his hat clapped on his head as decreed by ancient custom. There is always a crowd of them around the "Arrival Book" and the "Loss Book" in which are posted the movements of vessels in every port of the world, and the wrecks that number three thousand every year. The famous "Captains' Room" where the mariners used to gather and swap briny yarns is now used for the prosaic purposes of luncheon and for the auction sales of ships. In the two large and handsome rooms used by the secretary and by the committee of Lloyd's are many interesting relics of the earlier history of this body. Here is the oldest policy known to the annals of maritime insurance, a faded document issued on January 20, 1680, for £1200 on a ship, the Golden Fleece, and her cargo, on a voyage from Lisbon to Venice, at £4 per cent. premium. Hanging on these walls are also a policy written on the life of Napoleon, and an autograph letter from the Duke of Wellington as Warden of the Cinque Ports. The most conspicuous furnishings of the Committee Room are a huge table, highly polished, of dark wood, a magnificently carved arm chair, and a ship's bell. The table bears a silver plate inscribed as follows: H.B.M. Ship La Lutine. 32 Gun Frigate Commanded by Captain Lancelot Skynner, R.N. Sailed from Yarmouth Roads On the morning of the 9th October, 1799 with a large amount of specie on board, And was wrecked off the Island of Vlieland the same night, When all on board were lost except one man. The rudder of which this table was made and the rudder chain and the bell which the table supports, were recovered from the wreck of the ill-fated vessel, in the year 1859, together with a part of the specie, which is now in custody of The Committee for managing the affairs of Lloyd's." The chair has a similar inscription, and these pieces of furniture serve to remind the visitor that Lloyd's has a lost treasure story of its own. The flavor of piracy is lacking, true enough, but the tragedy of the Lutine frigate possessed mystery and romance nevertheless, and is worthy of a place in such a book as this. As the owner of a treasure lost more than a century ago, the corporation of Lloyd's still considers the frigate a possible asset, and as recently as May 31, 1910, Captain E. F. Inglefield, the Secretary of Lloyd's wrote the author as follows: "Various attempts have been made, with the sanction of Lloyd's, to recover further treasure, but it was not until 1886, when steam suction dredgers were first employed, that any results worthy of notice were obtained. A number of coins and other relics to the value of about £700 were obtained. "In 1886, also, two guns were recovered from the wreck, one of which, after being suitably mounted on a naval gun carriage, was presented by Lloyd's to the Corporation of London and has been placed in the Museum at the Guildhall. The other was graciously accepted by Her Late Majesty Queen Victoria, and was forwarded to Windsor Castle. "In 1891, a few coins of small value were recovered. Since that date, operations have been continued at various times by salvors under agreement with Lloyd's, but nothing of intrinsic value has since been obtained. In 1896, a cannon which was afterwards presented to H. M. Queen Wilhelmina of Holland by the Committee of Lloyds, was found together with some small pieces of the wreck, etc. "In 1898, some timber weighing about two hundred weight was recovered from the wreck, and was presented to the Liverpool Underwriters' Association, whose Chairman, Mr. S. Cross, had a chair made from the wood, which he presented to that Association. "A company which was formed for the purpose of continuing operations has made efforts at various times, but the site is extremely exposed and owing to bad weather, it has often been found impossible to continue dredging operations for more than a few days each year. I trust the above information may be of service to you, but I may add that I understand that it is this year intended to operate with some new apparatus." Some light was thrown on this latest enterprise by the publication of the following in a recent issue of Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper of London: "SEA TREASURE GETTER. NOVEL MACHINE TO BE USED FOR RAISING SUNKEN WEALTH. "An extraordinary machine was towed to the mouth of the River Colne, off Brightlingsea, and anchored on Thursday. It is to be used in a final attempt to recover £500,000 treasure of gold, in coins and bars, which is said to have gone down in H. M. S. Lutine in 1797 near the island of Terschelling, off the coast of Holland. "A portion of the treasure has been recovered, but the ordinary dredging plant is now useless, as the vessel has sunk into the sand. The new device is a great steel tube nearly 100 ft. in length, and wide enough to allow a man to walk erect down its centre. At one end is a metal chamber provided with windows and doors, and at the other a medley of giant hooks and other tackle. "The apparatus has just been completed, after years of work, by Messers. Forrest and Co., shipbuilders, in their Wyvenhoe yard. One end of the tube, it is explained, will be clamped to the side of a steamship or barge. The other end, by means of water-ballast tanks, will be sunk until it touches the bottom. Then, by means of compressed air, all the water will be forced from the tube and also from the chamber at the bottom of it, which will be flush upon the bed of the sea. "Divers will walk down a stairway in the centre of the tube until they reach the submerged chamber. Here they will don their diving costumes, and, opening a series of water-tight doors, will step out into the water. Engineers will be stationed in the chamber, and, following the instructions of the divers, who will communicate with them by means of portable telephones, they will operate the mechanism of two powerful suction pumps, or dredges, which are fitted to the sides of the tube. "These dredges, it is hoped, will suck away the sand around the sides of the heavy chamber until it gradually sinks by its own weight right down on to the deck of the wrecked ship. Then the divers, making their way from the chamber to the deck of the ship, and thence to the hold, will be able to transfer the treasure from the ship to the chamber by easy stages." How Lloyd's happens to own a treasure frigate of the English navy, lost more than a century ago, is explained in the following narrative, many of the facts of which were found in "The History of Lloyd's and of Marine Insurance in Great Britain," by Frederick Martin, a work now out of print.[1] On October 19,1799, the Gentleman's Magazine of London contained this news: "Intelligence was this day received at the Admiralty from Admiral Mitchell, communicating the total loss of La Lutine, of 32 guns, Captain Skynner, on the outward bank of the Fly Island Passage, on the night of the 9th inst., in a heavy gale at N.N.W. La Lutine, had on the same morning, sailed from Yarmouth Roads with several passengers, and an immense quantity of treasure for the Texel; but a strong lee-tide rendered every effort of Captain Skynner to avoid the threatened danger unavailable, and it was alike impossible during the night to receive any assistance, either from the Arrow, Captain Portlock, which was in company, or from the shore, from whence several showts were in readiness to go to her. When the dawn broke, La Lutine was in vain looked for; she had gone to pieces, and all on board unfortunately perished, except two men who were picked up, and one of whom has since died from the fatigue he has encountered. The survivor is Mr. Shabrack, a notary public. In the annals of our naval history there has scarcely ever happened a loss attended with so much calamity, both of a public as well as a private nature." In almost all the accounts of the wreck of the Lutine it is stated as a fact that the frigate was bound to the Texel, and that the bullion and treasure she carried, and which was lost in her, was designed for the payment of the British forces in the Netherlands. Both statements are without foundation, as proved by a careful search in the archives of the Admiralty. These official records show that the Lutine was under orders to sail, not to the Texel, but to the river Elbe, her destination being Hamburg, and that the treasure on board was not the property of the British government, but of a number of London merchants connected with Lloyd's, and that the business of sending the coin and bullion was purely commercial. The records wholly fail to explain how it happened that, sailing for the mouth of the Elbe, the Lutine commanded by an able and experienced officer, and in all respects well manned and found, came to be driven, within eighteen hours after leaving Yarmouth Roads, upon the dangerous shoals of the Zuyder Zee, far out of her course, even when every allowance is made for the strength of a northwesterly gale. Another mystery of the voyage of this thirty-two gun frigate of the royal navy is her employment as a mere packet, carrying cash and bullion for the benefit of private individuals. The officer responsible for sending the Lutine on this unusual errand was Admiral Lord Duncan who "received a pressing invitation from some merchants to convey a quantity of bullion." It was his first intention to dispatch a cutter, but the treasure given in his care was swelled by larger amounts until its total value was £1,175,000 or more than five and a half million dollars. The admiral thereupon discarded the cutter and selected instead the swift and staunch Lutine frigate, one of the best vessels of his fleet. On October 9, he wrote to the Admiralty from on board his flagship, the Kent, in Yarmouth Roads: "The merchants interested in making remittances to the continent for the support of their credit, having made application to me for a King's ship to carry over a considerable sum of money, on account of there being no Packet for that purpose, I have complied with their request, and ordered the Lutine to Cuxhaven with the same, together with the mails lying there for want of conveyance; directing Captain Skynner to proceed to Stromness immediately after doing so, to take under his protection the Hudson's Bay's ships and see them in safety to the Nore." When this letter was written, the Lutine had already sailed, and before Lord Duncan's communication reached the Lords of the Admiralty, the splendid treasure laden frigate had laid her bones on the sand banks of Holland. Admiral Duncan appears to have escaped all censure for this disaster which followed his action taken without consultation and without waiting for the approval of his superiors. The merchants of London were powerful enough to command the services of the navy, and English credit was needed on the continent to buttress English arms and statesmanship. With her millions of treasure and hundreds of lives, the Lutine drove straight toward as fatal a coast to shipping as can be found anywhere in the world. It is a coast which is neither sea nor land, strewn with wrecks, and with somber memories even more tragic. Where is now the entrance of the Zuyder Zee was unbroken terra firma until the thirteenth century when a terrible hurricane piled the North Sea through the isthmus separating it from the large lake called Vlies by the natives. A wide channel was cut by this inroad, and in 1287 the North Sea scoured for itself a second inlet at the cost of a hundred thousand human lives. Ever since then, the channels have been multiplying and shifting until what was once the coast line has become a maze of islands and sand-banks, the Texel, Vlieland, Terschelling, Ameland, and hundreds of lesser ones which confuse even the mariners born and bred among them. With a wind which should have enabled him to give this perilous shore a wide berth and to keep to his course up the North Sea, Captain Skynner plunged into a death-trap from which there was no escape. The sole survivor could give no coherent account, and he died while on the way to England before his shattered nerves had mended. There was no more frigate, and as for the hundreds of drowned sailors, they had been obliterated as a day's work in the business of a great navy, so the Admiralty left the mourning to their kinfolk and bestirred itself about that five and a half million dollars' worth of treasure which the sea could not harm. Vice-Admiral Mitchell was informed by letter that "their lordships feel great concern at this very unfortunate accident" and he was directed to take such measures as might be practicable for recovering the stores of the Lutine, as well as the property on board, "being for the benefit of the persons to whom it belongs." The underwriters of Lloyd's with an eye to salvage, were even more prompt than the Admiralty in sending agents to the scene of the wreck. The greater part of the immense amount of coin and bullion had been fully insured, a transaction which indicates the stability and ample resources of this association as far away in time as 1799. The loss was paid in full and with such promptitude that only two weeks after the disaster, the Committee for managing the concerns of Lloyd's addressed a letter to the Secretary of the Admiralty in which was requested "the favor of Mr. Nepean to lay before the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty the information that a sum of money, equal to that unfortunately lost in the Lutine, is going off this night for Hambro, and they trust their Lordships will direct such steps as they think expedient for its protection to be taken." The request was granted somewhat grudgingly. Apparently the Admiralty regretted the employment of one of its frigates as a merchantman. Admiral Lord Duncan was directed to send a convoy this time, but was told also "to let them know that their lordships have done so in this particular case; but that they must not expect the packets can again be convoyed." With this letter ends all reference to the Lutine and her treasure in the correspondence preserved in the Record Office of the Admiralty. Having paid their losses, like the good sportsmen that they were, the underwriters of Lloyd's thereby clinched their right to the ownership of the treasure, provided they could find it. The situation was complicated because England was at that time at war with the Netherlands whose government claimed the wreck as a prize, although inconsistently refusing to let it be adjudicated by a prize court. On this account, Lloyd's could make no attempt to fish for the treasure, which delay was very much to the benefit of the sturdy Dutch fishermen of the islands at the mouth of the Zuyder Zee. The sands and the surf held a golden harvest. The wreck of the Lutine was partly exposed at low ebb tide, and a channel ran close to the side of the ship. The clumsy fishing boats or "showts" swarmed to the place and never was there such easy wealth for honest Dutchmen. Their government soon put a watch on them and took two-thirds of the findings, giving the fishermen the remainder. They toiled in good weather for a year and a half, and recovered treasure to the amount of eighty-three thousand pounds sterling. The official inventory reads like the hoard of a buccaneer, including as it does such romantic items as: 58 bars of gold, weight 646 lbs. 23 ounces. 35 bars of silver, weight, 1,758 lbs. 8 ounces. 41,697 Spanish silver pistoles. 179 Spanish gold pistoles. 81 Double Louis d'or. 138 Single Louis d'or. 4 English guineas. At the end of the year 1801 the fishermen quit their task, thinking they had found all the treasure. For a dozen years the Dutch forgot the melancholy fragments of the Lutine, while the sailors of the desolate islands guarding the Zuyder Zee began to weave superstitious legends around the "gold wreck." In the midst of the crowded events of the great war against Napoleon, England found no time to remember the Lutine, and her memory was kept alive only by the kinfolk of the drowned officers and sailors. After Napoleon had been finally disposed of, the treasure was recalled to public notice by an ingenious gentleman of the Netherlands, Pierre Eschauzier, a sort of lord of the manor under the government, holding the post of "Opper Strand vonder," or "Upper Strand finder," who lived at Terschelling and took a lively interest in the wreck. After a great deal of investigation and cogitation, he arrived at the conclusion that the greater part of the treasure dispatched from England in the Lutine was still hidden among her timbers. His argument was based on the fact that the bars of silver and gold already recovered were stamped with certain numbers and letters indicating series or sequences, and that thus far these were very incomplete. For instance, among the gold bars previously found, were thirteen marked with the letters NB, in three separate lots; the first numbered from 58 to 64; the second from 86 to 90; and the third from 87 to 89. Other gold bars with different letters and a variety of numbers went to prove that there were a hundred numbers to each letter, which would yield a total of six hundred gold bars, of which only thirty-one had been recovered in the years 1800 and 1801. The government of the Netherlands was duly impressed by the calculations of Mr. Eschauzier who had proved himself such an astute "Upper Strand finder," and he was granted a sum by royal decree from the public exchequer to equip a salvage expedition. Alas, the pretty theory was thwarted by the implacable sands which had buried the wreck. For seven years this indefatigable treasure seeker dredged and dug, and found no more than a few gold coin. Then he decided to try a diving bell, King Willem I having bestowed upon him a more favorable privilege by the terms of which the salvage company was to have one-half of the treasure recovered. The diving bell was no luckier than the dredges had been. In fact, by this time the unstable sands had so concealed the wreck that it could not be found. After vainly groping for several months, the luckless "Upper Strand finder" confessed himself beaten, and there was nothing to show for an expenditure of five thousand pounds sterling. These operations had made some noise in London, however, and the underwriters of Lloyd's remembered that they had an interest in the wreck of the Lutine frigate. If there was still treasure to be sought for, it belonged to them, and the government of the Netherlands had no claim upon it, either in law or equity. The fact that royal decrees had been granting to Dutchmen that which did not belong to them at all, aroused indignation at Lloyd's, whose managing committee was moved to address the English government in the matter. After a good deal of diplomatic palaver with The Hague, that government made over its half share of the treasure reserved under the treaty with "the Upper Strand finder" to the "British claimants." In May 6, 1823, Mr. F. Conyngham, Secretary of the English Foreign Office, communicated this pleasing news to Mr. William Bell, chairman of the committee of Lloyd's in the following letter: "Sir: "With reference to the several applications which have been made to His Majesty's Government to interfere with that of the Netherlands on behalf of the underwriters, and others, claiming to be allowed to recover certain property still supposed to remain on board of the Lutine Frigate, lost off the coast of Holland in 1799, I am directed by Mr. Secretary Canning to acquaint you, for the information of the parties concerned, that after much negotiation His Netherlands' Majesty has expressed his willingness to cede to the British claimants the whole of that moiety of the said property which by His Netherlands' Majesty's decree of the 14th. September, 1821, was reserved for the use of his said Majesty. The other moiety was, by the same decree, granted in the nature of salvage to a private company of his own subjects, who undertook to recover the cargo at their own expense. It has been stipulated that the British claimants shall be at liberty to concert with the said company as to the best mode of effecting that recovery. Considering the difficulties which the negotiation has experienced from disputed points of law, and making due allowance for the engagements formed with the Dutch company, who have been recognized as salvors by the Dutch law, and would have a right to have all services rewarded in the Courts of Holland for the property which may be saved by their exertions, Mr. Canning apprehends that it may be advisable for the claimants in this country to agree to the offer now made. The season for operation is now before them, and no hope could be reasonably entertained that a renewal of the negotiation would bring the matter to a more reasonable close." It will be observed that diplomacy had obtained for Lloyd's only a half-interest in its own wreck. The other fifty per cent. still belonged to Mr. Eschauzier's company, as King Willem was particular to make clear in his decree, dated from Het Loo, which went on to say: "By our Minister of Foreign Affairs, we have offered to the King of Great Britain to cede to his Majesty all that which by our decree of the 14th of September, 1821, was reserved to the Netherlands in the bottom in question and the cargo therein, doing so solely as a proof of our friendly feeling towards the Kingdom of Great Britain, and in nowise from a conviction of the right of England to any portion of the said cargo.... "We have been pleased and thought fit: "1. To cede to His Majesty of Great Britain all that which by our decree of the 4th September, 1821, was reserved in favor of the kingdom relative to the cargo of the frigate Lutine. "2. To instruct our minister of inland affairs and the maritime department—Water Staat—to give notice of this our decree, as well as of the cession made on the part of His Majesty of Great Britain to the Society of Lloyd's, to our chancellor of state, governor of North Holland, and to the other authorities concerned, as well as to the participators in the undertaking of 1821 in the Netherlands, and to inform them likewise that an English agent will ere long wait upon them, in order to make all such arrangements with them as may be deemed advisable for the furtherance of their mutual interests. And our Ministers for Inland Affairs and the Maritime Department are charged with the carrying out of this decree." The members of Lloyd's were hardly better off with the gift of one-half a wreck than they had been with no wreck at all. Before undertaking any salvage operations they must come to some kind of an understanding with the "Upper Strand Finder" and his partners, with respect to expenses and profits. The Dutch, with proverbial caution, were reluctant to scrape acquaintance with the English owners, convinced that in some matter or other, this new ownership in the treasure had been unfairly extorted from their government at the Hague. It was not until 1830, that friendly relations were established, and in the meantime Mr. Eschauzier had died, leaving his share in the treasure among his legacies. Then negotiations were interrupted by the political events which caused the separation of Belgium from Holland. The people of the Netherlands heartily hated England for her leading part in this partition, and not even the allurement of fishing gold out of the sea could persuade the Dutch adventurers to have anything to do with Lloyd's or anything that smacked of the perfidious English. For a quarter of a century, the wreck of the Lutine was undisturbed. Then, in 1846, two enterprising English divers in need of work, Hill and Downs by name, conceived an audacious scheme to enrich themselves. They drew up a petition to the King of the Netherlands, asking that they be permitted to pick up as much gold as they could lay hands on among the timbers of the Lutine. Surprising as was this request, it was not refused. According to custom, the petition was carefully examined at The Hague, and the discovery was gravely announced that there was no legal obstacle in the way of the divers, or anyone else, who cared to seek for the Lutine's treasure. One of the articles of a new code of maritime law, passed by the States General of the Netherlands in 1838, provided that the salvage of vessels wrecked "on the outer banks of the coast," was thrown open to all persons, under stipulated conditions, and that the wreck of the Lutine came within this act. The government formally notified Hill and Downs that while the right of salvage could not be granted to any particular person, the ground was free on condition that "one-half of all that might be found must be given up to Lloyd's." The divers may have found some other employment by this time, for they appeared not at the wreck, but the publication of the proceedings awoke the old Dutch company formed by the "Upper Strand Finder" and they opened negotiations with the committee of Lloyd's. No one concerned seemed to be in a hurry to find the several million dollars remaining in the Lutine and nine more years dragged past before a working agreement was signed between the two parties. The Dutch company undertook to carry on the work of salvage, paying over one-half the gross proceeds to Lloyd's. It was in 1857 that the Dutch went to work, and after a month of exploration the Secretary of Lloyd's received this pleasing information from his agent at the Texel: "I feel most happy to inform you that the new efforts to save the value out of the Lutine have not been without success. Yesterday there was recovered by means of divers and pincers, 13 silver coins, being Spanish piastres, 1 gold Louis d'or, 5 brass hoops and casks, and a quantity of cannon and shot. "Considering the value of the saved objects, it may not be of much signification; but the salvage itself is of very great importance, as it proves two facts, namely, first, that the wreck of the Lutine has really been found, and secondly, that there is specie still in the wreck. As soon as anything more is picked up, I will inform you immediately thereof. Be assured, I have taken the necessary steps to secure the interests of Lloyd's committee, as owners of the treasure, which we hope may entirely be saved." A little later, the wreck was found to be very little scattered and its precise location was determined. The news of the discovered "gold wreck" spread among the fishermen of the Zuyder Zee and the German Ocean and they winged it to the scene until "there were sixty-eight large and well manned boats in the immediate neighborhood looking for plunder." At this threatening mobilization, the Dutch government thought it wise to send a gunboat with a party of soldiers on board. In the summer of 1858, the divers brought to the surface the bell of the frigate, which now rests in the committee room of Lloyd's with the other relics. The Lutine had been one of the crack ships of the French navy and was captured by Admiral Duncan, he who sent her to her doom. The bell bears on its bronze side the royal crown and arms of Bourbon, and on the rim the name of "Saint Jean" under whose protection the ship and her crew had been placed when she was launched as a fighting frigate of His Majesty, Louis XVI of France. The treasure seeking was continued for several years, whenever the treacherous sea permitted, until, at length, a great gale out of the northwest closed the channel near the wreck and covered her deeper under the sands. The work was finally abandoned by these salvors in 1861. They had forwarded to England for the benefit of Lloyd's a total amount of £22,162, to show that the undertaking had been worth while. In the Act of Incorporation of Lloyd's granted by Parliament in 1871, the treasure recovered, as well as that still left in the wreck, was carefully referred to, and it was stated that "the Society may from time to time do, or join in doing all such lawful things as they think expedient, with a view to further salving from the wreck of the Lutine." It seems rather extraordinary that the exact amount of the treasure lost in the frigate should be a matter of conjecture, and that the records of Lloyd's throw no light on this point. The explanation is that only part of the precious cargo was insured by the underwriters then doing business in the Royal Exchange building, and that a large amount of gold coin and bullion was hastily forwarded to the Lutine by divers bankers and merchants shortly before sailing. The records of these consignments were, of course, scattered and have long since been lost. The total amount lost has been quite accurately calculated by employing the system of accounting devised by the "Upper Strand Finder." His theory was verified by later undertakings at the wreck, and the sequences of letters and numbers stamped upon the gold and silver bars were found to run in regular order, so that it has been latterly assumed that, in all, one thousand of these were in the ship's hold. The figures accepted by the Dutch partners in the enterprise, and endorsed by Mr. John Mavor Hill, the agent of Lloyd's at Amsterdam, were as follows: Salvage in the years 1800 and 1801 .............. £ 55,770 " " " " 1857 and 1858 .............. 39,203 " " " " 1859 to 1861 .............. 4,920 ---------- Total salvage ............................ £ 99,893 Total treasure estimated to have been lost ...... £1,175,000 ---------- Treasure remaining in the wreck ................. £1,076,107 It is plausible to assume, therefore, that more than five million dollars in gold and silver are still buried in the sands of the island beach at the entrance of the Zuyder Zee, and that at any time strong gales and shifting currents may once more uncover the bones of the ill-fated Lutine frigate. The members of Lloyd's are daily reminded, by the presence of the massive oaken table and chair and the silent ship's bell in the Committee Room, of the princely fortune that is theirs, if they can find it. The story is a romance of maritime insurance, and the end has not yet been written, for with modern equipment and ingenuity those gold and silver bars, Spanish pistoles, and Louis d'or may some day be carried up the staircase of Lloyd's to enrich a corporation of the twentieth century. [1] "The particulars concerning the Lutine which you have obtained from Martin's 'History of Lloyd's,' can, I think, be considered as accurate, as I believe Mr. Martin had full means of access to any documents which were available at Lloyd's or elsewhere in connection with this matter." (Note from Captain Inglefield, Secretary of Lloyd's, to the author.) <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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