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The Wreck of the 1715 Spanish Treasure Fleet

A hurricane destroyed the combined Spanish New Spain and Tierra Firme treasure convoys on the east coast of Florida before dawn on 31 July 1715 new style, seven days out of Havana, with counts of the dead running from over 600 to about 1,500; the fortified Spanish salvage camp at Palmar de Ays that followed was raided in the winter of 1715 to 1716 by sloops commissioned at Jamaica by Lord Archibald Hamilton, whose recall was ordered on 17 May 1716, and the displaced wreckers who would not give the plunder back are one of the parallel drivers of the post-Utrecht piracy surge in the Bahamas.

Also writtenThe 1715 Plate Fleet; The 1715 Treasure Fleet; The Florida hurricane of 31 July 1715; The raid on the Palmar de Ays salvage camp

A hurricane took the combined Spanish treasure convoys off the Florida coast before dawn on 31 July 1715, seven days out of Havana. The wreck belongs to Spain. What belongs to this archive is the salvage camp that followed, and the armed party from Jamaica that walked into it that winter.

Britain kept the Julian calendar, eleven days behind Spain's Gregorian in 1715, so the hurricane of 31 July new style is 20 July old style. Several apparent contradictions in the literature are calendar artefacts.

The convoy and the channel

Spain moved American silver in convoy. The flota of New Spain and the galeones of the Tierra Firme trade met at Havana to run home up the Bahama Channel. War had held several seasons' bullion in the Indies and the peace of 1713 released it. This convoy sailed heavy, and late.

How the losses are counted

The counts disagree, and the earliest English official notice bears only on the ships. Lieutenant Governor Spotswood of Virginia reported on 24 October 1715 that the plate fleet consisted of eleven sail and that all but one were cast away, which agrees with the 1715 Fleet Society's count of eleven in the assembly with only one escaping, so ten Spanish hulls lost; the same report adds a further loss, a barcolongo sent from Havana afterwards and cast away about forty miles north of St Augustine with plate recovered from the wrecks. The higher counts of eleven or twelve hulls turn on whether the Frenchman and a captured sloop are counted, which is a different way of counting rather than a different reckoning. The dead are given variously at over 600, at more than a thousand and at about 1,500.1

The camp at Palmar de Ays

Command is said to have fallen to Admiral Don Francisco Salmon, who gathered the survivors, fortified a camp at Palmar de Ays and sent boats to Havana and St Augustine. Spain worked the wrecks for years, warehousing the recovered plate in a guarded storehouse ashore.

What was in the ships, and how much came back out, are unsettled. Registered treasure is given as about 7,000,000 pesos by Wilson and as about 12,000,000 or more than 14,000,000 elsewhere. Recovery is reported as more than 5,000,000 pieces of eight by late October 1715, as about eighty per cent by April 1716, and as about half before Spain gave up, in 1716, 1718 or 1719.2

Hamilton's commissions

News of the wrecks reached Jamaica in November 1715. Lord Archibald Hamilton, the governor, was already granting privateering commissions, nominally against pirates. Two, to the sloops Eagle and Barsheba, were dated 21 November 1715 and ran six months; a third, to the sloop Bennet under Francis Fernando Amulato, was dated 12 December. That comes from the sworn deposition of Samuel Page, Secretary of Jamaica.3

The familiar pairing of Jennings with the Barsheba, and of John Wills with the Eagle, is not in those papers. Page names the two sloops and no captains; Captain John Balchen of HMS Diamond names Henry Jennings and Captain Edward James as owners and no sloops. Joining the halves is later work: where later writers give Wills, Balchen gave James.

The raid on the salvage camp

The sloops anchored near the camp under Spanish colours, lay still until dark and marched at daylight. The Spanish officer asked whether it was war. They answered no, "but that they came to fish for the wrecks". He told them the treasure was his Catholic Majesty's and "profer'd them 25,000 pieces of eight, which they wou'd not be satisfy'd with, but took all the silver they had and stript the people". The Spanish complaint puts the plunder at above 120,000 pieces of eight in three enclosures of one file, and adds that this is what the captors own themselves, from which more is inferred. Secondary accounts give variant figures, which do not reconcile with the documentary figure or with each other. Later writers date the assault to 26 December 1715; the calendared Spanish complaint dates only one sloop's return, on 26 January 1716.4

One raid became a rush. Balchen wrote on 13 May 1716 that "there has been at least 20 sloops fitted out for the wrecks", and that he had lost ten men in two days, "being all mad to go a wrecking as they term it". The bullion came into Port Royal, divided between those concerned.5

The recall of a governor

Spanish pressure came through the Havana deputy del Valle and the Marquis de Monteleon. Stanhope wrote to the Council of Trade and Plantations on 19 May 1716 ordering a commission drawn to annul Hamilton's, "there having been several abuses committed of late under the covert of Commissions granted by the said Lord Archibald Hamilton to the prejudice of the Treaties between this Crown and that of Spain". The warrant recalling him had passed two days earlier; Peter Haywood was appointed in his room on 21 May. Florida was one item in a crowded file of Assembly, merchant and maladministration papers covering rigged elections, illicit French trade, the Port Royal fortifications and alleged Jacobite appointments.6

What came out of it

Hamilton's proclamations of April 1716 demanded the plunder back and forbade further fishing on the wrecks. The men holding it left instead, and gathered at New Providence in the Bahamas, ungoverned since the war; by August 1716 Thomas Walker was reporting the place to Whitehall as a pirate settlement. The wrecks were one driver of what followed and not the only one, the demobilisation of privateers after Utrecht running beside them.

What the sources cannot yet give is the Spanish side of it. No Spanish archive was read at first hand here, so every cargo and casualty figure reaches the Archive through modern intermediaries; the lading registers at Seville would settle the death toll and the registered treasure. The English quotations come from the printed Calendar of State Papers Colonial, which mixes verbatim wording with editorial summary, and want collation against C.O. 137/11 and 137/12 at Kew. The raid's date, the size of the landing party and the men who led it are nowhere documentarily joined. Admiral Salmon's command of the salvage camp comes from later writers, the calendared Spanish complaint not naming him. The men who took the plunder can be followed in these papers only as far as the dispersal from Jamaica; that they were the party which gathered at New Providence is an inference. The counts of hulls lost rest on Spotswood's report of eleven sail and on modern reckonings, no document read here setting out the wrecks ship by ship.

What the evidence does not settle

Death toll

  • Death toll given as 1,000 to 1,500 in accountsLikely

Registered treasure

  • Registered treasure given as 7 million or over 14 millionUnverified

The salvage camp raid

  • The date of the salvage-camp raid

Each line is one question with its own grade, taken from the register where a claim carries it. Nothing here is graded as a whole.

Sources for this record

Every statement above that rests on a checked claim carries a small number; the numbers lead here. Each entry gives what is claimed, how far the record supports it, and where it comes from.

  1. The number of ships lost in the disaster of 1715 and the number of dead are both disputed, and the earliest English official notice bears only on the first. Lieutenant Governor Spotswood of Virginia reported on 24 October 1715 that the plate fleet consisted of eleven sail and that all but one were cast away, which agrees with the 1715 Fleet Society's count of eleven in the assembly with only one escaping, that is ten Spanish hulls lost; the same report adds a further loss, a barcolongo sent from Havana afterwards and cast away about forty miles north of St Augustine with plate recovered from the wrecks. The higher counts of eleven or twelve hulls turn on whether the Frenchman and a captured sloop are counted, which is a different way of counting rather than a different claim. The death toll, variously given as over 600, more than a thousand and about 1,500, is not settled by any document read here. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. State papers: Lieut. Governor Spotswood to [? Mr. Secretary Stanhope], Virginia, 24 October 1715, Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies, Volume 28, 1714-1715, ed. Cecil Headlam (London, 1928), no. 651, at p. 317, C.O. 5, 1342. No. 3, read on British History Online: "the Spanish Plate Fleet richly laden, consisting of eleven sail, are, except one, lately cast away in the Gulf of Florida to the southward of St. Augustin"
  2. Registered treasure aboard the 1715 convoy is disputed, being given as about 7,000,000 pesos in one modern account and as about 12,000,000 or more than 14,000,000 in others, and Spanish recovery from the wrecks is reported variously as more than 5,000,000 pieces of eight by late October 1715, as about eighty per cent of the sunken registered treasure by April 1716, and as about half before the formal salvage was wound down, in 1716, about 1718 or 1719 according to the account followed. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Specialist society history and scholarly article: David Wilson, History Today, 30 July 2015; 1715 Fleet Society, "History"
  3. Lord Archibald Hamilton, Governor of Jamaica, commissioned the sloops Eagle and Barsheba on 21 November 1715 for six months, and the sloop Bennet under Francis Fernando Amulato on 12 December 1715, as stated in the sworn deposition of Samuel Page, Secretary and Commissary of Jamaica, taken on 15 May 1716. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. State paper: Mr Secretary Stanhope to the Council of Trade and Plantations, 19 May 1716, item 158, enclosure v (deposition of Samuel Page, 15 May 1716), Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies, Volume 29, 1716-1717; The National Archives, C.O. 137, 11. No. 16 v.
  4. The calendared Spanish complaint records that the Jamaican sloops anchored near the Spanish salvage camp on the Florida coast under Spanish colours, lay still until dark and marched at daylight; that the Spanish commanding officer, told that this was not war "but that they came to fish for the wrecks", offered them 25,000 pieces of eight to withdraw, which they "wou'd not be satisfy'd with, but took all the silver they had and stript the people"; and that the plunder was above 120,000 pieces of eight, a figure carried in three separate enclosures of the same file and qualified there as what the captors own themselves, from which more is inferred; secondary accounts instead give variant figures, which do not reconcile with the documentary figure or with each other, and while modern accounts date the assault to 26 December 1715 the same complaint dates only the return of one sloop to Jamaica, on 26 January 1716. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. State paper: Mr Secretary Stanhope to the Council of Trade and Plantations, 19 May 1716, item 158, enclosures i, iii and v (extract of Don Juan Francisco del Valle's letter of 18 March 1715/16 and depositions of 15 May 1716), Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies, Volume 29, 1716 to 1717; variant figures from Colin Woodard, The Republic of Pirates, 2007
  5. Captain John Balchen of HMS Diamond wrote on 13 May 1716 that "there has been at least 20 sloops fitted out for the wrecks", and that he had lost ten of his own men in two days before sailing, "being all mad to go a wrecking as they term it", the plunder brought into Port Royal being divided between those concerned. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. State paper: Mr Secretary Stanhope to the Council of Trade and Plantations, 19 May 1716, item 158, enclosures iv (Captain John Balchen, 13 May 1716) and v, Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies, Volume 29, 1716-1717
  6. Secretary Stanhope wrote to the Council of Trade and Plantations on 19 May 1716 directing that a commission be prepared annulling Hamilton's, "there having been several abuses committed of late under the covert of Commissions granted by the said Lord Archibald Hamilton to the prejudice of the Treaties between this Crown and that of Spain"; the royal warrant recalling Hamilton had passed on 17 May 1716 and Peter Haywood was appointed Governor of Jamaica on 21 May 1716, but the Florida raid was one item in a mixed file of Assembly, merchant and maladministration papers covering rigged elections, illicit trade with the French, the Port Royal fortifications and alleged Jacobite appointments, and the recall cannot be attributed to the raid alone. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. State paper: Mr Secretary Stanhope to the Council of Trade and Plantations, 19 May 1716, item 158, with enclosures vii, viii, xi and xii; H.M. Warrant recalling Lord A. Hamilton, 17 May 1716, item 155 (C.O. 5, 190, p. 343); H.M. Warrant appointing Peter Haywood, 21 May 1716, item 162 (C.O. 5, 190, pp. 339-341), Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies, Volume 29, 1716-1717