Ship wrecks: The bullion dollar question

A US salvage company is set to begin the retrieval of a 17th-century British warship and its cargo of gold. But who will profit? And why do archaeologists oppose the project? Cahal Milmo reports

The wax-sealed sheet of vellum that was sent to the court of Louis XIV of France early in 1694 from one of his spies in Italy would have been received with undisguised glee. Scrawled across the parchment were the words: "The Admiral ship of England was lost in the storm. There was on the ship a million piastres, of which 800,000 were for the Duke of Savoy."

The wax-sealed sheet of vellum that was sent to the court of Louis XIV of France early in 1694 from one of his spies in Italy would have been received with undisguised glee. Scrawled across the parchment were the words: "The Admiral ship of England was lost in the storm. There was on the ship a million piastres, of which 800,000 were for the Duke of Savoy."

The vessel in question was HMS Sussex, the 80-gun pride of the Royal Navy which had set sail from Portsmouth on 27 December 1693 for the Mediterranean with a huge political bribe on board. Locked in a series of iron-clad chests stowed in the cavernous hold was £1m in gold coins, worth at least £600m in today's terms, destined for the ruler of Savoy in north-western Italy.

Its purpose was to persuade the duke to attack the French monarch on his poorly defended southern border at the height of the Nine Years War, which was being pursued by an English-led coalition desperate to end Louis's expansionist ambitions. But in the early hours of 19 February 1694, the warship, completed only eight months earlier, foundered during a fierce storm off Gibraltar and sank in 3,000ft of water - taking its precious cargo to the ocean floor.

The ship's captain, Admiral Sir Francis Wheeler, whose body was washed up on Gibraltar, reputedly in his nightshirt, had been given secret orders by King William III detailing how the bribe was to be paid.

The loss of the bullion persuaded the English monarch to sue for peace and imperilled the nation's finances to such an extent that the Bank of England was founded to prevent a repeat of the debacle. Now, as the 311th anniversary of the sinking approaches, King William's bribe is once more provoking political rancour and division over its on-board treasure and the fate of its lost souls.

The case of HMS Sussex has far-reaching implications for every one of the estimated three million wrecks in the world's oceans and the opposing forces of poorly funded marine archaeologists and rich commercial salvagers. It is also a debate about a treasure hunt which, if it succeeds, will net the Treasury anything up to £360m.

When news of Sussex's loss reached the Italian port of Livorno in 1694, the unnamed French spy hurried his message to his paymasters in Versailles. After the initial jubilation, the parchment was filed and forgotten for the next three centuries. Then in 1994 it was rediscovered by an Italian researcher, sparking one of the most fevered treasure hunts in history.

Within the next six months, a state-of-the-art salvage vessel owned by a private American corporation, Odyssey Marine Exploration, will arrive at the site off Gibraltar. Armed with the most advanced robotic submarine on the planet, the salvagers will begin the process of examining the 17th-century wreck that they believe is HMS Sussex and attempting to bring its golden piastres and any other artefacts to the surface after three centuries on the seabed. It will be the deepest salvage operation ever undertaken for a ship of that age.

The project, which will cost an estimated £24m, has been made possible by a ground-breaking agreement with the Ministry of Defence in London to share the proceeds.

But while the scheme could prove massively lucrative - up to £1bn according to some estimates - it is causing concern among British archaeologists. They fear it could signal the start of the looting the world's underwater heritage. While plans for the dive are being finalised, The Independent has learnt that a coalition of eminent academics has challenged the obscure MoD agency co-ordinating the salvage, claiming that the project amounts to sub-aquatic asset stripping.

In a letter sent by the Council for British Archaeology (CBA) to the Disposal Services Agency, concern is expressed that insufficient guidelines have been laid down for such areas as recording the items found, the funding of future conservation work and preserving the dignity of the wreck as a grave. Mike Heyworth, director of the CBA, said: "To be honest, we would prefer that this wreck had never been found. But now it has, it is our role to try to ensure the archaeological integrity of the site is preserved. This must be an archaeological operation, rather than some sort of smash and grab with a robotic bucket on the sea floor. For example, we don't know what they plan to do if and when human remains are found or how exactly everything will be catalogued."

From such artefacts, archaeologists hope to piece together a picture of life on board HMS Sussex, a ship from a period where virtually no first-hand documentary evidence survives on the life of an ordinary seaman. As Admiral Wheeler struggled to steady his vessel in the Mediterranean storm, he would have been helped by a crew of sailors who, far from the image of press-ganged amateurs, would have been seasoned professionals.

Brian Lavery, curator of the National Maritime Museum, said: "Sailors in this era of the navy were not military men - there was no uniform for seamen or their officers. Instead, they prided themselves on their professionalism and their fearlessness. You only survived on board by gaining the respect of your peers."

In the letter, sent with the support of five archaeological bodies, including the UK arm of the International Council on Monuments and Sites, the CBA calls for the "project plan" - the hitherto undisclosed blueprint for the dive - to be made public before work starts on site.

The letter expresses particular concern that commercial pressures to realise a profit by selling the bullion will leave insufficient time to study all objects from the warship, the once proud flagship of a 200-strong fleet, before they are dispersed. It adds: "We would argue that all artefacts, including coins, should be treated in the same way and any disposal would not be appropriate until the full assemblage has been studied."

Both Odyssey and the MoD reject the archaeologists' concerns and insisted this week that the Sussex salvage would be carried out to the "highest archaeological standards", pointing out that two independent monitors would be present and a respected firm of British marine archaeologists was overseeing the operation.

A MoD spokesman said: "We are certainly aware that there have been concerns and we are working very closely with Odyssey to resolve them. The priority is to minimise disturbance to what is considered as a very valuable heritage site."

Sceptics point out, however, that were it not for the iron crates holding the gold in an undisclosed part of the 1,200-ton vessel, neither Odyssey nor the Government would have shown any interest in the pile of muddy wreckage at the bottom of the Mediterranean. Indeed, the potential rewards for both parties are massive. The value by weight of the nine tons of coins from the reign of William III is relatively small at about £80m. The true value of any treasure haul is in its attraction to collectors, increasing the so-called melt value by up to thirtyfold.

A leading London antiquarian dealer said: "There is an extra cachet to an object that has been lost to humanity in the depths of the sea. Just look at the stuff from the Titanic. This applies particularly to gold coinage. It is redolent of a swashbuckling age where monarchs bought favours and armies to pique their rivals. You are buying into the glamour and myth of that age."

Under the deal between the MoD and Odyssey, the British Government will receive an increasing share of the proceeds of the exploration according to the value of what is found - 20 per cent of the first $45m (£25m), half of what is found between $45m and £500m (£278m) and 60 per cent of anything above $500m.

Odyssey, based in Tampa, Florida, announced last month that it made $9.6m (£5.3m) from the sale of bullion recovered from the SS Republic - an American vessel carrying gold during the civil war - in just six months and expects to make up to $15m by the end of the year.

But while archaeologists recognise Odyssey and the MoD are making significant efforts meet their concerns, there is anxiety that the Sussex dive could open the door to more unscrupulous treasure-seekers. There are some 250,000 wrecks in British waters and, according to the United Nations, up to three million worldwide.

These include eight ships lost during the explorations of Christopher Columbus, and the San Jose - a Spanish galleon which sank off Colombia in 1708 and is perhaps the most valuable wreck of all, with two tons of platinum in its hold.

The CBA points out that the exploration of a wreck to produce artefacts for sale contradicts international attempts to bring in a law which forbids the trade in such antiquities. Despite lauding the aims of the Unesco convention on underwater heritage, the British Government has so far failed to ratify the conservation agreement laid out six years ago.

Critics say that is perhaps unsurprising when rule 2 of the treaty is considered: "The commercial exploitation of underwater cultural heritage for trade ... or its irretrievable dispersal is fundamentally incompatible with the protection and proper management of underwater cultural heritage. Underwater cultural heritage shall not be traded, sold, bought or bartered as commercial goods."

Archaeologists believe that with the wider use of the ultra-sophisticated sonar used by Odyssey to discover the potential site of HMS Sussex, time is running out for governments to conclude an agreement to protect rather than exploit their underwater heritage.

Dr Heyworth of the CBA said: "If someone came along and asked to dig up a historic site on land in Britain for profit, the authorities would be horrified. So why is it any different under the sea? Better technology is improving detection of sites that until now have been protected by their inaccessibility. Now these sites are rapidly becoming accessible and something needs to be done before their treasures are grabbed by looters."

Pinpointing a resting place of sunken bullion is still far from an exact science, however. Original documents relating to the sinking of the Merchant Royal, a trading vessel carrying £65m in bullion, state that witnesses on board an accompanying vessel calculated the sinking took place "ten leagues from Land's End".

The reality is that the witnesses were too far out to sea to have seen the Cornish coast, and the Merchant Royal could be anywhere within an area of 600 square miles.

According to one wreck expert, there is no guarantee that the 17th-century ship lying off Gibraltar is HMS Sussex. He said: "There is a potentially delicious irony here. Matching a specific site with old documents is a real hunt for a needle in a haystack. After all this money and effort, the closest Odyssey and the MoD might come to a pile of gold is some rusty cannon balls and a bit of 17th-century anchor chain."