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$4 billion from the
sea?
By William J. Broad
The New York Times
Posted February 24 2002
In 1694, as England and its allies battled French
expansionism for a fifth year, HMS Sussex led a large fleet into the
Mediterranean to prosecute the war. It also had a secret mission,
documents show.
The flagship, a new British warship of 80
guns and 500 men, appears to have carried a small fortune in
treasure to buy the loyalty of the Duke of Savoy, a shaky ally. But
a violent storm hit the flotilla near the Strait of Gibraltar and
the Sussex went down. All but two men died. The treasure --
apparently gold and silver coins, in theory, worth up to $4 billion
today -- was never recovered.
Now, three centuries
later, a team of entrepreneurs and archaeologists working with the
British government says it has probably discovered the Sussex in the
depths of the Mediterranean. A half mile down, the team's robot has
examined a large mound rich in cannons, anchors and solidified
masses of artifacts, and its mechanical arm has gingerly lifted a
few to the surface.
The identification of the tantalizing
heap is not final, but the circumstantial evidence is strong. When
asked about the wreck, the British Defense Ministry said in a
statement that the recovered artifacts "lead us to believe that
those items came from a British Sovereign vessel, most probably the
wreck of HMS Sussex."
The discovery could rank as one of the
most important from the sea. If plans proceed for an excavation of
the site, archival and field research by the explorers suggests, the
remains of the Sussex could yield the richest treasure wreck of
modern times and illuminate a lost chapter in world
history.
The loss of the Sussex's payment, historians say,
appears to have sent the Duke of Savoy into the French camp,
altering the war's outcome as well as a swath of European and
American history. "We're resurrecting history," said Greg Stemm,
operations director of Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc., a Tampa
company that leads the project.
Although divers have gone
deeper to retrieve lost artifacts, miles in the case of the Titanic,
those explorations were relatively easy and superficial compared
with the difficulty of teasing out material and historical
information from disheveled piles of decaying ship remains. At a
half mile down, the excavation would be the deepest attempted in the
annals of archaeology.
"We must not lose this knowledge,"
said Anna Marguerite McCann, a marine archaeologist at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has studied Roman wrecks
in the deep Mediterranean.
To search for the forgotten ship,
Odyssey had to battle some archaeologists' disdain of treasure
hunters and win the blessing of the British and Spanish
governments.
Odyssey is working with the Royal Naval Museum
at Portsmouth, England, which advises the British Defense Ministry.
The joint venture is unusual. The Sussex is a sovereign wreck -- an
extension of the state itself under maritime law. But Britain is
letting private explorers bear some of the responsibility for its
discovery and all of the financial risk.
While there is no
question that the ship belongs to Britain, the Tampa company has
invested substantial effort, time and money in the project and can
expect a fair return. The company is now negotiating with the
British government for a contract to excavate the wreck and its
potential riches. Typically, the finders receive most of the
valuables.
Stemm, a founder of Odyssey, said the company's
hunt for the Sussex had so far cost $3 million over seven
years.
Neil Cunningham Dobson, a British marine archaeologist
working for Odyssey, told the Defense Ministry in a recent report
that the company's gamble had apparently paid off.
The
submerged mound is the Sussex, he said, based on his analysis of
"the survey data, the historical and documentary sources, the
underwater investigations, the location, the size and shape of the
site, and the cannon distribution and sizes."
Technology is
fast opening the deep, creating new opportunities as well as new
conflicts among treasure hunters and archaeologists. Stemm and his
business partner, John Morris, have gained reputations as
peacemakers.
The Sussex caught their attention in 1995, Stemm
said. A researcher showed the company a diplomatic letter written
shortly after the sinking that said the ship carried a small
fortune.
The Sussex had no special renown in nautical
history, unlike famous sunken galleons. So Odyssey hired researchers
to comb archives in England, France, the Netherlands and the United
States for clues to the ship's cargo and resting place. The
attraction grew.
Evidence of where the Sussex
foundered came from the logs of ships that witnessed the loss as
well as the fleet secretary's report. British court documents
reinforced the idea of a rich cargo.
"A great summ of money
is sending hence for Savoy," said a document of November 1693. Just
before the fleet sailed, the royal proceedings of Dec. 12, 1693,
said the king had ordered the exchequer to give the flotilla "a
million of money," or 1 million pounds sterling in coins. That would
equal about 10 tons of gold or more than 100 tons of
silver.
Odyssey's study hinted at the ship's wide importance
to history, which promises to make recovered artifacts more
valuable.
It was part of a grand alliance to counter France's
global ambitions under Louis XIV, the Sun King. The allies included
England, Spain, Holland, Sweden and the Holy Roman
Empire.
Savoy, a small state on France's southeast flank that
controlled key invasion routes to and from Paris, was a pivotal but
wavering ally readily influenced by events, financial or
otherwise.
The loss of the large payment, and the defection
of Savoy, helped create a stalemate that reverberated
widely.
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Copyright © 2002, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
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