Captain Henry Jennings and the Wreck of the Spanish Plate Fleet: Crunching the Numbers
Pieces of Eight (Cob) Salvaged from a Wreck. Clipped from a Photograph courtesy of Robert and April Knecht, Cannon Beach Treasure Company, Palm Coast, Florida
On July 24, 1715, a Spanish plate fleet, eleven Spanish vessels and a French escort, left Havana for Spain. The King of Spain was in dire need of its cargo—two years of silver. The fleet was actually two fleets.
The first, the four vessels of Capitǻn General Don Juan de Ubilla’s fleet, sailed from Vera Cruz to Havana to meet the second fleet.
Regla (Capitana, 471 tons)
(1,386 chests filled with 2,559,917 pesos in silver coins, gold bars, gifts and worked silver)
San Roman (Almiranta, 450 tons)
(900 chests filled with 2,687,416 pesos in silver and gold and 85 chests filled with gifts)
Urca de Lima (Supply ship, 350 ton)
(252,171 pesos of silver, 136 chests of gifts, 13 chests of worked silver, 32 chests of Chinese porcelain, and brazil wood)
Nieves (Patache, 195 tons)
(44,000 pesos in silver, 58 chests filled with gifts, 7 chests of Chinese porcelain, leather hides, indigo, and brazil wood)
The second fleet, the seven vessels of General Antonio de Echeverz y Zubiza, was waiting in Havana so the two fleets could sail together for safety.
Carmen (Capitana, 1,072 tons)
(1,175 pesos of silver and 79,967 pesos in gold bars)
Rosario (Almiranta, 312 tons)
(15,514 pesos in gold bars and leather hides, tobacco and brazil wood)
Conception (Patache, 256 tons)
(4,714 pesos in silver, 3,000 pesos in gold, leather hides, cacao, brazil wood)
San Miguel (Refuerzo, 180 tons)
(silver plate and tobacco)
La Popa (Sloop)
(tobacco)
El Ciervo (Larger than the Popa)
(tobacco)
The combined fleet was loaded with passengers, cargo and several years worth of wealth accumulated in the New World.
A week after leaving Havana, July 31st, all eleven Spanish vessels were caught in a hurricane and wrecked along the Florida coast. Their wreckage stretched for miles. Many lost their lives including the Captain General of the fleet, General Juan Esteban de Ubilla.
The twelfth vessel, the French frigate, La Griffin, was assigned as the escort. It grew impatient with the slowness of the others, violated its orders and sailed ahead. It avoided the hurricane and arrived in France without knowing that the fleet had been lost.
Admiral Don Francisco Salmon, after learning that General Ubilla was lost, who had been second in command, assumed command. He moved the survivors to a temporary camp near the wreck of his own ship, San Roman, salvaged a launch from his ship and sent it up the Florida coast to St. Augustine for emergency supplies. He then set out buoys to mark as many of the sunken wrecks as could be located anticipating the formal salvage efforts.
Of the eleven vessels, six were located and marked (San Roman, Regia, Carmen, Rosario, Urca de Lima, and Conception). The others, smaller vessels, either sunk at sea or were ripped apart by the waves.
Once the news arrived in Havana, salvage teams were dispatched and salvage camps were established adjacent to the site of each known wreck. The large camps were located at the San Roman and the Regla, about five miles apart. These were the wrecks furthest north up the Florida coast. Smaller camps were established near the other wrecks. La Popa was stranded high on the beach and served as its own camp.
Spanish divers rushed from Havana to salvage what they could. They set up a number of temporary storehouses near the wrecks. The registered cargo was worth more than 14,000,000 pesos (pieces of eight). [Douglas R. Armstrong, The Winter Beach Salvage Camp, ii (Signum Ops, Merritt Island, FL (2012)] The total cargo was estimated to be 65,000,000 pesos.
Most of the registered cargo was recovered in the first year. By the end of the second year of salvage, all of the registered cargo of the king was recovered and more.
Spain had forbidden trade with non-Spanish entities in Spanish America so the news of the wrecks was slow in reaching the outside world. The governor of Jamaica, Archibold Hamilton, however, did learn of the wrecks from the governor of Cuba.
The Jennings family were early settlers of Bermuda. They owned substantial land in Smith’s Tribe (Parish) and when land was inherited, Henry Jennings became a landowner. Retaining his interest in his Bermuda land, he moved to Jamaica. When Port Royal was destroyed by the hurricane in 1692 the surviving population moved across the harbor to Kingston. Jennings acquired two parcels of land in what would become the central city.
Maybe it was because Archibold Hamilton and Henry Jennings were both Jacobite sympathizers or maybe it was because they were in the same social circles, Jennings learned about the wrecks and the storehouses from Hamilton. This information was too good not to act upon. Salvage in storehouses was much better than fishing the wrecks.
Jennings and his friend John Wills developed a plan whereby they procured letters of marque (commissions) from Governor Hamilton to seize Spanish pirate vessels at sea. Neither Jennings nor Wills intended to be limited to the sea. On November 21, 1715, their vessels were both commissioned.
The Eagle (Sloop) 80 men, 12 guns, 35 tons
John Beswick & William Hayman Securities
The Barsheba (Sloop) 80 men, 8 guns, 40 tons
John Cavalier & William Hayman Securities
Daniel Axtell and his partner Jasper Ashworth owned and outfitted both vessels for piracy. Governor Hamilton and Lewis Galdy, Axtell’s partner, also may have had an interest in the vessels.
The Barsheba and the Eagle sailed from Port Royal about a week before Christmas 1715. One of the crew who sailed on the Barsheba was Joseph Lorraine, a barber (surgeon) from Jamaica. He gave a deposition on August 21, 1716, that was recorded in the Jamaica Council Minutes. He provided a first-hand account. He confirmed that the Barsheba did in fact carry 8-guns but only 70 rather than 80 men and although the Eagle was commissioned for 80 men, it carried 113 men on this voyage.
Lorraine said they raided the Spanish salvage camps at San Sebastian Inlet on December 25th. The actual date was dawn on December 26th. [Spain was using the Gregorian calendar although Britain was still using the Julian calendar. I’m assuming the December 26th date is a Julian date because Lorraine gave his deposition in Jamaica which was British.] About 40 men from the Barsheba went ashore but he was not sure how many men from the Eagle went ashore.
Sixteen chests were brought onboard the Eagle and of those, eight were taken to the Barsheba. [Sixteen chests seems like an insignificant number when the number of recorded chests on Ubilla’s fleet exceeded 2,600.]
Lorraine said he received 3/4th of a share which he said was £34. If three-fourths of a share was £34, a full share was £45.
Lorraine said they stayed about two days at the wrecks dividing the money. Therefore, they would have stayed the 26th and 27th of December. They then sailed to Nassau to replenish their water supply and then returned to Jamaica around January 24, 1716.
Jennings landed near Bull Bay (about 10 miles from Kingston) and he and two or three men took the money (I assume the owners’ share) in a boat to where Lorraine did not know. Lorraine said he stayed on board the Barsheba.
It was reported that Jennings and Wills stole the equivalent of 350,000 pieces of eight from the two storehouses. With an official cargo of 14,000,000 pieces of eight, their 350,000 would have been less than 2% of the official cargo (1.458 % to be more exact). Furthermore, because the Spanish retrieved at least the equivalent of the official cargo within the first year of salvage, one could say that King Philip V was made whole and what Jennings and Wills came away with could be viewed as cargo from the passengers. Many did not survive to make claims and one could argue that they were not harmed. But the Spanish government did complain and complain loudly. Did the Spanish object because of the loss that seems trivial when compared to the total cargo or to the fact that the British were brazen in their raid of the Spanish storehouses?
In 1707, 7he British Mint and Parliament had set 6s3d (75d or 75 pence) as an equivalency in Jamaica for one piece of eight. Therefore 350,000 pieces of eight would translate into £109,375.
The interesting question is how was this £109,375 divided. Traditionally, Caribbean pirates would split their plunder one-third to the owners of the vessel and two-thirds to the captain and crew. The owners of the Barsheba and Eagle, Daniel Axtell and Jasper Ashworth (and possibly Lord Hamilton and Lewis Galdy), would have received £36,458 to divide. The balance, £72,916 would have been left to divide among the captains and crew. Seventy men sailed on the Barsheba and 113 on the Eagle, for a total of 183. For the sake of simplicity, assume the two captains and each crew member received one share and a share as Lorraine claimed was £45, £8,235 would have been distributed. Subtracting £8,235 from £72,916 would leave an unclaimed balance of £64,681.
The 64 thousand pound question is where did the £64,681 go? One obvious answer is Jennings and Wills divided it between themselves and possibly Governor Hamilton received a share, although he claimed he received nothing. Or did King George receive a share? Or because both Governor Hamilton and Henry Jennings were Jacobite sympathizers, was this balance sent to the Earl of Mar to help fund the Jacobite uprising (although the Uprising of 1715 was over but news did not travel fast in those days) or to James Francis Edward Stuart in France to support his court in exile?
Or maybe Joseph Lorraine, a Jamaican barber, was embarrassed to say he received £398 rather than £34. He was testifying before the Jamaica Council and he may have thought they would not look too favorably upon him if he said £400. After all, Lorraine gave his deposition and the Council, upon deliberation, ordered him discharged.