£3,000,000 IN GOLD

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXVI, Issue 17544, 10 April 1919, Page 6

£3,000,000 IN GOLD

THE SECRET OF TOBERMORY BAY

Operations in connection with the Spanish Armada treasure ship are to be resumed at Tobermory Bay, Argyllshire, under the direction of Colonel Foss. —Daily Paper.

The news that operations are about to commence for the recovery of the Spanish Armada treasure, which is said to. lie many fathoms deep under the waters of Tobermory Bay, recalls a story of real life, as stranee and romantic as any you will find in the pages of fiction, and which has tempted and baffled the cupidity of man ever since the days when Queen Bess was wearing ixer crown.

Tobermory, the scene of this romance, is one of the loveliest spots on the West Coast of Scotland, looking down,, ns from an amphitheatre, on its land-locs-ed bay and the waters of the Sound of Mull; and it is in its bay that "Davy Jones" has so long held tight in his clutches a treasure of gold "valued a^ three million pounds sterling.

It was on a September daa», in the year 1588, that the good ship Admiral of Florence, which had so proudly sailed with the Spanish Armada for the conqtiest of England, was driven by storms to take refuge in this snug and secu;e harbourage on the north-west corner of Mull. Her comrades, scores of proud galleons, had been scattered' far and wide by the fierce storms that came ,«o timely'to Britain's rescue—"the winds blew and they were dissipated"—many of them battered to pieces against the rocks that guard our coasts; but this ship which carried the Armada's treasure, millions of gold coins for the pay of her men, came for a time to safety.

But though the Admiral of Florence had thus escaped the perils of the sea, she was in a condition of great distress. Her crew were at the point of starvation; and as soon as they cast anchor in the bay a boat was dispatched to the shore to beg food from the McLeans of Mxillj, who at the time had the lordship of that parfc of Argyllshire. The McLeans, so the story is told, refused point-blank to feed the Spaniards ; whereupon the captain threatened to put his soldiers, some four huadred in nnmber, ashore, and take what they needed by force. To this threat: the "McLeans reluctantly yielded, on condition that the Spaniards should givo them assistance in a fend against a neighbouring clan. Tradition has it* that they did so; and that one fight succeeded another until at last the McLeans, suspecting treachery, turned on their allies and blew up their ship— sending her with her crew and her treasure to the bottom of the bay. And there, a dozen faithoms deep, shs has been lying .for 330 years, guarding her gold so jealously that, although scores of attempts have been made to recover* it, it still remains intact, with the exception of a few handfuls of coins which serve as tantalising evidence of its richness.

Meanwhile one legend after another has been woven by the imaginative minds of the peasants, of Argyllshire around this ship of mystery and rsmance. According to one of them, an Infanta of Spain set sail in the Admiral of Florence in search of a handsome Prince whom she had seen in her dreams and, in the course of her wanderings, came at ?ast to Tobermory Bay, where she recognised in the chief of the McLeans, who went aboard to pay his respects to the royal visitor, the man of her dreams.

When McLean, who appears to have been easily caught in the toils of tihe Spanish siren, failed to return home, and news of his dallying with the princess came to his wife's ears, she conceived, in her jealously,' ,a plan i-f revenge which should rid the wond both of her false husband and her royal rival. She sent by the hands of her retainers a number of presents to the princess—among them a fcmnningly masked barrel of powder, to which a slow fuse was attached; with the -esul,t that, before her retainers had reached shore ,the vessel and all aboard were blown sky-high. But, to return to the region of fact- •• it was inevitable that the news of such rich treasure should appeal strongly to the cupidity of man; and the Spanish ship had nab long' been at the bottom of Tobermory Bay before many a scheme was afoot to rob her of gold. Of these earliest efforts of salvage we know little, save that they were unsuccessful. No less futile were the operations of the Marquis xof Argyll in 1641; while fourteen years laiter. all the efforts of hie son only resulted in the recovery of a couple of guns, encrusted with rust. Tn 1730, with the help of a diving-bell, results were more satisfactory; for, in addition to a fine bronze gun—which curiously enough, bore the marks *? its English founders, "R. and G. Phillips," with the date 1584—severll gold and silver coins were found; and a few years later the then Ma ranis ' f Lome rescued several pieces of ordnan.ro which may be seen to-day in tihe grounds of Inverary Castle.

In 1903, a syndicate was formed by CaDtaiti Burns. Equipped with a powerful steam pump, and a "strong digger that could in a forenoon pierce a hole five feet square into fhe mound af clay and sand to a depth of 18 feet," it was soon rewarded by the recovery of an antique hand-made silver candlestick, a few piecfts-of-eight, sworrls and pistols, and three cannon-balls—two of stone and one of iron. But one« more the operations failed to discover the treasure of gold coins which was their object.

And to-day, more than three centuries after the Admiral of Florence vanished under t.he waters of the Pay, the strong-room in which .she keeps her <ro'rl remains* inviolate. Deep down in her poon, guarded hj ma' Rive oaken beams and planking, it is still a« untourhod :>s on tho long-gone day when the' Admiral nroudly set her Rails for England. Whether or not it will now yield its secrets to Colonel Foss and his salvage men, who shall say? But it can scarcely he doubtful that these ceaseless rai-.l" will one day have their reward, ami the secret of the Spanish treasure-°h/p will at last be revealed to the world.