Leaving Portsmouth February 1st 1805, in convoy for protection from the French - she was carrying 160 crew, 150 recruits for the East India Company, 30 Chinamen, and 60 paying passengers bound for Bengal - where her mixed cargo (including 62 chests of silver dollars) would have been exchanged for a load of raw Indian cotton, trade goods and opium for sale in China.
- She was not to get far as while still in British waters they were hit by a gale and were separated from the others and had to wait at sea for a pilot - who - shortly after taking the helm at 3.00pm guided her straight onto the rocks of Shambles Bank. - Eight hours later she sank while drifting in Weymouth Bay with heavy loss of life, including the Captain.
Laying in 20 metres of water she was extensively salvaged by John Braithwaite of the Endeavour in September 1805 who kept at the task until he'd recovered all the silver and better than 90% of the cargo - before breaking up the wreck with massive gun-powder charges.
Modern SCUBA Divers got onto the wreck in the 2000s - using "underwater vacuum-cleaners" and brought-up lots of bits'n'pieces including knapped flints being shipped to India for firing Brown Bess Muskets. Many thousands of these flints found their way onto the market and when used on modern repro Muskets have been reported as being of superior performance to modern flints - despite many of them having traces of sea creatures, molluscs etc. attached to their surface.
I read of these flints being used in modern day Australia in a story by Dr. Leo Laden in the Australian Shooters Journal Feb '89. - who maintained that their superior performance would be accounted for by their selected raw materials combined with commercial and military demands of the day. The 200 year old flints definitely seem to produce stronger sparks, for longer, across a wide face.
- Not everything that is old is past its use-by date eh!
Marty K
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