Pirates and Privateers
The History of Maritime Piracy

Cindy Vallar, Editor & Reviewer
P. O. Box 425, Keller, TX  76244-0425

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Philip V of Spain (right) had a problem. Within months of ascending the throne in 1700, he found himself at war with most of Europe. He soon found the royal coffers in need of replenishment. Normally, that influx of cash would come from the treasure fleets bringing the wealth of his New World and Asian colonies to Spain. But the War of the Spanish Succession (also known as Queen Anne’s War) interrupted these convoys. The outbound ships did not sail again from Cadiz until 16 September 1712, almost a month after England, France, and Spain agreed to an armistice. A variety of unforeseen events would prevent the inbound ships from leaving Havana, Cuba for two and a half years.¹

On 24 July 1715, the day the combined convoy of twelve ships departed Havana, was a typical hot day, but residents of the city gathered to celebrate the grand departure.

Nothing marred the flawless pale blue [sky] except a single wispy mare’s-tail cloud on the northern horizon. . . . A cannon aboard the flagship of the Flota boomed hollowly, relaying the signal to [set sail] . . . . One by one the ships lumbered into line behind their respective flagships. The awakening of the massed armada was a spectacle long to be remembered . . . . (Burgess, 8-9)

The ships’ holds were laden with far more treasure than they usually carried because of the delayed departure. The total value of the cargo equated to approximately 7,000,000 pieces of eight (£1,750,000).² In command of the six ships that carried riches from South America was General Don Antonio de Echeverz y Zubuza, and his son was captain of one of these vessels.³ Captain-General Don Juan Esteban de Ubilla oversaw the five vessels from Mexico and also served as the overall commander of the entire convoy. The twelfth ship was a French-owned frigate named Grifón. She joined the convoy shortly before it sailed for two reasons: the heavily armed galleons offered additional protection, and to keep pirates from learning the exact departure date of the treasure.

The Order of Departure

Ship	Tonnage	Armament	Treasure Carried
Flota
Nuestra Señora de la Regla	471	50 guns	click here or see below
Santissima Trinidad (often called Urca de Lima)			252,171 pesos (silver)
Nuestra Señora de las Nieves	194		44,000 pesos (silver)
Maria Galanta
Santo Cristo de San Román	450	54	click here or see below
Grifón
Galeones
Nuestra Señora del Carmen	713	72	click here or see below
Nuestra Señora de la Concepción			8,503 pesos 3 reals (gold)
El Señor San Miguel
La Francesa (captured frigate)
La Galera (captured sloop)
Nuestra Señora del Rosario	312	40 guns	click here or see below

The usual route that the treasure fleets traveled took them from Havana through the Florida Straits, after which they passed north of Bermuda before crossing the Atlantic to Spain. The delayed departure of the 1715 Treasure Fleet meant they traveled during hurricane season, so General Ubilla wished to put the straits behind him as quickly as possible. They made good time until they reached the start of the Old Bahama Channel (just south of Miami), the narrowest section of the straits. Changes in weather conditions and wind affected the speed at which they traveled, and six days after leaving Havana (Tuesday, 30 July), the day promised to be “oppressively hot [and] humid . . . . Winds were erratic, often changing direction, sometimes ceasing to blow at all.” (Burgess, 36) Later, the wind increased and the waves wore foamy crests. “By midafternoon it had grown so dark that stern lanterns were lighted.” (Burgess, 37) Rain lashed the ships, sometimes making it impossible for those on deck of one vessel to see another. Initially the wind averaged twenty miles an hour, but by midnight, the speed increased to 100 miles, driving the waves higher and higher until they reached heights of forty and fifty feet. Miguel de Lima y Melo, who owned the Urca de Lima, detailed what happened.

The sun disappeared and the wind increased in velocity coming from the east and east northeast. The seas became very giant in size, the wind continued blowing us toward shore, pushing us into shallow water. It soon happened that we were unable to use any sail at all, making bare our yards, mostly due to the wind carrying away our sails and rigging, and we were at the mercy of the wind and water, always driven closer to the shore. Having then lost all of our masts, all of the ships wrecked on the shore, and with the exception of mine, broke to pieces. We lost only thirty seamen and marines, who were carried away by waves while in the waist of the ship. (Urca)

The hurricane finally unleashed its full wrath around two o’clock in the morning on 31 July. Father Francisco de León y Cabrera described the storm in a deposition given on 12 August 1715.

The hurricane was so severe and turbulent . . . [veteran sailors] had never seen one like it. Such was the violence of the sea waves that they seemed like arrows even to those on land, so that many who managed to reach the shore also were killed. It is calculated that more than 600 other persons drowned or were missing from all the ships in these coasts and beaches, with the added misfortune that, after some of the ships and part of the cargo of others had been washed ashore, the furious swaying to and fro of the sea waves would drag everything back into the ocean, where it disappeared so that the coast was bare again. (Burgess, 42)

The hull of Regla was sheared off. “Ballast, cargo, cannon, passengers and 120 tons of registered silver coins in boxes plummeted to the bottom of the rampaging sea, while the superstructure continued shoreward, breaking up as it went.” (Burgess, 40-41) Two hundred twenty-six people drowned, including General Ubilla.

Waves smashed las Nieves to smithereens; “two dozen drowned as the deck lifted off the hull, but some one hundred survivors rode the wreckage ashore like a raft.” (Burgess, 41) The captain of the Urca de Lima ran his ship aground in the mouth of a river, but a second storm the next evening destroyed her, too. She lost only thirty-five men.

After Admiral Don Francisco Salmón’s Santo Cristo lost her masts, she struck the shoals and broke into three sections. One hundred twenty-four men, who were in the center part of the ship, lost their lives when it sank. Those aboard the bow and stern, including Salmón, survived when those pieces landed on the beach.

General Echeverz’s Carmen reached shallow water before she sank, but most on board survived. One hundred thirty-five men on the Concepción and 124 on Rosario perished. La Francesa and San Miguel simply vanished. By the time the hurricane passed, “[e]leven vessels, more than 14 million pesos of registered treasure, and seven hundred lives were lost.” (Burgess, 41) Among the dead was General Echeverz’s son.

2 Lima 8 reales, 5 Potosi 8 reales, and 1 Mexican 8 reales carried on the 1715 Treasure Fleet
(Used with permission from 1715 Fleet Society)

The only vessel to survive the hurricane was Grifón. Eager to be away after the delay of waiting for the convoy to depart, Captain Antonio Darié sailed his frigate ahead and to the east of the other ships. When she docked in Brest, France on 2 September, no one aboard knew the fleet had been decimated.

Many survivors later succumbed either from their wounds or from dehydration. They gathered in ten different camps scattered along the coast until Admiral Salmón took charge and eventually brought everyone to a fortified camp at Palmar de Ayz. Able men dug for fresh water or constructed crude shelters from wreckage washed ashore. Several ship’s boats survived intact and Salmón used these to send for help. The closest Spanish outpost, San Augustín, was 137 miles to the north. In his letter to Governor Francisco Corioles on 4 August, he said:

Not a single ship, whether from the naval escort or from the galleons, has been spared, and because my general Ubilla perished . . . I have taken his place to recover this treasure . . . we are all so desperately in need of supplies, I am begging you to help me by sending to us as much as you can, or else everyone here will perish. (Burgess, 50)

The other boat was sent 360 miles south to Havana to gather supplies and bring divers to begin salvaging the sunken cargo from the shallow water off the east coast of Florida. Although ill, Salmón wrote to King Philip V:

I will stay on this island [sic] . . . in bad health and half dressed, even if it means sacrificing my life. (Woodard, 109)

The dangerous work of recovering the treasure began once the divers arrived at the wreck site. They were African and Indian slaves, who had to work in cold, shark-infested water with limited visibility. If a diver failed to expel all the breath stored in his lungs before surfacing, they might rupture, causing him to suffer an agonizing death. If he stayed submerged for too long, nitrogen built up too high; once he surfaced, the gas dissolved and the blood in his veins bubbled (the bends), which could paralyze or kill him. Out of 300 divers, a third died.

To make his dive, a man grasped a rock, took a deep breath, and jumped into the ocean. He then sank to the bottom, twenty to fifty feet below. Once there, he went around scooping up coins and other small items. He marked the sites where he found larger items, such as chests and cannon, before returning to the surface. On his next dive, he took with him ropes and/or chains to attach to these objects so those on the boats could raise them with a windlass. When he submerged in deeper water, a large bell was lowered so he could duck inside to refill his lungs with clean air.

Artifacts recovered from the 1715 Treasure Fleet Wreckage: (left) Gold Chain, Crucifix, and 3 Medallions and (center) Gold Box with Jeweled Cross and (right) Dragon Whistle)
(Used with permission from 1715 Fleet Society)

Once the news of the disaster reached San Augustín and Havana, it spread like wildfire as ships departed those ports for cities as far north as Boston. The Boston News-Letter, the English colonies’ first newspaper, published the story, which spread the details even farther afield. When men learned of the sunken treasure, the lure of gold and silver enticed many to leave their jobs, homes, and families. The temptation proved so tantalizing that five sailors a day deserted from HMS Diamond, stationed in Port Royal, Jamaica. Her commander, John Balchen, wrote his superiors:

All made to go a wrecking, as they term it, for the generality of the island think they have [the] right to fish upon the wrecks, though the Spaniards have not quitted them. (Woodard, 107)

Governor Hamilton sent two privateers to the wreck site with formal orders to “execute all manner of acts of hostility” against any pirates attracted to the easy pickings. (Woodard, 107) On the sly he told them to bring back whatever treasure they could and even purchased shares in these venture to increase his profit. One of these privateers was Henry Jennings, a merchant captain “of good standing and estate”, who captained the ten-gun Barsheba. (Woodard, 85) He signed on fourteen divers and, with Captain John Wills in command of the Eagle, set sail in December 1715.

Around eight o’clock in the morning on Christmas Day, they stopped a Spanish mail boat bound for Havana with dispatches from San Augustín. Jennings learned there were two camps, the main fortified one and an adjunct salvage camp. He demanded to know how many men defended these, and how much treasure had been recovered. After having been plundered the day before by two English sloops, the master answered the questions, but kept quiet about the 1,200 pieces of eight hidden on his vessel. All the “pirate hunters” appropriated were a few articles of clothing and two gold coins worth £8.

The main camp was close to where the Regla and San Cristo sank. By the time Jennings and the other privateers arrived, much of their treasure had been recovered and sent to Havana, but the Spaniards had buried 350,000 pieces of eight inside the camp. After dark on 26 December, Jennings spotted the flickering fires of both camps. To keep their presence a secret, he order his lanterns doused and 150 of his men into the Barsheba’s and Eagle’s boats. Landing halfway between the camps after midnight, he waited until dawn before marching north to the main camp. Outnumbered and lacking sufficient arms to repel the English, Salmón parlayed with Jennings under a white flag outside the sand embankment protecting the camp. Since the treasure belonged to the Spanish king, he couldn’t hand it over to the privateers. Such explanations fell on deaf ears, so Salmón offered Jennings 25,000 pieces of eight to go away. He refused and, rather than allowing more of his men to die needlessly, Salmón deemed it wiser to surrender. The pirates stole £87,000 of gold and silver, as well as four swivel guns and personal items taken from the Spaniards. Upon returning to their ships, Jennings released the Spanish mail boat and its crew before heading home to Jamaica. He would make two additional raids on the camps in the next few months.

Cobs and emeralds (left), 1708 Lima 8 escudos (center), and silver ingot (right) recovered from 1715 Treasure Fleet wreckage

(Used with permission from 1715 Fleet Society)

In January, seven or eight other English ships, crammed with hundreds of men, took Jennings’ place. With no treasure left on land, they had to actually dive on the sunken wreckage. All told they only succeeded in bringing up 5,000 to 6,000 pieces of eight, which had to be divided amongst all the men.

Two of the scavengers were Samuel Bellamy and Paulsgrave Williams. Although born and raised on a farm, Bellamy craved adventure and ran away to sea at a young age. By the time he landed in New England (sometime between 1713 and early 1715), he was a twenty-seven-year-old able seaman with no money. Williams, on the other hand, was thirty-nine, a silversmith and wealthy merchant’s son, and always wore a peruke. He and Bellamy became good friends and decided to go on the account together.

By April 1716, they had joined with Henry Jennings and Charles Vane. Together they captured the Sainte Marie, which carried cargo and 28,000 pieces of eight (£7,125).⁴ Bellamy and Williams stole these coins from Jennings and made their way to the Bahamas, where they signed aboard Benjamin Hornigold’s ship.⁵ Later, after Hornigold refused to attack an English ship, the pirate company voted him out and chose Bellamy to be their captain.

Bellamy had a knack for finding treasure and leading men. After he captured the Whydah in February 1717, he took her as his flagship and had the pirates install Williams as captain of the Marianne. They soon decided to head home to New England, but foul weather separated the two friends. On 26 April, the Whydah sank off Cape Cod in a storm. Bellamy and 160 others lost their lives that night. Only two men, Thomas Davis and John Julian, survived and were captured. Julian was sold into slavery, while Davis was found not guilty of piracy.

When Bellamy died, Williams was in Long Island Sound aboard the Marianne. He eventually headed to Block Island off Rhode Island, where his mother and three sisters lived. He also visited Newport to see his wife and two sons. In August, he returned to the Bahamas, where he finally learned of his friend’s death. Williams continued his pirating, and the last time anyone saw him was April 1720, off the coast of Africa. At the time, he was Olivier La Buse’s quartermaster, a step down from being captain of the Marianne. William Snelgrave, a captive of the pirates, thought him “grouchy and despondent.” (Woodard, 321)

Technically, Henry Jennings’ raid on the Spanish salvage camp was illegal since England and Spain were at peace. But he wasn’t deemed a pirate until after he attacked the Sainte Marie in April 1716. The French caused such a diplomatic headache for George I that he declared Jennings a pirate. Becoming an outlaw was never Jennings’ intention, but he was good at plundering and the other pirates respected him. When the King’s Grace was offered in1718, he and fifteen of his men headed for Bermuda, where the governor pardoned them. Jennings served as a privateer during the War of the Quadruple Alliance, after which he returned to Bermuda and became a respected merchant captain once again. When the War of the Austrian Succession erupted in 1745, he again procured a letter of marque. His luck ran out when an enemy ship captured his sloop. At the time he was in his sixties and may have succumbed to disease while in prison, for there is no further reference to him in the historical record.

Jennings was Charles Vane’s mentor at the time they raided the salvage camp in 1715. Like many, he went to sea at a young age and once he was declared a pirate, he preferred to remain one. He served a stint as Edward England’s quartermaster, but eventually was voted a captain in his own right. He also led those pirates who refused to take the royal pardon offered when Governor Woodes Rogers arrived in the Bahamas. Vane never feared a fight, but he knew when the odds were against him. When the potential prize he saw in November 1718 turned out to be a heavily armed French warship, he refused to attack her. A majority of the crew, led by his quartermaster, John Rackham, called a meeting of the ship’s company the next day.

A resolution passed against [Vane’s] honor and dignity, branding him with the name of coward, deposing him out of the company with marks of infamy. (Woodard, 307)

Given a sloop, provisions, and ammunition, Vane and sixteen others parted from the rest of the company. He continued pirating until his capture in 1720. He was hanged at Port Royal the following year on 29 March, after which his chained body hung at Gun Cay.

Left to right: Charles Vane, Governor Woodes Rogers, Pirate Execution

Between September 1715 and April 1716, the salvage operation recovered eighty percent of the sunken treasure. Spain finally abandoned the site that summer.⁶ The treasure, which had been taken to Havana and totaled 1,273,688 pesos 7 reales, was loaded aboard two galleons and shipped home to Spain.

The 1715 hurricane had strewn the wreckage of the fleet across fifty miles of Florida’s coastline, stretching from Sebastian Inlet to Fort Pierce. This wide swath made it impossible to recover all the lost treasure, and Spain estimated that around 250,000 pieces of eight still resided on the ocean floor. Centuries later, in 1948, a man named Kip Wagner discovered Spanish coins on the beach near Sebastian Inlet. The more he learned about them and the 1715 wreck, the more he yearned to find those lost coins and artifacts. He and his team of divers finally located a lot more of the treasure in the 1960s. In addition to more than 4,000 pieces of eight, they recovered a variety of artifacts including a long, gold chain with a dragon-shaped pendant worth $40,000 to $60,000. In May 1963, they discovered a six-foot-wide by fifteen-foot-long trench carpeted with gold coins.

But some treasure remained unfound. The Regla and Santo Cristo carried the silver and gold destined for the king’s coffers. These coins and bullion totaled 1,222,824 pesos 3 tomines 5 grains. The Regla also contained “8,076 small chests and sacks of silver coins comprising privately registered treasure, plus sixty-chests of gifts and one small chest of gold bars, doubloons and pearls . . . considerable amounts of worked silver, cochineal [right], indigo, vanilla, chocolate, copper, Chinese porcelain, brazilwood, [and] balsam.” Stowed aboard the Santo Cristo was “2,076,004 pesos in silver for private interests, plus 684 chests and sacks of gifts, Chinese porcelain, worked silver and other less valuable riches.” (Burgess, 31)

Carmen carried “7,766 pounds of cacao; 33,600 pounds of brazilwood; 79,967 pesos 8 reals in gold bars and doubloons; 309 castellanos; 7 tomines; 6 grains of gold dust; 18 marks 5 ½ ounces of silver; 1,175 pesos 8 reals of plata doble and three gold chains worth 380 pesos 14 reals.” The Rosario held “15,514 pesos 13 ½ reals in gold bars and doubloons, 175 pesos in plata doble . . . brazilwoods, cacao, chocolate, dry goods and hides.” (Burgess, 35)

What most interested the pirates were the coins. Those made of silver were called reales and were minted in denominations of ½, 1, 2, 4, and 8. Gold coins were called escudos. Sixteen reales equaled one escudo. Coins of this period were made by hand and were irregular in shape. Such coins are collectively referred to as “cobs”.⁷

2 escudos minted in Lima in 1709 and among the treasure carried on the 1715 Treasure Fleet.
(Used with permission from Admiral Nelson Shipwreck Treasure Shoppe)

The tercentenary (300th anniversary) of the sinking of the 1715 treasure fleet is 31 July 2015, and Daniel Carr has designed commemorative cobs for people, including those interested in pirate history. Who is Daniel Carr? In a recent interview, he said:

I create “what if?” coins and tokens. As an artist I like to challenge the concept of money. Who benefits from it? Who gets to issue it? . . . Collecting coins is something I enjoyed as a hobby. Creating artwork has always been a favorite activity of mine as well. And I have a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering. Put the three together and you get custom minting.

To design his cobs, he researched the coins recovered from the wreckage. Rather than replicate those, he preferred to design original cobs. He used some elements found on the Spanish reales and escudos, “such as the ‘Pillars of Hercules’, Jerusalem Cross, and the Spanish Crest.” He also incorporated some original design elements, including a galleon and “1715 Fleet 300th Anniversary 2015.”

1715 Fleet 300th Anniversary Cobs designed by Daniel Carr

He created “four different dies which can be paired in six different ways.” To make the actual coins, he explained:

“Cobs” start out as molten silver of a certain weight which is poured onto a surface to cool. These irregular blobs of silver are hammered somewhat flat and then struck with design dies. The edges on original cobs often show “facets” from the hammering. The design details are typically strongest in the center and then trial off the edges. My goal was to replicate that look. So the silver blanks I use are prepared in a similar manner – one at a time by hand. I do, however, take advantage of my large Denver Mint surplus coin press for the striking. Once everything is set up they can be struck fairly quickly, although the irregular shapes preclude the use of any type of automatic feeding. So each one has to be individually positioned in the coin press prior to striking. I always use a long pair of tongs for that, to keep my fingers out of the danger zone between the dies. After striking, each cob is removed from the press and is placed in a velvet tray.

Cobs from various New World mints are among those recovered from the 1715 Fleet. The majority were silver from the Mexico City Mint and some were gold. I have produced 28-gram 999 silver cobs which contain trace amounts of 1715 Fleet and Atocha recovery silver. The fineness is higher than the original cobs, but the weight of my commemoratives [is] in-line with the original 8-Real “Piece of Eight” standard.

Rather than using a mint mark of the Spanish colonies, he designed his own: “a crescent moon symbol above a double ‘M/M’ (which is my mark for Moonlight Mint and is similar to the original Mexico City Mint mark that was a small circle above an ‘M’).” He includes his minter initials (DC) as well. The original cobs also included the initials of the assayer, the person who verified the weight and purity of the coins. Daniel’s assayer is David Emslie, so his initials are also on the commemorative cobs. Since a coin also included a number to indicate its denomination, Daniel adds “8” to his.

If you’re interested in seeing more of Daniel’s designs or want to purchase some cobs, please visit Moonlight Mint.

A special thank you to
Josh Auten, Daniel Carr, and Moonlight Mint,
Steve Nelson and the Admiral Nelson Shipwreck Treasure Shoppe, and
Ben Costello and the 1715 Fleet Society
for assistance with this article.

Notes

1. Usually, Spain sent two convoys to the New World. The Tierra Firme Flota (commonly referred to as Galeones) departed Seville in August bound for Cartagena and Panama. On the return voyage, these vessels carried Peruvian and Cartagenian silver, Ecuadorian gold, Colombian emeralds, and Venezuelan pearls. The Nueva España Flota (commonly referred to as Flota) sailed in April for Vera Cruz. When these ships returned to Spain, their holds were crammed with Mexican silver and gold, and Chinese spices, porcelain, and silk. (The Manila Galleons brought treasures from Asia to Acapulco, where this cargo was hauled overland to Vera Cruz and then loaded into the Flota ships.) Both New World convoys wintered in the New World, and then rendezvoused in Havana around February or March before the combined flota sailed for Spain.

2. Seven million pieces of eight equated to $86,000,000 in 1975. As of 2013, the real value of these commodities would be $399,000,000.

3. I found conflicting information as to which ship Miguel de Echeverz commanded. One source said Rosario, while another placed him aboard Concepción.

4. To put this sum of money into perspective, a merchant captain, living in this time period, earned around £65 a year.

5. When the War of the Spanish Succession ended, a large number of privateers went on the account and, since Port Royal and Tortuga no longer offered safe refuges, they seized control of New Providence in the Bahamas. It remained a pirate haven until Woodes Rogers arrived in 1718 to reclaim the island for Britain and stamp out piracy in the Caribbean.

6. English pirates continued to “fish” the wreck sites until 1718 when Spain sent an “expeditionary force” to route treasure scavengers from Spanish Florida. They returned to Havana on 18 September with “five excellent bilanders, 98 Negro slaves, 86 British prisoners, 80 pesos in coins and wrought silver and other things of less importance. Before they could be arrested, more than 60 of the British managed to get away in canoes.” (Burgess, 72)

7. In the early 1700s, one real was worth about twelve cents; in 2013, it was worth $53. The largest real was often referred to a piece of eight or peso (short for peso de ocho). Escudo means “shield” and the coin pictured the royal coat of arms on one side. They are frequently called doubloons. The term “cob” comes from the Spanish cabo. Silver and gold was molded in bars. The cabo or end of a bar was then lobbed off to make a coin. This gave them an irregular shape.

For additional information, I recommend the following resources:

1715 Fleet Society. [accessed 16 February 2015]
1715 Treasure Fleet. [accessed 7 February 2015

Burgess, Robert F., and Carl J. Clausen. Gold, Galleons & Archaeology: The History of the 1715 Spanish Plate Fleet and the True Story of the Great Florida Treasure Find. Bobbs-Merrill, 1976.

DeBry, John. The 1715 Fleet Disaster. [accessed 31 October 2003]
DeBry, John. History of the 1715 Fleet: A Maritime Tragedy off the East Coast of Florida.[accessed 22 February 2015]

Earle, Peter. The Pirate Wars. Thomas Dunne, 2003.

Flemming, Phil, and Ben Costello. “Numismatic History: The Loss of the 1715 Spanish Treasure Fleet,” CoinWeek 28 May 2013. [accessed 31 January 2015]

Konstam, Angus. History of Shipwrecks. Lyons Press, 2002.
Konstam, Angus. Piracy: The Complete History. Osprey, 2008.
Konstam, Angus. Scourge of the Seas: Buccaneers, Pirates and Privateers. Osprey, 2007.

Link, Marion Clayton. “The Spanish Camp Site and the 1715 Plate Fleet Wreck,” Tequestra XXVI (1966), 21-30. [accessed 16 February 2015]

Marley, David F. Pirates of the Americas. ABC-Clio, 2010.
McLarty Treasure Museum. [accessed 31 January 2015]

“Paulsgrave Williams,” Rhode Island Pirate Players. [accessed 16 February 2015]

Spanish Colonial Coinage. CoinQuest. [accessed 16 February 2015]
The Spanish Treasure Fleets of 1715 and 1733: Disasters Strike at Sea. National Park Service. [http://www.nps.gov/nr/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/129shipwrecks/ -- link no longer active 8/16/2015]

Urca de Lima Underwater Archaeological Preserve, Ft. Pierce, Florida. Brochure published by the Bureau of Archaeological Research, Division of Historical Resources, Florida Department of State. [accessed 16 February 2015]

Wagner, Kip. Pieces of Eight: Recovering the Riches of a Lost Spanish Treasure Fleet. Dutton, 1966.
Webster, Donovan. “Pirates of the Whydah,” National Geographic (May 1999). [accessed 16 February 2015]
Weller, Robert “Frogfoot”. “Mystery Ship of the 1715 Treasure Fleet,” Treasure Expeditions, 1999. [accessed 31 October 2003 at www.treasureexpeditions.com/MysteryShip.htm -- no longer online]
Weller, Robert “Frogfoot”. “1715 Spanish Plate Fleet,” 1715Fleet.com. [accessed 31 January 2015]
Woodard, Colin. The Republic of Pirates: Being the True Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down. Harcourt, 2007.

Copyright © 2015 Cindy Vallar

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