The Svecia was an armed merchantman of 28 guns and 600
tons burthen belonging to the Swedish East India Company, based at
Gothenburg. In 1739, on her second voyage, the Svecia went to Bengal to
collect merchandise from the small Swedish factory there. In spring or
summer of 1740 she sailed for home, laden with dyewood, saltpetre, silks
and cottons, together with an unknown quantity of iron-bound chests
believed to contain 'treasure' of one kind or another belonging to
individual passengers and crew members. Contemporary accounts suggest
the cargo was worth between 150,000 and 250,000 pounds sterling, then an
enormous sum.
The voyage to and from Bengal was not without incident: of the 150
people on board, about 40, including the captain, Johan Rattenborg, died
either on the journey or in Bengal. Command for the return voyage passed
to Diedriech Aget, her second-in-command. The ship is known to have
called at the Portuguese island of St Thoma in the Gulf of Guinea for
provisions and water, and by mid-November 1740 she was rounding the
north coast of Scotland, intending to pass between the Orkneys and Fair
Isle. Instead of clearing the Orkneys, the ship was pushed southwards in
a gale and became trapped in a fierce tide-rip between the islands of
Sanday and North Ronaldsay, being driven helplessly onto a notorious
submerged area of rock (the Reefdyke).
The ship stayed more or less intact on the Reefdyke for three days while
the passengers and crew strove to save themselves; the islanders of
North Ronaldsay made no attempt to approach the stricken ship although
she was only 1 1/2 miles (2.4 km) off the SE tip of the island and in
full view of the shore. They were denounced for this as barbarous
savages by the survivors, but their boats were too small and the storm
too severe to take the risk. Contemporary copies of letters by two of
the survivors record that her longboat and yawl were launched with as
many men aboard 'as thought proper to goe in them', but were swept away
to the northward so that it was feared that all in them had perished,
although the 31 people in them made a fortunate, if perilous, landing on
Fair Isle, where the longboat was pounded to pieces by the breakers.
Those still on the Svecia then made a substantial float or raft from her
topmasts and rigging, and, two days later, the principal officers and
some of the crew (numbering thirty in all) took to this makeshift craft,
probably with some of the valuable chests on board. This was launched at
noon with the hope of landing on North Ronaldsay or Sanday, but, again,
was driven northwards by the tide and never seen again. Local folklore
recalls that the raft passed close to the shore, but was temporarily and
fatally submerged in passing the old beacon on Dennis Head. It was then
swept away northwards and lost to view.
The remaining 24 people on the wreck managed to cut away part of the
deck and made a raft which was washed ashore on North Ronaldsay with
only thirteen people clinging to it, the other eleven having been washed
away. There were thus only 44 survivors of the 104 persons believed to
have been on board at the time of the wreck
News of the wreck, and of the reputed value of the cargo, spread rapidly
throughout the northern isles, and by Christmas, four weeks later,
reports appeared in the newspapers in London, where the ship was heavily
insured. James, Earl of Morton, was at the centre of this interest as
hereditary Admiral of the Orkneys and Shetlands with an entitlement to a
proportion any salvage. However, a fierce gale from the SE disturbed the
remains of the wreck before salvage operations could start; hundreds of
bales of Bengal cotton and silk were torn open and left on the shores of
North Ronaldsay, forming piles 'higher than the pier of Kirkwall'.
Representatives of the Earl of Morton and the Swedish company are
recorded as recovering over 200,000 yards of cloth, despite the rival
attentions of the islanders and incomers. Salvage continued over many
months in 1741, and bickering among the claimants is recorded in the
Morton Monuments [muniments] and elsewhere. In the same year, determined
efforts by professional divers failed to locate the 'treasure' chests.
Further diving (by Rex Cowan) since 1975 has located the wreck site
under a 'forest' of 9ft (2.7m) seaweed and demonstrated that the remains
are concentrated within a smaller area than was thought probable. Items
loaned to the exhibition included:
•
A 'billet' of dyewood 3ft 8ins (1.12m) long and weighing 30lb (13.6kg),
so dense that it does not float,
•
Fragments of Chinese porcelain, probably of the Yung-Chen dynasty
(1725-35),
•
A gold button,
•
Four Portugese copper coins of the period,
• Two small cannon balls, and
• A pair of brass navigational dividers.
Notes:
• James, Earl of Moton was not a popular man on Orkney. The
people did not respect his wish to concentrate on natural philosophy and
on the study of medicine, and, indeed, his many other interests. |
