On 7 September 1592, the Madre de Dios was brought into the harbour at Dartmouth. Seven decks high and weighing some 1,600 tons, it was the largest ship England had ever seen. It was also the most treasure-filled. Its hold was packed with luxury goods: silk, damask, taffeta, calico; carpets, quilts, canopies; pepper, cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon; frankincense, camphor; ivory, ebony, and items of porcelain.
The Madre de Dios belonged to Portugal, a Spanish dominion since 1580. It was bringing merchandise back from the East Indies. Early on the morning of 3 August, to the west of the Azores, it had been spotted by a fleet of some seven English ships, most dispatched for just such a purpose by Sir Walter Raleigh. By 10am, the English were close enough to open fire. The fight was long and brutal, lasting through nightfall until around 2am.
When it was over, there was no time to waste. The English boarded their prize in darkness. On deck they found carnage. “So many bodies slain and dismembered… miserable people, whose limbs were so torn with the violence of shot,” one report runs. “No man could almost step but upon a dead carcass or a bloody floor.”
But English seamen swarmed through the ship, candles in hand, ransacking it cabin by cabin. The surviving Portuguese huddled in dark corners, crying misericórdia – mercy, mercy – surrendering again and again to whatever Englishmen they met. By the time Sir John Burgh came aboard, some time after daybreak, to claim the ship for Elizabeth I, its cabins had largely been stripped bare.
Every man for himself
How much was it all worth? The Portuguese were said to value the ship’s cargo at four million ducats – around a million pounds at the time. There were rumours in the Azores that there were precious stones worth another million on board. But when all the goods were finally tallied back up in London, they were only valued at £141,000. A fortune, but some way short of a million.
What had happened to all those precious stones? No-one quite knows. But the general sense is clear enough: as one investor in the fleet said, it was all down to “the thievery of these lewd fellows”. The largest piece of jewellery – a great diamond pectoral cross – was alone worth somewere waiting for the ship when it docked. One merchant named Bradbent bought 1,800 diamonds and over 500 rubies.
