The Merchant Royal was a 17th Century English merchant ship that operated between England and Spanish colonies in the West Indies during a time of peace between the two empires.
While returning to London after a particularly rough voyage in 1637, she sailed into Cadiz, Spain with a cargo of 32 bronze cannon. The ship was leaking, battered, and worn and required extensive repairs. The Merchant Royal remained in Cadiz for several years while receiving its badly needed repairs and upgrades.
Shortly before finally setting sail in 1641, another ship caught fire in port, and Captain Limbrey of the Merchant Royal agreed to carry the ship’s cargo to its destination in Antwerp, for a fee, of course. The cargo was treasure of gold and silver ingots and coins from the Spanish colonies, intended to pay the wages of 30,000 Spanish troops fighting against rebellion in the Netherlands during the Eighty Years’ War.
The Merchant Royal and her sister ship, the Dover Merchant, set sail in late August of 1641 with the treasure, carrying its precious cargo. After departing Cadiz, the Merchant Royal immediately began leaking again. The leaks continued to worsen, when the Merchant Royal‘s pumps broke down. To make matters worse, rough weather soon plagued the ship, and she sank off the coast of Cornwall in rough weather on September 23, 1641. News of the wreck was printed in the newspapers, stating the ship went down “ten leagues (about 34 miles) from Land’s End.” Eighteen crewmembers drowned, and 40 others, including Captain Limbrey were rescued up by Dover Merchant. However, the valuable cargo went down with the ship.
Search for the wreck has been ongoing and difficult. Search expeditions led by The Odyssey Marine Exploration team has made numerous attempts at find the wreck, but has been unsuccessful thus far.
In 2007 the team recovered an estimated £363 million of silver and gold coins, rumored to be from the Merchant Royal. However, it remains uncertain and unlikely the treasure came from the Merchant Royal, and most likely is from another ship, the Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes, a Spanish vessel sunk in 1804. In 2019, Cornish fishermen pulled up a huge anchor from 300 feet under the surface, believed to be the anchor of the Merchant Royal.
I suppose you have understood of the loss of the Royal Merchant coming into our road, which is the greatest that was ever sustained in one ship, being worth 400,000l. at least. The merchants of Antwerp will be the greatest losers, for she had in her belonging to them 300,000l. in bullion; if so be the Infante Cardinal lose not upon it Flanders for want of money to pay the soldiers.
– ‘Charles I – volume 484: September 1641’, Calendar of State Papers Domestic: Charles I, 1641–3 (1887)
Often called the “El Dorado of the Sea” and the “Ship of Gold,” the Merchant Royal carried an estimated 100,000 pounds of gold, 400 bars of Mexican silver, and nearly 500,000 pieces of eight and other coins. The Merchant Royal is one of the most valuable wrecks of all time.