MERCHANT ROYAL

The treasure of the Royal Merchant, was also known as the

Eldorado of the Seas. This ship sank on September 23,
1641 near the British coast of the Isles of Scilly. On
board ,there were 100,000 pounds of gold, 400 bars of
silver and hundreds of thousands of coins. The current
value of the cargo is estimated at more than one billion.
The Merchant Royal was a 700-ton galleon built at the
Royal Naval Dockyard in Deptford in 1627 before sinking.
This important dockyard, founded by Henry VIII in 1513,
was located on the River Thames near London.
Under its captain, John Limbrey, the Merchant Royal took
advantage of a few years of peace between England and
Spain in the 17th century to trade with the Spanish colonies
in South America and the Caribbean. After several years of
fruitful trade, the ship set sail again for the old continent,
loaded with precious metals.
The Merchant Royal, after crossing the Atlantic, needed
some repairs. Unable to reach England directly, it reached
at Cadiz, in southern Spain, near Gibraltar, to repair a
waterway.
During this stopover, a ship caught fire at Cadiz. Captain
Limbrey offered to transport the cargo of the stricken ship,
in addition to his own, to Flanders. It was the pay of the
30,000 Spanish soldiers stationed there, a fortune.
After her technical stop, the Merchant Royal sailed back to
England in the last week of August 1641, accompanied by
the Dover Merchant.
Unfortunately, a month later, when approaching the English
coast, the waterway, badly repaired in Cadiz, reappeared.
The defective pumps could not cope. In adverse weather
conditions, the ship was taking in more and more water, to
the point of sinking off the Isles of Scilly.
Part of the crew, including Captain Limbrey, was rescued by
the Dover Merchant, was sailing with the Merchant Royal,
but eighteen men perished. The galleon's cargo sank with
the ship.
New World gold, Mexican silver, coins, Spanish pay,
precious objects, all sank with the Merchant Royal at the
bottom of the sea. This booty represents one of the world's
greatest maritime treasures.
Many treasure hunters have been on the trail of the
Merchant Royal. In 2007, the American company Odyssey
Marine Exploration thought they had found the ship after
discovering a wreck off the coast of Cornwall containing
some 17 tons of gold and silver coins. In reality, it was a
19th-century Spanish frigate, the Nuestra Señora de las
Mercedes.
In 2019, a Cornish fisherman brought back a huge century-
old anchor. It may have come from the Merchant Royal.
The search for the treasure is still underway....