When HMS Thetis was wrecked off the coast of Brazil in 1830, a hoard of gold, silver and 鈥渙ther treasure of various descriptions鈥� sank to the bottom of the sea. The news was greeted with consternation in Rio de Janeiro. The treasure belonged to the city鈥檚 British merchants, who had trusted the Royal Navy to see it safely home to England. Now it was gone and the Navy鈥檚 commander in Rio ruled out any prospect of retrieving it. Everyone who knew this stretch of coast agreed that salvage was impossible. Everyone, that is, bar one.
Thomas Dickinson, captain of HMS Lightning, was willing to give it a go. He made some enquiries. How deep was the water? How bad were the currents? How tall were those terrible granite cliffs? He didn鈥檛 doubt it would be difficult and dangerous. But he reckoned 鈥渋t was practicable, or at the least that it was worth the trial鈥�. Dickinson drew up a plan. He was convinced it would work 鈥� but he needed a diving bell, air pumps and lifting gear. He searched every corner of the city. And when he couldn鈥檛 find what he wanted, he designed his own, had models made and used them to convince the admiral he could pull it off. What followed was one of the most spectacular salvage operations ever.
ON 4 DECEMBER 1830, the 46-gun frigate HMS Thetis left Rio de Janeiro bound for England. In its hold was a fortune in gold and silver bars and assorted coin worth $810,000. Held up by light winds and fog, the next evening the Thetis still hadn鈥檛 passed the Cape Frio peninsula, some 120 kilometres east of Rio. Because of the delay, the ship would have to negotiate this treacherous stretch of coast at night, so the captain set a course that would take him well clear of the cape.
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At 8 pm the watch changed. 鈥淎lmost immediately the lookout man called out 鈥楤reakers under the bow鈥� 鈥� immediately followed by the shout 鈥楻ocks above the masthead鈥�.鈥� These were the cliffs of Cape Frio Island, a wild and uninhabited dot off the end of the peninsula. The compass needle had lied. The instrument was either faulty or had been misled by the magnetism of the local rocks. Under full sail, the ship ploughed into the cliffs at speed. The masts splintered and fell, killing and wounding some of the crew. The deck was choked with broken spars, rigging and sails. It was pitch black and raining hard.
But the ship was still afloat. The crew tried to push away from the rocks but the ship swung back and pounded into the cliffs. Now it began to leak. The ship鈥檚 small boats were all broken to pieces. Some men made a desperate leap for a ledge on the cliff. Forty made it. Others didn鈥檛 and were crushed between the ship and the rocks. But the ship wasn鈥檛 done for yet. The waves swept the Thetis along the coast and into a notch in the cliffs. There the swell smashed it repeatedly onto submerged rocks until it sank. Incredibly, only 28 of the 300 men aboard died in the disaster. The men who had first leapt to safety had scrambled round the coast to the cove, where they rigged up ropes and slings and rescued the survivors. When word got back to Rio five days later, the Navy sent ships to pick up the men. As for the treasure 鈥� Rio鈥檚 merchants would have to forget it.
Captain Dickinson of HMS Lightning wasn鈥檛 so sure. And if he could find a way to salvage the cargo, he was convinced that fame and fortune would follow. He planned his salvage operation meticulously. His idea was to string cables across the inlet 鈥� by now called Thetis Cove 鈥� and suspend a diving bell over the wreck. Divers could hunt for the hoard from the safety of the bell.
Diving bells at this time were little more than an iron shell open at the bottom and filled with air pumped in from above. Dickinson couldn鈥檛 find either a bell or an air pump in Rio. 鈥淎fter much anxious consideration, it occurred to me that it was possible to make such an instrument of iron water tanks, strengthened with bars of iron,鈥� he wrote. He sketched out some designs, had models made, and convinced the admiralty that he had a chance of success.
Dickinson took on a Mr Moore, an English engineer who agreed to help in return for a share of the proceeds. Under Moore鈥檚 watchful eye, Navy armourers cut and joined two heavy iron water tanks taken from one of His Majesty鈥檚 warships. They reinforced the bell by riveting thick iron bars over the top and the edges. Inside, they provided a seat and footrest for two divers and hooks for their tools. 鈥淚t was lighted by six patent illuminators 鈥� and these rendered it so light that a person might see to read at a depth of many fathoms.鈥�
Dickinson also had an air pump made, but finding hoses to carry the air into the bell was another matter. In the end, he cannibalised hoses from his own ship and made them watertight by coating them with tar and 鈥渂andaging鈥� them tightly with tarred strips of canvas.
The Lightning reached Cape Frio Island on 30 January 1831. Dickinson immediately ditched his plan to rig a cable across the cove in favour of working from a derrick fixed to the base of the cliffs and angled out over the wreck. First, though, he had to find quarters for his men. The seaward side of the island offered nothing but sheer cliffs, but on the landward side there was a sandy beach where the men built themselves a village with grass and wood huts. They lived there for more than a year.
Despite the white sand and profusion of brilliant flowers, the men soon discovered this was no tropical paradise. When they returned to their village at night, they fell into beds soaked by the rain that poured almost unhindered through the walls and roofs of their huts. They suffered from colds, chesty coughs and rheumatism. Then there were the biting insects 鈥� swarms of mosquitoes, fleas and 鈥渏iggers鈥� that burrowed into the skin and left gaping sores. Opossums stole their food. Snakes as fat as a man鈥檚 thigh infested the thatch. When it wasn鈥檛 raining, the wind drove sand through every crack where it 鈥渕ingled itself with both victuals and drink鈥�. When the sun shone, the men were blinded by the glare from the snow-white sand.
The carpenters set to work on the derrick, piecing it together from spars saved from the Thetis and timber stripped from the Lightning. By March, the derrick still wasn鈥檛 ready and Dickinson was anxious to see some sign of treasure. He had a second, smaller diving bell made that could be lowered from the back of a launch. And on the last day of March, Dickinson caught his first glimpse of gold. 鈥淎 tally board floated up with cheering words written on it,鈥� he wrote in his account of the operation. The men had spotted some dollars among the debris. 鈥淲hen they came up with their caps full of dollars and some gold they were received with three as hearty cheers from all of us in the cove as were ever given.鈥�
In the next few days, the men found more gold and coins. Then bad weather stopped work. There were other frustrations. The derrick was too short and had to be extended. Eventually, the carpenters fitted together 22 pieces of wood to form a 50-metre spar. By early May the crew had the derrick in place and built a platform for the pumping gear. From now on, when the weather was fine, both bells were kept working, the big one suspended from the derrick, the small one from the back of the launch. By mid-May the divers had retrieved $123,995.
A week later catastrophe struck. Severe gales sent waves 30 metres up the cliff side. One stupendous roller snapped the derrick in two. Moments later it was reduced to matchwood. The crew saved the air pumps but the large diving bell was damaged beyond repair. Another storm wrecked the small bell. Then Moore and two sailors drowned when a wave swamped their boat. Undeterred, Dickinson built two new bells. And with no chance of replacing the derrick, he reverted to his original plan and fixed a cable across the cove.
Working from the cable was not as efficient but the divers kept bringing up buckets of bullion. In March 1832, more than a year after he began the operation, Dickinson was ordered back to Rio and Captain J. F. F. de Roos of the brig Algerine took over. Dickinson and his long-suffering crew had salvaged $588,801. With Dickinson鈥檚 equipment, de Roos fetched up a further $161,500.
The salvage was a spectacular success and Dickinson was vindicated. All but a sixteenth of the treasure was recovered 鈥� along with guns, shot and copper and iron fittings from the ship. Dickinson found fame and fortune more elusive. The Court of Admiralty eventually awarded 拢29,000 salvage. Dickinson was allocated a quarter share 鈥� followed shortly by a bill. For wear and tear on HMS Lightning and food and wages for its crew, the Admiralty demanded 拢13,833 鈥� almost twice Dickinson鈥檚 share of the reward.