9 October 1799: HMS Lutine sinks with a fortune in bullion

On this day in 1799 the frigate HMS Lutine sank off the Dutch coast. It was en route to Hamburg with a fortune in gold and silver bullion.

The Lutine bell © Bruno Vincent/Getty Images
The Lutine bell is now housed in Lloyd's of London
(Image credit: © Bruno Vincent/Getty Images)

Hamburg, a long-standing member of the Hanseatic trading league, was on the point of collapse in 1799. The merchants in the City of London held a whip-round and dispatched HMS Lutine with a fortune in gold and silver bullion to the rescue. The ship, however, never arrived.

La Lutine had been a Magicienne-class frigate in the French navy, launched 20 years earlier. But rather than have it fall into republican hands during the French Revolution, royalists handed it to the Royal Navy in 1793, and it became HMS Lutine.

As the frigate passed the Netherlands on 9 October, 1799, a storm blew up and she foundered off the West Frisian Islands with the loss of 269 lives one person survived. Two weeks after the disaster, Lloyd's of London paid out on the claim in full.

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Nobody knows for sure how much the bullion was worth. The records Lloyd's kept were destroyed in a fire, but it's thought the gold and silver was worth in the region of £1m around £100m today.

But in 1799, Britain was at war with the Netherlands; the Dutch claimed the wreck as its prize. In 1823 it granted Pierre Eschauzier a licence to recover the treasure. Lloyd's protested to the British government, and the share of the licence retained by the Dutch government was transferred to London.

In 1858, the ship's bell was retrieved, and today it hangs in Lloyd's underwriting room.

Whenever news came in of a ship that was overdue, the Lutine bell would be rung once for bad news, two for good. This was so the underwriters and brokers who had an interest in the ship's return received the news at the same time.

Today, the bulk of the gold and silver is thought to remain in the sea. So, if you ever find yourself on the island of Vlieland, keep an eye out for anything that glimmers in the water. Lloyd's of London would probably be interested to know about it.

Chris Carter
Wealth Editor, MoneyWeek

Chris Carter spent three glorious years reading English literature on the beautiful Welsh coast at Aberystwyth University. Graduating in 2005, he left for the University of York to specialise in Renaissance literature for his MA, before returning to his native Twickenham, in southwest London. He joined a Richmond-based recruitment company, where he worked with several clients, including the Queen’s bank, Coutts, as well as the super luxury, Dorchester-owned Coworth Park country house hotel, near Ascot in Berkshire.

Then, in 2011, Chris joined MoneyWeek. Initially working as part of the website production team, Chris soon rose to the lofty heights of wealth editor, overseeing MoneyWeek’s Spending It lifestyle section. Chris travels the globe in pursuit of his work, soaking up the local culture and sampling the very finest in cuisine, hotels and resorts for the magazine’s discerning readership. He also enjoys writing his fortnightly page on collectables, delving into the fascinating world of auctions and art, classic cars, coins, watches, wine and whisky investing.

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