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51-574: Skynner was born in 1766 at the vicarage (now known as Glebe House) in Easton-on-the-Hill in Northamptonshire the son of the local vicar, Reverend John Skynner (1725-1805), and his wife, Sara Lancaster. He was named after his paternal uncle Captain Lancelot Skynner who had been killed on HMS Bideford on 4 April 1760, fighting a superior force of French frigates. In 1779 Skynner joined

102-417: A syndicate with the intention of using a diving bell manned by amphibicque Englishmen. However, Mr. Rennie , the engineer died that year; in 1822, the diving bell arrived at the end of June, but operations were frustrated by bad weather and silting-up of the wreck; at this stage the wreck was reckoned to be 1 metre (3 ft 3 in) under the sand. Although salvage attempts continued until 1829, little

153-411: A 'zandboor' ('sand drill'), a device which forced water into the sandy sea bed in order to clear a way for a helmet diver and signed a three-year contract, subsequently extended for another three years and then a further twenty years. The plan was that when the depth of water reached 7 metres (23 ft), the machine would be used to excavate the same depth of sand down onto the wreck. Ter Meulen bought

204-518: A desk and a chair for Lloyd's of London. These are still kept at Lloyd's and used on special occasions. On the table is a plaque of silver with the text: H.B.M. Ship La Lutine. 32 Gun Frigate Commanded by Captain Lancelot Skynner, R.N. Sailed from Yarmouth Roads On the morning of the 9th October, 1799 with a large amount of specie on board, And was wrecked off the Island of Vlieland the same night, When all on board were lost except one man. The chair has

255-481: A similar inscription. Less known is that in addition to the table and chair, two ink sets are also made from the wood of the rudder. These feature lloyd's coat of arms and a silver plaque with the text: Ink set made of lutine rudder with silver plaque THIS INKSTAND is made of the RUDDER of LUTINE Frigate wrecked off the island of Vlieland Oct. 9. 1799. The Rudder was recovered in 1859 after being submerged 60 years By 1860,

306-402: A steel-hulled, paddlewheel-driven 50 h.p. steam tug, Antagonist . The engine was modified such that it could be disconnected from the paddlewheels and used to drive the centrifugal 'whirlpool' pump. The pump was capable of pumping water at a rate of 21.5 cubic metres per minute (760 cu ft/min), but tests showed that 1.5 cubic metres per minute (53 cu ft/min) was sufficient, and

357-577: A storm in 1799. She was built as a French Magicienne -class frigate with 32 guns, and was launched at Toulon in 1779. During the French Revolution , Lutine came under French Royalist control. On 18 December 1793, she was one of sixteen ships handed over to a British fleet at the end of the Siege of Toulon , to prevent her being captured by the French Republicans . In 1795, she was rebuilt by

408-405: A very considerable capital on board, consisting of gold and silver as well as thousands of Spanish coins, believed to amount in all to 20 million Dutch guilders. In return, the state would receive half of all recoveries. Eschauzier and his heirs therefore became the owners of the wreck by royal decree and thus are known as the 'Decretal Salvors'. Eschauzier's attempts spurred Lloyd's to approach

459-573: A year and a half prior to 1801 recovered £80,000 of Bullion consisting of 58 bars of gold; 35 bars of silver; 42,000 Spanish silver pistoles ; 212 half-pistoles, 179 Spanish gold pistoles; with smaller quantities of quarter; eighth and sixteenth pistoles. A 1911 account reports that, besides the gold, silver and pistoles listed above, there was also recovered 41,697 (not 42,000) Spanish Silver pistoles; 81 double Louis d'or ; 138 single Louis d'or and 4 English guineas with an estimated value of £83,000 pounds sterling . The Dutch government's two-thirds share

510-577: Is at present tolerably recovered, and relates that the Lutine left Yarmouth Roads on the morning of the 9th inst. bound for the Texel, and that she had on board a considerable quantity of money. The wind blowing strong from the NNW, and the lee tide coming on, rendered it impossible with Schowts [probably schuits, local fishing vessels] or other boats to go out to aid her until daylight in the morning, and at that time nothing

561-468: Is now unknown. In 1858 Lloyd's estimated the total value at £1.2 million, made up of both silver and gold. Despite extended operations, over 80% remains to be salvaged. An uncorroborated newspaper report in 1869 referred to the Dutch crown jewels being on board. 1799–1801: An 1876 account reports that fishermen-with the sanction of the Dutch government in return for two-thirds of the recovered salvage-for

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612-457: Is with extreme pain that I have to state to you the melancholy fate of H.M.S. Lutine , which ship ran on to the outer bank of the Fly [an anglicisation of 'Vlie'] Island passage on the night of the 9th inst. in a heavy gale of wind from the NNW, and I am much afraid the crew with the exception of one man, who was saved on a part of the wreck, have perished. This man, when taken up, was almost exhausted. He

663-688: The Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply (CIPS) is located at Easton House in the village, close to the church. Easton on the Hill Rural District existed from 1894 to 1935. The parish has its own parish council and was represented on East Northamptonshire Council and on the county council as part of the Prebendal electoral division. Easton on the Hill is represented in the House of Commons by

714-574: The Lutine Bell – which is now used for ceremonial purposes at their headquarters in London. In 1780, Lutine was under Cambray, and called the ports of Foilleri, Smyrna and Malta, before returning to Toulon, escorting a convoy. Later that year, she was under Garnier de Saint-Antonin , conducting missions in the Eastern Mediterranean. In 1781, she was under Flotte , also escorting convoys in

765-798: The Royal Navy as a midshipman on the newly launched HMS Brilliant , serving in the English Channel under Captain John Ford. In May 1780 the ship went to the Leeward Islands to protect them from a Spanish fleet. On return to England he transferred still under Ford to HMS Nymphe , a 36-gun frigate newly captured from the French and held at Portsmouth . He was not promoted to lieutenant until 12 November 1790, then serving under Captain Wyndham Bryer on

816-627: The West Indies . On 16 September he was promoted to post-captain in January 1796 was given command of the 76-gun HMS Ganges . In March he was made captain of HMS Beaulieu and took part in the capture of the island of St Lucia in April/May. Still on Beaulieu , in August with HMS Mermaid they jointly made a successful attack on the French man-o-war La Vengeance off Basseterre . In May 1799 Skynner

867-449: The 'zandboor' took only a couple of minutes to penetrate through to the wreck. It was also found that the sand did not collapse once the diver descended through the drilled hole into the cavity excavated by the machine. Unfortunately, the wreck remained heavily silted up, with the depth of water varying between a high of 2 metres (6 ft 7 in) (in 1873) to a low of 5 metres (16 ft) (in 1868 and again in 1884). However, ter Meulen

918-405: The 14-gun HMS Cygnet which was based off Jamaica . In February 1793 he was put on HMS Aimable and was briefly on HMS Theseus before joining HMS Boyne under Admiral Sir John Jervis . In April 1794 he transferred to the 18-gun HMS Zebra . In January 1795 Skynner was given his first ship to command, the 44-gun HMS Experiment which was mainly used as a storage and supply ship in

969-604: The British as a fifth-rate frigate with 38 guns. She served thereafter in the North Sea , where she was part of the blockade of Amsterdam . Lutine sank during a storm at Vlieland in the West Frisian Islands on 9 October 1799, whilst carrying a large shipment of gold. Shifting sandbanks disrupted salvage attempts, and the majority of the cargo has never been recovered. Lloyd's of London has preserved her salvaged bell –

1020-511: The British government to defend their rights to the wreck. In 1823, King William revised by subsequent decree the original decree: everything which "had been reserved to the state from the cargo of the above-mentioned frigate" was ceded to the King of Great Britain as a token "of our friendly sentiments towards the Kingdom of Great Britain, and by no means out of a conviction of England's right to any part of

1071-738: The British took Lutine with them. The ship was sent to Portsmouth in December 1793 for a refit and commissioned as HMS Lutine . The loss of the Lutine occurred during the Second Coalition of the French Revolutionary Wars , in which an Anglo-Russian army landed in the Batavian Republic (now the Netherlands ), which had been occupied by the French since 1795. (The French had captured

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1122-612: The Dutch fleet the previous year in a cavalry charge over the frozen polders .) Admiral Duncan had heavily defeated the Dutch fleet in 1797 at the Battle of Camperdown and the remainder of the Dutch fleet was captured on 30 August 1799 by the Duke of York . During this period Lutine served as an escort, guiding transports in and out of the shoal waters around North Holland . In October 1799 under command of Captain Lancelot Skynner she

1173-583: The Eastern Mediterranean and calling Marseille, Malta, Smyrna and Foilleri. At Athens, Flotte was gifted an antique relief, that he reported to Navy Minister Castries . From 13 July 1782 to 16 July 1783, she continued the same missions under Gineste . With the outbreak of the War of the First Coalition , Lutine was recommissioned as a bomb ship in 1792. On 27 September 1793, the royalists in Toulon surrendered

1224-520: The Hill , near Stamford, England, where his father was rector for many years. Plaques on the former rectory (known for a time as Lutine House) and in the church commemorate this and Captain Skynner. The failure of the gold to arrive precipitated the very crisis that it had been designed to prevent. The site of the wreck, the Vlie , was notorious for its strong currents and the danger of storms forcing ships onto

1275-513: The Member of Parliament for Corby . At the time of the 2001 census , the parish's population was 956 people. HMS Lutine (1779) Lutine was a frigate which served in both the French Navy and the Royal Navy . She was launched by the French in 1779. The ship passed to British control in 1793 and was taken into service as HMS Lutine . She sank among the West Frisian Islands during

1326-411: The aforementioned cargo." This share was subsequently ceded back to Lloyd's. The gold was apparently stored in flimsy casks bound with weak iron hoops and the silver in casks with wooden hoops. Within a year of the wreck, these casks had largely disintegrated, and the sea had started to scatter and cover the wreck. Lloyd's records were destroyed by fire in 1838, and the actual amount of the gold lost

1377-519: The city, naval dockyards, arsenal, and French Mediterranean fleet to a British fleet commanded by Vice Admiral Lord Hood . The French vessels included: ...seventeen ships of the line (one 120, one 80 and fifteen 74s), five frigates and eleven corvettes. In various stages of refitting in the New Basin were four ships of the line (one 120, one 80, and two 74s) and a frigate. Mainly in the Old Basin and, for

1428-522: The claim in full. The underwriters therefore owned the gold under rights of abandonment and later authorised attempts to salvage it. However, because of the state of war, the Dutch also laid claim to it as a prize of war . Captain Portlock was instructed by the Admiralty on 29 October 1799 to try to recover the cargo for the benefit of the persons to whom it belongs ; Lloyd's also sent agents to look over

1479-522: The depth of the wreck had reached 14 metres (46 ft) and the quantity of salvage was declining. Nonetheless, over the four years salvage worth half a million guilders had been recovered: 41 gold bars, 64 silver bars, and 15,350 various coins, and the syndicate paid a 136% return; attempts were finally ended in 1863 as the wreck again silted up. After 1860 to 1889 attempts at salvage are reported to have recovered 11,164 coins valued at $ 4,600. In 1867, an inventor, Willem Hendrik ter Meulen, proposed using

1530-497: The hill. All Saints Church dates from the twelfth century and has been enlarged and altered over the centuries. The church is a Grade I listed building . The village contains the "Priest's House", a late fifteenth-century building restored in 1867 and now owned by the National Trust ; it contains a small museum about the area. The commander of HMS Lutine , Captain Lancelot Skynner , came from Easton, where his father John

1581-473: The latter using a bell called the Hollandsche Duiker ('Dutch diver'). However, a large number of unauthorised salvors also displayed an interest, which led the Dutch government to station a gunboat in the area. Over the course of the season approximately 20,000 guilders-worth of specie was recovered. The 1858 season was hampered by poor weather but yielded 32 gold bars and 66 silver bars. This ship's bell

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1632-426: The most part, awaiting middling or large repair, were eight ships of the line (one 80 and seven 74s), five frigates and two corvettes. Lutine was one of the ships from the Old Basin. During the siege of Toulon, the British converted Lutine to a bomb vessel that fired mortars at the besieging French artillery batteries, which were under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte . When they abandoned Toulon on 19 December,

1683-399: The most successful of all the salvage attempts; however, the expenses of the salvage were still greater than the recoveries by 3,241 guilders. In 1801, although recoveries were made, conditions were unfavourable and the wreck was already silted up. By 1804 Robbé reported: that the part of the wreck in which one is accustomed to find the precious metals has now been covered by a large piece of

1734-499: The shore. The area is composed of sandbanks and shoals, which the currents continuously shift, with channels through them: in 1666, during the Second Anglo-Dutch War , Admiral Holmes had managed to penetrate these shoals and start Holmes's Bonfire , surprising the Dutch who had considered the shoals impassable. The depth of water also constantly changes, and this has caused much of the difficulty in salvage attempts. Lutine

1785-530: The side of the ship (which had previously been found hanging more or less at an angle), thus impeding the salvage work, which was otherwise possible. Salvage attempts appear to have been given up at this point. In 1814, Pierre Eschauzier was allocated 300 guilders for salvage by the Dutch King and recovered "8 Louis d'or and 7 Spanish piastres fished out of the wreck of the Lutine". In 1821, Eschauzier put together

1836-406: The wreck, so that the latter was not merely clear of sand but had also sunk further below the surface with the channel [...] the bows and stern, together with the decks and sides, had come completely away, leaving only the keel with the keelson above it and some ribs attached to this". Recovery work immediately recommenced, now using helmeted divers ( helmduikers ) and bell divers ( klokduikers ),

1887-510: The wreck. The Committee for the Public Properties of Holland instructed the local Receivers of Wrecks to report on the wreck, and F.P. Robbé, the Receiver on Terschelling, was authorised in December 1799 to begin salvage operations. All three parties had drawn attention to the difficulty of salvage due to the unfavourable position of the wreck and lateness of the year. At this point, the wreck

1938-646: Was 1,015. The village, sited on the A43 road , is compact in form, with the older part of the village located north of the High Street. The parish extends from the River Welland in the north to the western end of RAF Wittering . The village is also on the shortest boundary in England with it being in the northernmost part of Northamptonshire between Stamford and Collyweston . The villages name means 'east farm/settlement' on

1989-437: Was also discovered in this year ( see below ). In 1859 it became apparent that the treasure had been stored towards the stern of the ship, and that the stern was lying on its side, with the starboard side uppermost and the port side sunk into the sand. This area, however, only gave up 4 gold bars, 1 silver bar, and over 3,500 piastres. In 1859 the rudder from the wreck was salvaged. This was transported to Lloyd's and used to make

2040-426: Was attempted because of World War I . Lloyd's archives were destroyed by the fire at Lloyd's headquarters in 1838, a nd the amount of cargo lost is based on the estimate made by Lloyd's in 1858: £1.2 million, consisting of both silver and gold 60 years after the disaster. Only the general assessment of the cargo and the amount of insurance are known for sure . The gold was insured by Lloyd's of London , which paid

2091-577: Was drawn by the tidal stream flowing into the Waddenzee , onto a sandbank in Vlie off the island of Terschelling , in the West Frisian Islands . There, she became a total loss. All but one of her approximately 240 passengers and crew perished in the breaking seas. Captain Portlock , commander of the British squadron at Vlieland , reported the loss, writing to the Admiralty in London on 10 October: Sir, It

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2142-503: Was employed in carrying about £1.2 million in bullion and coin (equivalent in value to £149 million in 2024 ), from Yarmouth to Cuxhaven in order to provide Hamburg 's banks with funds in order to prevent a stock market crash and, possibly, for paying troops in North Holland. In the evening of 9 October 1799, during a heavy northwesterly gale , the ship under Captain Lancelot Skynner, having made unexpected leeway,

2193-404: Was found in a search in 1858. Skynner's body washed ashore and was buried in a small cemetery on Vlieland . A plaque to Skynner's memory exists at the entrance to Glebe House in Easton-on-the-Hill . Easton-on-the-Hill Easton on the Hill is a village and civil parish at the north eastern tip of North Northamptonshire , England . The village had a population at the 2011 census

2244-465: Was gained and the diving bell was sold on to the Dutch navy. In 1835, the sandbank covering Lutine shrank and moved southwards, with the depth of water being 9–10 metres (30–33 ft) and desultory attempts at salvage were made. Further attempts to raise capital were largely unsuccessful. In 1857, it was discovered by chance that "a channel had formed straight across the Goudplaat sandbank, leading over

2295-451: Was given command of HMS Lutine . This 32-gun frigate largely served escort duties in the North Sea. Its fateful voyage related to the conveyance of £1.2 million of gold bullion from England to Germany to support a bank crash there. The ship sank in a storm in the North Sea near Vlieland on 9 October, and Skynner and the crew were drowned. The treasure was never recovered but the ship's bell

2346-487: Was lying in approximately 7.5 metres (25 ft) of water. In 1821, Robbé's successor as Receiver at Terschelling, Pierre Eschauzier successfully petitioned King William I and by royal decree received the sole right to attempt the further salvage of the cargo of the English frigate, the Lutine , which foundered between Terrschelling and Vlieland in the year 1799, proceeding from London and bound for Hamburg, and having

2397-585: Was re-minted into £56,000 worth of Dutch guilders . Sent to England was a packet of silver spoons initialled "W.S" and recognized as belonging to Lutine ' s captain; likewise, a salvaged sword was identified as belonging to Lt. Charles Gustine Aufrere. In August 1800 Robbé recovered a cask of seven gold bars, weighing 37 kilograms (82 lb) and a small chest containing 4,606 Spanish piastres . Over 4–5 September, two small casks were recovered, one with its bottom stoved in, yielding twelve gold bars. There were also other, more minor, recoveries, making this year

2448-468: Was responsible for re-establishing the landmarks used for taking transits of the wreck site and for establishing its position : 53°20′35″N 5°01′34″E  /  53.34306°N 5.02611°E  / 53.34306; 5.02611 . In 1886 a cannon was salvaged and presented by Lloyd's to Queen Victoria : it is now on display at Windsor Castle . Another was offered to the City of London Corporation and

2499-524: Was the rector for many years. Plaques on the former rectory (now Glebe House but known for a time as Lutine House) and in the church commemorate this and Captain Skynner. The frigate Lutine sank during a storm in the West Frisian Islands on 9 October 1799, whilst carrying a large shipment of gold. Lloyd's of London has preserved her salvaged bell - the Lutine Bell - which is used for ceremonial purposes at their headquarters in London. The head office of

2550-625: Was to be seen but parts of the wreck. I shall use every endeavour to save what I can from the wreck, but from the situation she is lying in, I am afraid little will be recovered. Three officers, including Captain Skynner, were apparently buried in the Vlieland churchyard, and around two hundred others were buried in a mass grave near the Brandaris lighthouse in Terschelling. No memorials mark these graves. Captain Lancelot Skynner came from Easton on

2601-483: Was wrecked in a shallow channel called the IJzergat, which has now completely disappeared, between the islands of Vlieland and Terschelling. Immediately after Lutine sank, the wreck began silting up, forcing an end to salvage attempts by 1804. By chance, it was discovered in 1857 that the wreck was again uncovered, but covered again in 1859. The wreck was probably partially uncovered between 1915 and 1916, although no salvage

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