The Discovery

08 September 1665

When the explosion rocked the Griffin, young Samuel Higgins knew instantly that the boat was doomed.

Thirteen years old, and dead already, the ship’s boy thought to himself as the towering mainmast splintered in a shower of sparks.

The sail, now a billowing sheet of flame, settled down over the treasure that lay stacked about on the deck of the barque. Chests piled high with coins and jewels, silver bars by the hundredweight, ropes of pearls, chains of gold. Samuel watched it disappear beneath the burning canvas. He could feel the deck heaving under his feet as the Griffin began to break apart. A flood of gleaming pieces of eight poured through the gaping holes between the deck planks. It was more money than Samuel had ever seen, worth more, probably, than his entire village in the north of England, and perhaps the surrounding shire as well. It was a fortune that would have turned the head of the king himself.

And yet it could not buy five more minutes of life for the Griffin and her doomed captain and crew.

The voyage back to England would have taken at least three months. The descent to the bottom of the Caribbean took less than three minutes.

There lay the treasure, the spoils of a new world, silent, waiting….