'THE WRECK OF H.M.S. LUTINE..' CIRCA 1897 a manuscript book ...

Hammer

£950

'THE WRECK OF H.M.S. LUTINE..' CIRCA 1897
a manuscript book outlining her history and of the various attempts to salvage the Lutine over seventy-five pages and including hand-drawn charts, drawings, annotated sepia-toned photographs, several pages of press clippings regarding the salvage operations, with a letter of provenance dated 1897 pasted inside front cover from the "Lutine Syndicate" with details of the author, a Mr Fletcher, and another dated 1952 presenting the volume to an association, bound oak boards (the front inset with copper roundel) salvaged from the wreck -- 9¾ x 6¼in. (25 x 16cm.)

Of the four French ships called La Lutine captured or surrendered over a thirteen-year period at the end of the eighteenth century, only the second became H.M.S. Lutine and it is her bell which hangs in Lloyds. Originally a frigate of 36 guns, she was launched at Toulon in 1785 and was one of a number surrendered to Admiral Lord Hood in 1793 by French Royalists keen not to let them fall into the hands of the revolutionaries. After a refit in Gibraltar, she returned to England under the command of William Haggit and entered the Navy List as H.M.S. Lutine. Four years later and now under the command of Captain Lancelot Skynner, she sailed from the Yarmouth Roads laden with £1.5m of merchant's gold and coin for payment of British troops in Holland. Setting sail on the 8th of October, a strong gale whipped up after midnight and she struck a sandbank between Terschelling and Vlieland and sank immediately with all hands lost, save two who died shortly afterwards. Salvage attempts began almost immediately with perhaps £100,000 being raised by the end of the century. The famous bell now hangs in Lloyds and from 1859 until recently when a crack was discovered, was sounded every time one of their underwritten ships' foundered.