Victor Billot reviews
The General Grant's Gold: Shipwreck and greed in the
Southern Ocean.
THE GENERAL GRANT'S GOLD: Shipwreck and greed in the
Southern Ocean
Madelene Ferguson Allen and Ken Scadden
Exisle, $34.99, pbk
The story of the sailing ship General Grant is one
that is probably more familiar to older generations, a
genuine stranger-than-fiction South Seas legend. It features
lost gold, mysterious caves, remote islands, shipwrecked
survivors, greed, courage and foolishness.
The sinking of the General Grant in 1866 on the harsh
coast of the Auckland Islands, south of New Zealand, resulted
in the loss of many lives, and a cargo that included
substantial amounts of gold. The vessel was on the long and
dangerous journey from Melbourne to the United Kingdom,
heading towards Cape Horn, when it came to grief.
This readable and evocative account of the General
Grant and its lost treasure is divided into two main
sections.
The first tells the story of the ship's fateful last voyage
and final hours in a vivid and heart-rending account; the
second of the various salvage attempts.
The unusual circumstances of the sinking and the following
ordeal of the handful of survivors are recounted. After
escaping in heavy seas in open boats, they endured two years
of near-starvation and bitter cold before rescue, after
managing to light a fire with their last match.
Almost as soon as the survivors had been recovered, attempts
were made to find the wreck and recover the large amount of
gold. What is most striking in this part of the history is
the strange sense of familiarity with a lost world only a few
generations ago.
On one hand, the dramatic reports in newspapers of the time
and the technology of the era which included telegraph, and
on the other, sailing ships being still the mode of global
transport.
Numerous salvage expeditions have been mounted, some deadly
and tragic, others almost comical in their outcome. Six men
were lost in 1870 in one of the first parties, including one
of the original survivors of the wreck who had returned as a
guide.
Two expeditions were mounted under the leadership of the
larger-than-life Bill Havens in the 1950s from the United
Kingdom; his first vessel sank north of Port Sudan and the
second attempt, aboard the optimistically named
Goldseeker, ran aground in East Timor, with the crew
eventually struggling across open sea to Darwin in a
lifeboat, barely making it.
The authors detail how these and other syndicates have tried
their luck right up the present day. Some were drawn by the
lure of gold, others driven by less obvious motives. Some
have been well-equipped and highly skilled, and others sharp
operators who have taken down investors entranced by the idea
of instant riches. None have recovered the gold of the
General Grant but all have contributed to the mythology.
Original author Madelene Ferguson Allen died in 2003 and her
initial work was extended and completed by maritime historian
Ken Scadden.
- Victor Billot is editor of Maritimes, the
Maritime Union magazine.
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