Owner Comments:
Excerpt from Shipwrecks.com:
"The full-rigged, 3-decked ship Hartwell, Captain Edward Fiott, was wrecked on May 24, 1787, at Boa Vista, Cape Verde Islands, off West Africa, while on her maiden voyage and bound from England to China. She was owned by the British East India Company and was loaded with valuable goods including 209,280 troy ounces of silver.
She was built by Caleb Crookenden and Co. of West Itchenor, West Sussex, launched Hartwell in February 1787, for John Fiott, who claimed she was then the largest ship of her kind in the service of the East India Company.
After severe Atlantic gales on May 20, a mutiny broke out when the crew refused to extinguish lights. Fiott arrested and confined three men, but with half the crew still refusing to obey orders, he changed course and headed for the Cape Verde islands, where he intended to hand over the mutineers to the authorities. However, on May 24, the Hartwell ran onto a reef three leagues north-east of the island of Boa Vista. Although she broke up and sank, all the crew were saved.
The basis of the mutiny was the crew’s desire to seize the treasure Hartwell was carrying, and Captain Fiott’s indecisiveness aggravated the situation. The East India Company conducted an enquiry that led the Company on 22 June 1787 to dismiss him from its service. One of the midshipmen aboard was John Bellingham, who was later notorious as the assassin of British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval.
Note: Between 1788 and 1791, under an East India Company contract, the Braithwaite brothers reportedly recovered 97,650 silver dollars from the wreck. Between 1994 and 1996 the South African company Afrimar recovered more coins and artifacts, and from 1996 the Portuguese company Arqueonautas Worldwide S.A surveyed and recovered yet more artifacts from the wreck."