Page:Quiller-Couch--Old fires and profitable ghosts.djvu/94

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86
OLD FIRES AND PROFITABLE GHOSTS

guard us from stumbling and set us faultless before His presence with exceeding joy.

It was in January, 1526, after a tempest lasting three days, that the ship called the Saint Andrew, belonging to the King of Portugal, drove ashore in Gunwallo Cove, a little to the southward of Pengersick. She was bound from Flanders to Lisbon with a freight extraordinary rich—as I know after a fashion by my own eyesight, as well as from the inventory drawn up by Master Francis Porson, an Englishman, travelling on board of her as the King of Portugal's factor. I have a copy of it by me as I write, and here are some of Master Porson's items:—


8,000 cakes of copper, valued by him at £3,224.

18 blocks of silver, "" £2,250.

Silver vessels, plate, patens, ewers and pots, beside pearls, precious stones, and jewels of gold.

Also a chest of coined money, in amount £6,240.


There was also cloth of arras, tapestry, rich hangings, satins, velvets, silks, camlets, says, satins or Bruges, with great number of bales of Flemish and English cloth; 2,100 barber's basins; 3,200 laten candlesticks; a great chest of shalmers and other instruments of music; four sets of armour for the King of Portugal, much harness for his horses, and much beside—the whole amounting at the least computation to £16,000[1] in value. And this I can believe on confirmation of what I myself saw upon the beach.

  1. About £150,000 in present money.