HMS Feversham

The final voyage

HMS Feversham was a 32-gun fifth-rate, launched in 1696, that had spent years on trade-protection and anti-piracy duty in home waters and North America. In 1711 she was detached from her Virginia station to join Admiral Hovenden Walker's expedition against French Quebec, escorting transports that carried funds to pay British and colonial forces.

En route to rendezvous with the main fleet, Feversham and three transports were driven onto rocks near Scatarie Island, off Cape Breton, on 7 October 1711, in fog and strong currents. All four vessels were destroyed. Feversham's own complement of roughly 148 lost about 46 men, including her captain, Robert Paston; the wider Quebec expedition, wrecked separately in the St Lawrence weeks later, suffered a far larger death toll of roughly 890.

What was aboard

No single surviving manifest itemizes every coin aboard Feversham. Recovered coinage — a documented mix of colonial and Spanish silver — is treated by historians as representative of the pay assembled in Boston and New York for the expedition, rather than a confirmed complete tally.

Pay funds: Coin assembled to pay troops and sailors for the Quebec expedition, drawn from colonial and Spanish sources circulating in British North America.

Massachusetts silver: Pine Tree shillings and related Massachusetts Bay coinage, among the earliest colonial American issues, have been recovered from the site.

Spanish colonial reales: Silver cobs, including an eight-real coin of 1684, have been documented from the wreck.

Ship's fittings and ordnance: Guns and equipment consistent with a small fifth-rate frigate of the period.

How to collect

Separate Feversham losses from the wider expedition: The Quebec expedition's ~890 dead mostly belong to the later St Lawrence wrecks, not Feversham; do not let sellers conflate the two death tolls.

Verify coin type against the documented mix: Genuine site material should be consistent with Massachusetts and Spanish colonial silver of the period, not later or unrelated issues.

Ask for the recovery permit history: Nova Scotia's treasure-trove and heritage licensing framework should be traceable for any post-1970s recovery.

Be skeptical of exact coin counts: No comprehensive public inventory of everything recovered from the site has been published.