a few cannon of smaller size, and expendable ballast such 

 as stone, he said. 



It was these bars of iron ballast which had originally 

 excited Bill Thompson and the Criles when they first 

 dove on the wreck. I recalled Bill's hushed secrecy the 

 night he had told us about them. He was so sure they had 

 discovered a pile of silver bars. Today, with more experi- 

 ence behind me, I can understand his mistake, for it is 

 very diflBcult on the ocean bottom to distinguish between 

 silver and other metals, once they have become coated 

 with a black corrosion. 



Pete fixed the date of the ship's sinking between 1720 

 and 1750 for two reasons: the date of 1720 was the latest 

 to be found on any of the coins which had been retrieved, 

 and the cannon was marked with the crowned rose, an 

 insignia which was not used after the death of Queen Anne 

 in 1714. As the life of an iron cannon was only about 

 thirty-five years, Pete figured that such a cannon would 

 not have been aboard a ship later than 1750. 



Subsequent investigation revealed that Pete was right 

 in every respect. Returning to Washington with his data, 

 he searched through the casualty lists of the British Royal 

 Navy of the eighteenth century and found the entry, 

 "1743 [sic] Looe 44 guns, Capt. Ashby Utting, lost in 

 America." 



Of course, that was how Looe key had received its 

 name! Later we learned the complete story of the destruc- 

 tion of the Looe from the Admiralty records. 



His Majesty's Ship Looe had sailed from England in 

 August of 1743 under the command of Captain Ashby Ut- 

 ting, to carry Governor Chnton and his family to New 

 York and then "to attend on the colony of South Caro- 

 lina." She spent the remainder of the year cruising be- 

 tween Cape Florida and the northwest part of the Grand 

 Bahamas, under orders to protect EngHsh and Colonial 



The Florida Keys 21 



