I think most people have never heard this guy's name.
He had one of the greatest scores in pirate history.
Henry Every was the ultimate celebrity pirate.
People went nuts. And it results in
the first global manhunt.
We think it's more than a letter.
We think it's a treasure map.
[Josh] Any idea what the current value of this would be?
[Tyrone] In today's value, over $100 million.
[Josh] Here we are at the ends of the Earth.
Okay. Here we go.
[screams]
That is 100% a musket ball.
-[device beeps] -Ooh, big hit.
If I'm a pirate,
this is where I'm burying treasure.
It is the 18th century
and the lifeblood of Great Britain
is transoceanic trade.
So when the scourge of piracy threatens the empire,
King William III releases this,
his proclamation for the apprehension of pirates,
effectively declaring war against
the skull and crossbones
with a promise of mercy to any pirate who surrenders.
Except one.
There was one pirate so reviled, feared and ruthless
that the Crown refused any offer of clemency.
He was also the most successful pirate in history.
Yet, incredibly, you've probably never heard of him.
His name, Captain Henry Every.
On September 7th, 1695,
the so-called "King of the Pirates"
pulled off the greatest heist in maritime history,
capturing theGanj-i Sawai,
the richest treasure ship on the planet,
a score worth hundreds of millions of dollars today.
It ignites the first-ever global manhunt.
But, somehow, Every and his loot
disappear without a trace.
Now, more than 300 years later,
treasure hunters in the United Kingdom
believe they're zeroing in on his stolen fortune.
A centuries-old coded letter may point to a pirate cave
fit for One-Eyed Willy himself.
And a team of salvage divers think they may have uncovered the prize
in a graveyard of shipwrecks off the English coast.
Dead men tell no tales,
but I do.
And this one is a classic in the making.
It's time to hit the high seas
in search of the treasure of the Pirate King.
My name is Josh Gates...
Hello!
...explorer...
Here goes nothing.
...adventurer...
Hoo-hoo-hoo!
Ooh, that's a long way down.
...and a guy who ends up in some very strange situations.
[screaming]
I alive! For now.
With a degree in archaeology
and a passion for the unexplained,
I travel to the ends of the Earth
investigating the greatest legends in history.
Ready to rock and roll.
This isExpedition Unknown.
My hunt for Henry Every's treasure
begins in London on the banks of the River Thames
at a place where many a pirate's story
came to a sudden end.
Despite all the romance and adventure they inspire,
the truth is
very few pirates sailed off
into the sunset with their treasure.
Most met a bitter end,
many at London's Execution Dock.
Men convicted of piracy were hanged,
including six members of Henry Every's crew
in 1696.
Just up the stairs from Execution Dock is a pub
known as the Prospect of Whitby.
Inside, I meet one of the foremost authorities on piracy,
my old friend, Colin Woodard.
I've been lucky to have had Colin as my pirate whisperer
since my investigation into Olivier Levasseur,
AKA "The Buzzard."
All right, here we are again on the hunt for pirate treasure.
-Cheers. -Indeed, cheers.
And what better place than here at the Prospect of Whitby pub.
This is one of the oldest pubs in all of London.
It was founded in 1520.
Very unusual to be at a bar with a view of a noose.
-[laughs] I know, right? -Right?
Okay, let's talk about this guy Henry Every,
or Henry Avery, depending on how his name is spelt.
Other than a few books, including yours,
and the Unchartedvideo game,
I think most people have never heard this guy's name.
And that would have been absolutely shocking to people living in the 1690s
'cause Henry Every was the ultimate celebrity pirate.
He had one of the greatest scores in pirate history.
Blackbeard and Stede Bonnet were inspired by the stories of Henry Every
and the myths that surrounded him.
[Josh] He's the archetype. He's the genesis.
[Colin] He's the genesis.
So, let's make him a household name again.
Where does his story really start?
So, he was born in 1659 in a tiny English port,
a little village called Newton Ferrers
not far from Cornwall.
And he becomes, over time, a good sailor.
Well, he's involved with the Royal Navy
and serves on large ships of the line.
So he's an officer on kind of the battleships of the age.
So when does this life of crime emerge?
He sees a better opportunity and he takes it.
[Josh] That opportunity comes in the form of privateering,
basically state-sponsored piracy.
At this time, Spain and England are allies against France.
So English ships are encouraged
to pillage anything flying a French flag.
Henry Every becomes first mate on theCharles II,
an extremely fast and well-armed ship
which raided French vessels with abandon in the Atlantic.
Following one successful mission,
they put to port in a Spanish harbor.
The crew is anticipating a well-earned payday,
unable to go ashore until it arrives.
The money, however, never shows up.
And though the ship's captain begs for patience,
Henry Every isn't willing to wait.
So this is the moment.
This is where Henry Every is going to become a pirate.
This is the moment where he steps off the straight and narrow, for sure.
[Josh] Every organizes these forgotten sailors
and with 100 men stages a mutiny,
stealing theCharles II and fleeing the harbor
before the Spanish can even react.
The vessel is renamed theFancy
and becomes Every's flagship.
Colin has helpfully brought a map
to track Every's new life of crime.
This all goes down in Northern Spain, yes?
And so where does he go?
Every hightails it out of Spain on his boosted boat
and works his way south, raiding ships
and pirating supplies along the coast of Africa
and around the Cape of Good Hope
into the Indian Ocean.
Ultimately, though, where is he going?
Well, ultimately, he will end up here
at the mouth to the Red Sea.
[Josh] Henry Every targets this area
because it's the main trade route
for the Mughal Empire.
The Mughals were the Islamic rulers of India,
and their emperor was literally
the richest man in the world.
In 1695, Every comes up with a plan.
Ocean's Eleven on an actual ocean.
He puts together an armada of pirate ships
and stakes out the mouth of the Red Sea,
waiting for 25-ship Mughal fleet
to sail through on its way home from Mecca.
The annual Muslim pilgrimage there
was also the peak of the Mughals' trade each year.
These ships would be returning with all kinds of treasures
of Arabia and the Middle East.
You know, piles of elephant tusks
and incredible amounts of gold and jewels and the like.
This treasure fleet was the amazing score
that Henry Every had been looking for.
And the primary treasure galleon
of the emperor of the Mughal Empire
was this enormous floating fortress,
much larger than the Fancywas.
They knew that they would need
all the firepower they could get.
[Josh] The ship that theFancy is chasing
is the galleon called theGanj-i Sawai.
And it is the Mughal fleet's greatest prize.
TheGanj-i Sawai holds enough treasure to fund a country.
And Every has no intention of letting it go.
So how does Every pull this off?
[Colin] Well, they're hoping to catch them unaware
as they hide in some of the little islands
at the mouth to this channel.
But the fleet goes through silently.
There's like 25 ships in the treasure fleet,
and they miss the first 24.
But the very last ship, they actually notice it.
They pull up their anchors
and there starts this crazy, you know, like car chase
across the Indian Ocean that lasts for days.
Every and theFancy, being the swiftest vessel,
slowly close in on the grand treasure ship.
-[Josh] And? -They come alongside theGanj-i Sawai, finally,
and it looks like the sort of battle
that they would be, you know, doomed to be attacking.
You're attacking theDeath Star.
-There's no hope for you. -Right.
But they get very lucky.
The captain of theGanj-i Sawai
rolls out the guns,
he orders the gunners to train on theFancy...
[explosion]
[Josh] TheGanj-i Sawai attacks Every.
But a faulty cannon backfires, killing several crew
and giving theFancy a chance to respond.
Remarkably, their volley takes out the treasure ship's main mast.
The pirates board theGanj-i Sawai.
And when the battle is over, Captain Every and his crew
have grabbed treasure worth 500,000 English pounds,
the largest pirate score in history.
With 300 years of inflation,
that's over $100 million today,
an opening weekend even Disney would love.
However, no amount of money could wash away the stain
of what Every did to get it.
Every turns out to be a true villain.
I mean, the treatment of the people on this ship
is abominable, right?
When he captures this treasure galleon,
there's just this debauchery. Violence, executions.
I mean, it's just an absolute horror show on the vessel.
Word of this, I'm sure, travels fast.
It does, with remarkable speed.
Every had just created
a horrific international incident
with one of England's most important trading partners
and upset the East India company,
by far the most powerful economic entity
in the entire empire.
Back in England, heads must have exploded.
Oh, people went nuts.
And it results in the first global manhunt.
No one had ever seen anything like this,
an all-points bulletin throughout the world.
[Josh] The chase is on.
Every and his crew flee with their treasure
to the British colony of the Bahamas.
There, Every bribes the corrupt governor for safe harbor.
He also ditches theFancy for three smaller ships,
which his crew use to scatter from the law.
Some men stay in the Caribbean,
others hide in North America.
But two of the ships,
including one carrying Henry Every,
continue on to Europe.
The crew on one boat goes to England,
where they're quickly caught and hanged on Execution Dock.
As for Every, he sails straight for Ireland.
Why do this?
I mean, he's sailing literally back toward the viper's nest.
I mean, he's got this incredible amount of treasure,
and he, you know,
needs somewhere to go to ground with it.
Why not go to places where you have family?
And so he and a bunch of men
land on a sort of deserted stretch of coast
in Northern Ireland
and cross into Scotland
and then down towards Devon and Cornwall
where he was from.
And then?
Poof.
-Vanishes. -Disappears from the historical record.
So there are various myths about what became of him.
One that I've read is he dies penniless,
-drunk in a gutter somewhere. -Right.
Another version of the story that I've heard
is that he dies a pirate king, fat and happy.
[Colin] Exactly.
But the truth is...
-we have no idea. -We have no idea.
But what is striking, this huge treasure hoard
never really comes back on the map anywhere.
Yeah, and you're talking, you know,
hundreds of millions of dollars today
that he would have had on himself personally.
Right.
If you were a guy looking for Henry Every's treasure,
where would you look?
I would be looking in Devon and Cornwall
where there's many stories that he hid his treasure
somewhere along that coast.
All right. To Cornwall.
-Cornwall. Cheers. -Cheers.
I pay our bar tab,
and then by the light of a new day,
I take to the English countryside
to find Henry Every's fortune.
Well, we are headed to the southwest corner
of the United Kingdom to Cornwall
to meet a group of treasure hunters
that are not only convinced that they know
where Henry Every's treasure is buried,
they say they've got a handwritten letter
that proves it.
Hey, the sun is out.
And it's foggy.
Now it's raining.
Welcome to England.
It's a long trip but, fortunately,
I brought lunch.
This here is a Cornish pasty.
This is what they used to play rugby with.
It's huge.
It is the official dish of Cornwall,
invented in the 14th century.
Flaky dough filled with meat, potatoes, cheese.
Mmm.
And lava. Ow!
That's hot!
Hoo!
You gotta let 'em cool down.
So good.
It's like a Hot Pocket, but...
without the deep sense of shame.
A pasty or four later,
and I've gone 300 miles to the rough coast
where the English Channel meets the Atlantic Ocean,
a peninsula long-known as the Lizard.
On a windswept bluff,
I find my old friend, Tyrone Leech,
who I met in the Seychelles investigating the Buzzard.
Today, he's teamed up with treasure hunters
Adam Cochrane and Rob Jenner.
Tyrone, last time I saw you, I nearly drowned.
Yes. Hopefully it doesn't happen this time again.
-You promise? -I hope so, yeah.
-[laughs] -That wasn't a promise.
Here we are at the ends of the Earth.
Literally, we're at the very edge of the UK here.
Why here?
Well, we think Henry Every, the pirate,
buried his treasure right here.
-Right here? -Well, around here.
Okay. That's a bold claim.
Why do we think that?
Uh, well, we found a letter.
And it basically tells you
Henry Every buried his treasure around here.
Simple as that?
Yeah, pretty much.
Can I see it?
Oh, my word.
[Josh] Oh, my word.
First of all, it says "Every the Pirate."
So we're on the right track.
And, so, do we know
where this letter came from originally?
Uh, it was passed down through a merchant family here in Cornwall.
[Josh] On the western shores of England,
treasure hunters Adam Cochrane, Robert Jenner
and Tyrone Leech have a letter
that may lead to the lost fortune
of the notorious pirate king Henry Every.
And who do we think wrote it?
So we think Every originally wrote it.
And then, over time, it's been transcribed
by people who are actually doing their own searching for the treasure.
As they were looking for it themselves,
they added their own notes.
Right. We see little things scribbled in here.
[Rob] Question marks and stuff like that.
So the question is "What's in the letter?"
Well, we think it's more than a letter.
We think it's a treasure map.
So let's see if we can read it.
"On his return from India,
either landed or was shipwrecked near the Lizard,
where he buried three chests or boxes full of treasure
in the sands of the seashore."
We're off to a good start.
We're literally talking about buried treasure here.
And it mentions the Lizard.
And this whole peninsula is named the Lizard.
And it's been called that since the 13th Century.
Okay. That's really compelling.
And then after that, is it in French?
[Adam] Yeah. So it's in French,
but we've got a translated version here.
Okay, that's good. I took Spanish in high school.
So what does the French section say?
[Adam] Uh, so the French section says,
"East of Liz, there are three gray stones
or rocks in a cove..."
-[inhales] -With a question mark.
Yes. "Southwest of the three stones."
Okay. And so what are your three stones?
Right where we're standing.
These literal giant gray stones.
And, actually, this formation in Cornish
is known as Carrek Los,
which actually translates to "gray rock."
And it mentions the Lizard.
We've got the Lizard,
we've got a place known as Gray Rock.
And do we know what he's burying?
Does the letter mention that?
Yeah, there's an inventory in the letter.
"Precious stones, rubies, diamonds,"
-and then you've got gold, silver... -Okay.
Any idea what the current value of this would be, Tyrone?
In today's value, over $100 million.
-So, enough for all of us. -Yeah.
Then it switches back to English
and says, "It is near where the corner of a high promontory
juts out into the sea."
-High promontory? -Right behind you.
-These cliffs right here? -Absolutely. Right there.
And that is right above a beach.
[Rob] Right above a beach or cove.
A cove that has three chests full of treasure in the sand?
That's the hope.
So, has anybody gone down there
and searched that beach?
Well, we got permission.
So that's the plan.
All right, we got the Lizard, we got the stones,
we got the cliff, we got the cove,
now we just need the treasure.
Let's go find it.
[Josh] Look at this. Beautiful.
Welcome to the cove, Josh.
[Josh] I mean, if I'm a pirate,
this is where I'm burying treasure, right?
I mean, look at this coastline.
It's so Goonies,isn't it?
So, let's get to work.
Yeah, we got some people for you to meet.
-Other folks? -Yup.
-Other folks. -All right. Yeah, sure. Come on.
[Josh] If the British love anything,
well, it's boiling food.
But if they love anything more than that,
it's metal detecting,
as the group assembled here surely shows.
Look at this.
It's an army.
-[all chuckle] -What's going on?
Josh, meet the rest of the team.
What-- you guys are ready for battle here.
And is it a treasure-sniffing dog?
Gold-sniffing. Perfect!
All right. Should we get into it?
Let's do it. Come on. Here we go.
Thank you.
Last one to find treasure buys the beers.
We comb the beach,
and whether we have two legs or four,
everyone here is determined to find Every's loot.
I can feel it, Tyrone. This is it.
[detector beeping]
Ah-ha.
[detector beeps]
You know what that is?
It's a piece of scrap aluminum.
You ever seen that before?
Lots of times, unfortunately.
[Josh] The good news is we do find more in the sand.
The bad news is that it's this.
Found a bracket.
What do you think? Part of a...
Probably a light. Freezer--
Yeah. Part of a flashlight, maybe, right?
Dude!
It's a beer bottle cap.
Oh, [bleep].
But it is a San Miguel, so that--
It's from overseas.
Eventually, though,
the sand gives up something worth a close examination.
[detector beeping]
What have we got?
Something small.
-Ooh, right there. -Yeah!
-Is that a coin? -Maybe, maybe.
Is that...
Oh, no. No. It's a little ring.
It is a ring. Look at that!
Yeah. Yup.
Copper?
Copper, yeah, by the looks of it.
Um, I think possibly a pauper's ring.
-[Josh] Really old. -Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Probably I'd say 19th century.
Maybe a bit earlier. 17th.
[Josh] Look at that!
That is so cool.
So a pauper's ring?
Which would be like a simple wedding band.
A simple wedding ring, exactly.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not everybody could afford gold...
-Right. -...and, yeah,
they just hammer it out with a piece of spare copper.
That is wild.
Really beautiful.
Yeah. That's lovely.
[Josh] Isn't that unbelievable
to think that centuries ago,
maybe somebody lost this?
That's it. Yeah, I mean,
what a beautiful spot to do it as well.
-[Josh] Right. -Yeah.
Not a pirate treasure, but a real treasure.
Exactly right. A real treasure.
Yeah.
After hours of beachcombing,
I've picked up some interesting artifacts
and a decent tan.
But I'm hoping for more.
So, Tyrone,
we have pretty well scoured this beach,
I would say.
A few cool finds, but no pirate treasure.
Nothing yet, Josh.
But there is another place I think we should go search.
Okay. Where's that?
Remember in the letter,
they mentioned the word "cove."
-Yes. With a question mark. -Exactly.
What if it wasn't "cove"?
What if it was "cave"?
Ah-ha.
So we have a few sea caves along here
within our target zone
that I feel we need to really search.
Do you remember what happened last time we went in a cave?
I do, Josh.
I almost died!
I know. Sorry.
Are these dry caves, at least?
-Unfortunately not. -Oh, for God's sake.
Come on.
Long-standing rumors suggest
the treasure may have been buried
within a sea cave nearby.
So we leave Rob and Adam to continue metal detecting the beach
and prepare for a swim so relaxing,
it requires a helmet.
Tyrone, this is definitely the last time we're working together.
Unless we find some treasure.
That's a fair point.
Okay.
The cave where Tyrone wants to look
is inaccessible via land.
We'll need to get into the raging water
and hug tightly to the shore to get there.
Against my better judgment, we swim out into the ocean
and start moving toward the cave.
The water is frigid.
And even at low tide, we're getting a dangerous lesson
in how easy it is to get dragged out to sea.
Tossed around like rag dolls in the water,
we struggle around the coastline
until we find a way out.
Bruised and battered,
we manage to get out of the water.
[panting]
Never easy.
Then, I follow Tyrone,
three words that may be etched on my tombstone
as he leads me up the rocks closer to the cave entrance.
Incredibly, we've made it this far in one piece.
Those are the caves?
Oh!
That is a sea cave.
This is Tyrone's ridiculous idea,
so it's only polite that he should go first.
And then it's my turn.
[screaming]
Okay, here we go.
[screaming]
Whoo!
Ho-ho!
I'm off the coast of Cornwall, England,
on the search for Captain Henry Every's pirate treasure.
And I do mean "off the coast."
As if the tide isn't enough of a challenge,
turns out we're not alone in here.
Seals may be cute,
but they are also territorial
and potentially aggressive animals.
And right now, we're in this guy's living room.
Eventually, Mr. Whiskers swims out,
leaving the entrance open for us to pass.
On dry-ish land,
Tyrone and I only have an hour to work
before the tide comes in.
We hurry to search the temporary beach
with handheld metal detectors.
-Tyrone! -Yo.
Do you see something?
I'm trying to reach.
What is it?
Is that a golf ball?
Yeah, it's a golf ball.
Oh, look. They're everywhere.
This cave is just collecting everything that washes by.
That, or somebody's really [bleep] at golf.
We push further back into the cave
to see what else is in here.
[Josh laughs]
It looks like it goes further back.
You wanna see if you can get in there?
-I'll see, but... -Take a look.
-Can I borrow that one sec? -Yeah.
Hey, can you see anything?
I'm trying to get back.
But you--
You get back, you gotta be flat.
If we don't get out of here soon,
we're all gonna be flat.
That's a Gooniesreference, Tyrone.
Okay, come on.
Neither one of us is flat enough
to get into the crevice.
But we want to scan every inch of land here
before the tide swallows it up.
[detector beeping]
Got a hit!
Okay, let's see.
In here.
Oh, oh, oh, stop. You see it?
-Yeah, yeah, yeah! -Look.
It's heavy.
You know what that is?
Not a sinker, but... Is it lead?
Yeah, it's lead.
-It's a musket ball. -That's a musket ball.
Wow!
That is 100% a musket ball.
[Tyrone] Wow!
From golf balls to musket balls, right?
Crazy! Exactly.
Let's see if there's more here.
There's something here.
-You got something? -Yeah.
-Ooh, there! See it? -Yeah.
Look. Is it another one?
-Those are musket balls. -[laughs] that's crazy.
[Josh] Dude!
Unbelievable.
Could these musket balls be from Every and his crew?
They're definitely from the right time period,
so it's an encouraging find.
Now, though, the tide is starting to rush in.
I'm feeling my throat tighten up a little.
I don't think we have a lot of time.
Those waves are getting louder.
It sounds like thunder.
Okay, let's go!
We make our escape from the cave
as quickly as possible,
taking some side-eye from the seal on our way out.
The musket balls we found
are missing the smoking gun that proves Every was here.
But Tyrone and his team remain convinced
that the treasure is buried near their beach.
But the discovery of artifacts inside the sea cave
has me considering a line in Every's letter,
the one which says the treasure was either buried
or shipwrecked.
I can't shake the feeling the maybe this treasure
isn't so much buried as washen ashore.
And nearby, there are two researchers
who feel the exact same way.
So, from buried treasure to sunken treasure.
The team I'm meeting
is on the other side of a small Cornish town
that is synonymous with pirates,
Penzance.
Finally, a chance for me to show off my comprehensive knowledge
of 19th-century British light opera.
["I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General" playing]
♪ I am the very model of a modern Major-General ♪
♪ I've information vegetable animal, and mineral ♪
♪ I know the kings of England and I quote the fights historical ♪
♪ From Marathon to Waterloo in order categorical ♪
♪ I'm very well acquainted too with matters mathematical ♪
♪ I understand equations both simple and quadratical ♪
♪ About binomial theorem I am teeming with a lot o' news ♪
♪ Lot of news, lot of news Ah! ♪
♪ With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse ♪
♪ With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse! ♪
♪ In short in matters vegetable animal and mineral ♪
♪ I am the very model of a modern Major-General ♪
♪ In short in matters vegetable animal and mineral ♪
♪ He is the very model of a modern Major-General! ♪
[song ends]
The quiet seaside resort town of Penzance
never actually harbored any pirates.
In fact, the very idea of a pirate of Penzance
was meant to be ironic.
In modern times, though,
the people here know a good racket when they see one.
This is a pirate yarmulke.
Ahoy vey.
My sword.
-[man] Come on! -You try doing this with one eye.
Let me tell you something,
pirate depth perception.
It's a real disability.
Ow.
Damn.
We're getting thrown out of here.
With a lot of pirate junk in my trunk,
I continue my quest a short distance away
in nearby St. Ives.
In the 19th century,
an eccentric mayor here, John Knill,
spent years trying in vain to find Every's treasure.
How eccentric was he?
Well, he built this for himself as a mausoleum.
And it's here I meet Rob Stacey and Don Russell,
a pair of salvage divers
who think they're about to do what John Knill couldn't.
Hey, nice to meet you.
Beautiful view up here.
I keep meeting people in dramatic places on this trip.
And this is really dramatic.
-This is Knill's Steeple. -Yeah.
And John Knill, like a lot of people,
was obsessed with finding Henry Every's treasure.
This is true, yeah.
And like a lot of people,
-he didn't find it. -He didn't, no.
So are you guys bucking the trend?
Do you have some idea where it is?
-We're pretty sure we found it. Yeah. -We're pretty sure.
-Hold on. Pretty sure you found it? -We are, yeah.
Okay, well, what does that mean?
Where-- Well, how?
Well, Josh, you've seen the letter.
I've seen the letter.
[Don] In the letter, he states that the treasure
was taken ashore or shipwrecked.
And we think it was shipwrecked.
Okay, you think it's out there somewhere.
-It's out there somewhere. -Out there.
[Rob] We think we've actually stumbled across it.
Okay, I just need the coordinates from you.
Oh, do ya?
[both laughing]
Well, what have you found out there?
Why do you think it's shipwrecked?
Well, Josh, because of this.
-You found this. -We found this, yeah.
Is this Arabic?
That is an Arabic coin, yeah.
[Josh] The Mughal treasure ship where Henry Every made his fortune
was on its way back to India
from a trade expedition to Arabia.
This coin found 300 years and 4,000 miles away
from where it was minted
is surely not here by accident.
This is really interesting because this is a link
to Every's world.
There would have been Arabic coins aboard this treasure ship.
Anything else out there?
Well, yeah, there's a small cannon out there as well
that we've come across.
-Like a ship's cannon? -Like a ship's cannon, yeah.
-Near the Arabic coin. -Near the Arabic coin.
Now I'm interested.
When you found this and that cannon,
did you think Henry Every?
At the time, I didn't. No.
And so I didn't really tie it into that.
And I was chatting with someone
and then they mentioned about the Every letter.
And someone pointed out that, you know,
this could possibly be part of that.
Right.
How do you prove this is Every's shipwreck?
Well, after we find the treasure.
Fair enough. So how do you do that?
Well, we're gonna dive the site tomorrow,
and you're more than welcome to come along and join us.
You're diving it tomorrow?
-We are. -We are.
[Josh] It looks really cold out there.
[Rob] A gentle breeze.
[laughs] "A gentle breeze"!
Okay. I would love to come.
-You're more than welcome. -Are you kidding?
And what's my cut when we find the rest of it?
Well, let's negotiate that over a beer.
We can discuss it. We can discuss it.
The Arabic coin has done the impossible,
making me once again willing to dive back
into the waters off of Cornwall.
The next morning, we greet the dawn
in the port town of Falmouth.
Rob and Don have a small fleet
waiting to bring us to the wreck.
They didn't have GPS
to record exact coordinates of the cannon they found.
So we're going out with both a dive boat
and a scanning boat to relocate the target.
-Should we get into it? -Let's go.
Please, lead the way.
We push back from the dock and steam out into open ocean,
Henry Every's treasure dead ahead in our sights.
[Josh] I'm with a pair of salvage divers
off the coast of Cornwall,
where they're hoping to find the treasure
of the notorious pirate Henry Every.
It takes over an hour to tow our survey boat
to the area where Rob and Don found a cannon
from what they believe is Every's ship.
Now we're hoping to refind it.
[Rob] So here we are, Josh. This is the site.
-This is it? -This is it.
How big an area are we searching?
Well, we're probably searching around about a mile square.
Wow. Okay. So how do we begin?
Well, what would be nice to do today, Josh,
is go out on the smaller boat here with the magnets on
-and we'll do a survey up here... -Right.
...and hopefully at least locate the cannon we have.
If we get some hits on iron, those could be cannons,
that could be a more substantial part of the wreck?
That would be ideal, yeah.
Once we find those,
then we can start searching for the cargo.
Let's find it.
We transfer to the smaller survey boat,
which is equipped with a magnetometer
to scan for Rob and Don's wreck.
Okay, here we go.
Okay, Tow Fish is in.
The sensor, known as a Tow Fish,
will be pulled behind the boat to scan the seafloor.
Covering a square mile of ocean is a slow methodical job
that requires time and patience.
Team member Val is the one with her eye on the needle.
We're now in about 21 feet of water, Josh,
just off of the reef.
The previous wreckage we found being further inshore.
Um, and what we're hoping is that the bigger part
is actually down in the reef.
Then, hopefully, we're, uh...
on to a winner.
And how does this factor into the search?
Sorry. When we found Dory, one of our first jobs.
You were the ones who found Dory?
-We were the ones who first found Dory, yeah. -Wow.
And we're still hunting Nemo.
Just keeps swimming.
Where are you, Mr. Cannon?
You're out here somewhere.
[device beeping]
Something metallic down there.
[device beeps]
-Ooh, big hit. -[Rob] That sounds like we got a hit there.
Something right there. Can we tag that?
We can tag that now. Let's tag.
And again. Can we circle around
-and go over it again? -We can circle around and go back over it, yeah.
Rob makes a U-turn to confirm the magnetometer hit.
Okay, Don, we're on the spot now.
-Let's see-- -[device beeps]
-Yeah, we got a hit. -[Josh] Oh, there it is.
Hit again. In the same spot?
Hit. Exactly the same spot.
Time to get wet?
It's time to get wet.
[Josh] We drop anchor
and the three of us prepare to dive into water
that's barely hitting 45 degrees.
I'm staying warm today.
Dry suit, baby.
The waters off Cornwall can be vicious.
But, as you can see,
that's not the case right now.
That's because we're working in a tight window
called slack tide,
with only a half an hour
before the waves and current return.
When they do, they'll either drag us out to sea
or bash us against the reef wall.
[Josh] We've brought metal detectors
to find whatever set off the magnetometer,
which may be buried under centuries of shifting sands.
[Josh] The musket balls are exciting.
But the die is something unique.
There's little that's more personal than this,
something that a sailor held in his hand
hundreds of years ago.
To move a lot of sand in a hurry,
Don brings over a motorized scooter.
The blower moves some serious sand.
Unfortunately, it moves it into our faces
and takes valuable seconds to settle.
But it's worth it.
After 300 years,
there's not likely to be much left of any shipwreck.
But these fragments of milled wood
mean we may be exactly where we hoped to be.
We continue to metal detect the seabed
in hopes that there's more down here.
[Josh] I hope you were impressed
by my version of the Major-General's song
fromPirates of Penzance.
I also hope you don't think I did it in one take.
["I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General" playing]
♪ I am the very model-- ♪
Oh, [bleep].
♪ Lot of news, lot of news Ah! ♪
♪ With-- ♪
[bleeping]
Almost had it.
♪ I know the-- ♪
[laughs in frustration]
[humming]
[singing incoherently]
"Very good at physical and differential calculus."
[bleep]
[singing out of time]
[fumbles lyrics]
[bleep]
["I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General" continues playing]
Long drive.
[Josh] We're hoping the English Crown
means that we're on top of a larger find.
With only a few minutes of slack tide left,
we continue to blow down into the sand
and to frantically metal detect the bottom.
[detector beeping]
[Josh] We've just unearthed an Arabic coin,
similar to the one Rob and Don found
on their first dive here.
It is a major find
because Every's big score was theGanj-i Sawai,
which was ladened with treasure from Arabia.
The Arabic coin is a mind-blowing discovery.
Unfortunately, it's the last thing we're going to find today.
[Josh] The slack tide is ending
and the current begins to pull us out to sea.
We quickly surface and climb back aboard the boat
to get a closer look at our haul.
Let's start with that big coin.
[Rob] I'm not sure what it looks to me.
-[Josh] It's a cross. We have a cross. -Looks like a cross
with the four shields, as well.
-Yes. This is English, yes? -Yeah.
[Josh] And this is who? This is, uh...
[Rob] That would be William III.
[Josh] William III. There's a three right there.
This puts us in the period, yes?
That puts us right bang-smack in the period.
Couldn't be better.
And look at this. Look at the condition of it.
-I know-- -Just sitting down there.
It's solid silver,
so it's just clean as when it was minted.
-Yeah. -Worn, but clean.
[Rob] Yeah. It's just amazing.
God, that is unbelievable.
And then this is a die right?
[Rob] This, yeah, well, I wasn't sure at first,
-'cause of its shape. -Right. It looked like a musket ball.
You can see the little pin pricks in it.
[Rob] It's just amazing.
Because I believe that gambling was actually banned on pirate ships.
Looking at the shape of it,
I say it was probably a musket ball
and then they've just flattened it on the sides.
-[Josh] Right! -That would make sense.
It's unbelievable!
-And... -And then this coin.
[Josh] This was, I thought, the showstopper.
[Rob] This is just amazing.
-[Josh] This is Arabic script here, yes? -It is, isn't it? Yeah.
This is definitely Mughal.
There's no two ways about it.
-This is a Mughal coin. -That is a Mughal coin.
-This is as close to a smoking gun as we've seen. -That is.
And tied in with those other coins is cast-iron proof
that that has got to be off of one of the Every ships.
Certainly, this Mughal Empire was huge.
They were controlling a lot of trade.
But taken with the musket balls and the cannons
and the other coinage from the right period,
it's hard to imagine this isn't part
of the Henry Every story.
So, now what?
Well, now we have to continue mag-ing that area.
And we need to find the rest of that vessel.
Well, according to history, there's about...
$100 million worth of it sitting out there.
That'll be nice.
It'd be really nice.
This may be just the beginning.
Let's just hope so.
-Nice work, brother. -We've done it. Yeah.
-Absolutely. Fantastic. -Awesome job.
-Nice one, Don. -Absolutely amazing.
Yeah.
Look at that.
Is this the resting place of Henry Every's last ship?
It just may be.
The necessary elements seem to be here.
Now it's up to Rob and Don to find the final pieces of the puzzle.
History tells us that Captain Henry Every was a vicious man
who thrived in a violent era.
But in the 17th century, as today,
even the most heinous of crimes
could be mistaken for entertainment.
Far from repulsing his peers,
the tales of Henry Every's exploits inspired them,
ushering in what we now think of as the age of pirates.
Yet the archetype, the man himself
who committed the crime of his century,
simply disappeared from history.
So what really happened to Henry Every?
His remains an unfinished story,
albeit a bloody one.
But perhaps the happy ending
is reserved not for the pirate,
but for the treasure hunters
who finally find his missing millions.