Said to contain £16,000,000 in gold and silver. (1)(2)

This record has been retained for completeness since it has been included in source (1) and reproduced in source (2), both secondary sources. However, it appears unsupported from primary sources, including the name of the vessel and her supposed location and fate.

27-JUL-1588 was the prelude to the English attack on the Armada at Gravelines, south of Dunkirk, on the opposite side of the English Channel.

Lists by the Duke of Medina-Sidonia, sent to the Spanish King, and reproduced in C Fernandez Duro, La Armada Invincible, tom. ii, p60ff, and in English by the Navy Records Society, ed. John Knox Laughton, State Papers Relating to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada, Vol. II, pp376-381, reveal no ship of the name PEREIRA within the Armada (4), nor does this incident appear in the Calendar of State Papers Spain (Simancas), Vol.4, 1587-1603. The Calendar of State Papers Domestic, Elizabeth I, Vols. 213-214, note no such incident on the coast of Kent, despite much English activity on the Kent coast with regard to the Battle of Gravelines.

Vol. 215 reveals the possible origin for this supposed wreck in an account dated August 28/29. As calendared (3), it reads:

August 28, Dover. Lord Adm[iral] Howard to Walsingham . . . A very great hulk had been driven into Dover Road. (3)

August 29, Howard to Walsyngham:

' . . . There came into the road here yesternight against his will a very great hulk that came from Lisbon. I do understand by them that there were 12 ships laden with victuals to come to the [armada] thinking to find them here. They say certainly they will come this way.

'I do hear there rideth divers ships under Beechy [sic]. Those ships that go with Captain Sampson and Mr Knyvet shall speak with them, for it is in their [way. I have] gotten of the master of the hulk the names of the masters of [those] ships that bringeth the victuals out of Spain; so as I doubt not but if [they come] this ways but that they shall be met withal.

'Sir, God send you well to do . . . From Dover, the 29th of August. Your assured loving friend, C. Howard.'

This suggests that the incident is grounded in the above report of a Portuguese hulk a month later coming into Dover Roads, but this hulk was blown into the Roads by adverse weather on the French and Flemish coasts, reported elsewhere in (4). This, however, simply relates to a navigational incident rather than a wreck event, and there is no indication of the vessel's name in these sources. However, the name PEREIRA, of Portuguese origin, attributed in source (1) to this vessel, and reproduced in (2), suggests the affinity of this supposed wreck with the above-quoted primary sources.

Additionally, the wreck of such a cargo to this value would have been noted in the primary sources as of interest to the exchequers.

Date of Loss Qualifier: Reporting date of loss

Additional sources cited in Shipwreck Index of the British Isles:
Fell's Guide to Sunken Treasure Ships of the World

<1> United Kingdom shipwreck index, Page Nos. N/a (Bibliographic reference). SKE6340.

<2> Larn, Richard and Bridget, 1995, Shipwreck index of the British Isles, volume 2 : Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Sussex, Kent (Mainland), Kent (Downs), Goodwin Sands, Thames (Bibliographic reference). SKE31910.

<3> Calendar of State Papers Domestic (Bibliographic reference). SKE6354.