Lost 1623 - English merchant ship (Virginia Company supply ship)
Seaflower was a Virginia Company ship that knew both of the Company's colonies. In 1622 she had been at Jamestown, and letters carried home in her brought London its first news of the Powhatan uprising of March that year, which killed about a quarter of the Virginia settlers. After some debate the Company decided the colony was worth saving and loaded relief ships, Seaflower among them, with provisions, seed corn and obsolete weapons released by the Crown. One lot was a batch of out-of-date longbows which officials preferred to keep in Bermuda rather than risk them falling into Powhatan hands.
In March 1623 she lay in Southampton Harbour, today's Castle Harbour. Her master entertained Bermudian friends aboard, and while guests were drinking and smoking in the great cabin and the gunroom, a careless fire reached the powder. The ship blew up, killing about fourteen people, including the master's eldest son, who was her gunner. In Virginia the settlers waited for her corn through April, unaware she was lost.
Salvage was disappointing and dangerous. Hume counts one of the salvage divers, Morgan Gwynn, among the Seaflower's victims; the divers reported that they worked in great danger for very little reward. The authorities complained of boats pillaging chests that drifted ashore around St David's and Cooper's Island, and tried without success to blow up the hulk as a hazard. The wreck has never been found. Noel Hume pointed out that if the party celebrated her arrival rather than her departure, her longbows may still lie in Castle Harbour - the oldest after those of the Mary Rose.
The site is unknown: the Seaflower has never been located and there is nothing to dive. Castle Harbour is shallow but usually murky, with strong tidal streams around Cooper's Island. Anyone who comes across early remains there should leave them undisturbed and report the position to the Custodian of Historic Wrecks.