Nearly a year after Odyssey Marine Exploration recovered roughly $500-million in coins from a shipwreck it code-named “Black Swan,” the Tampa treasure-hunting company has finally gone public with the ship’s suspected identity.

Odyssey said Thursday that evidence may point to the Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes y las Animas, a Spanish ship that was blown up by the British off Cape Santa Maria, Portugal in 1804. The disclosure will have little impact on the protracted legal battle between Odyssey and the government of Spain as to who owns the vessel’s treasure, but the announcement confirmed what was already widely believed in Spain and elsewhere.

An attorney for the Spanish government said he would go “full speed ahead” with trying to force Odyssey Marine Exploration to give back the 17 tons of silver coins and other artifacts already removed from the shipwreck site last year. A customs form in the court file indicated the coins were raised from that general location and flown out of Gibraltar to Tampa.

Oddessy marine issues a press release in which Greg Stemm, Odyssey’s Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer said “As our Motion for Protective Order explained, we had hoped to maintain the confidentiality of information we consider to be speculative. Experience has shown us how difficult it is to prevent unwarranted speculation about the identity and potential value of our finds once the possible identity of a site is made public, but we also respect the need to make sufficient information public to satisfy the requirement to alert potential claimants.”

No doubt that the legal and public relations battle concerning the treasure will continue for some time. Odyssey officials believe the court will award them the majority of the treasure as the salver. Spain is arguing that it should all be returned because it was never expressly abandoned.

Editors Comment: However the legal issues play out, which is a topic far beyond my knowledge or capabilities to analyse, I do have a fundamental problem with the Spanish claims. Surely 200+ years is enough time to get off of ones ass and look for and recover property that you consider to be yours. I understand that it much easier to let someone else undertake the risks and do the heavy lifting, then parade yourself into court with self righteous indignation over ones cultural heritage being plundered. I wonder what the Inca and Mayan Indians think about all this?

Background Information: The MERCEDES was traveling in a small fleet of four ships returning to Spain from South America in 1804, carrying enormous quantities of gold, silver and jewels. Spain at the time was a neutral country, but was showing strong signs of alliance with Napoleonic France. Acting on British Admiralty orders Vice-Admiral Sir Graham Moore intercepted the Spanish ships and ordered the Spaniards to change their course and sail for England. The senior Spanish officer, Rear-Admiral Don José Bustamente, refused and opened fire on the British, leading to a short battle during which the Mercedes exploded.

A Spanish account of the Mercedes describes her as “breaking like an egg, dumping her yolk into the deep.” The account also goes on to say that the Mercedes didn’t sink, but that “the decks were awash.”

In a letter to Cornwallis, Admiral Moore stated that the four Spanish ships carried 4,436,519 gold and silver pesos, 1,307,634 of which belonged to the king of Spain. After the incident Spain declared war on England.

The Mercedes wasn’t the only wreck Odyssey tentatively identified Thursday. The company said it believes a ship it found near the English Channel in 2006 may be the Merchant Royal, a British merchant vessel that sank in 1641.