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Iwan Berry -
Recent work by American writer John Amrhein, author of the new book Treasure Island: The Untold Story, has unearthed a possible link between Robert Louis Stephenson’s 1883 book Treasure Island, and two buccanneering brothers from Rhuddlan.
Owen and John Lloyd, who started their careers as respectable merchant sailors, turned to piracy in 1750 when they stole from a Spanish galleon, the Guadalupe, after it was forced to dock in the port of Teach’s Hole, Ocracoke - the same island where the notorious Blackbeard was killed in 1718.The Lloyds had been entrusted with transporting the eight tonnes of silver pieces of eight and other treasure aboard the ship by its captain, Juan Manuel Bonilla, after it was damaged by a storm. The brothers had been victims of the Spanish during King George’s War, and exacted their revenge by stealing the Guadalupe’s booty. Like Stephenson’s renowned Captain Flint, Owen sailed to the West Indies and buried the Spanish treasure in the British Virgin Islands. Mr Amrhein said: “I would like to stress that this incredible, yet untold story is the prequel to Stevenson’s Treasure Island. Treasure Island is the story of going back to the island where treasure was buried in 1750. My book is the story on how it got there. “Further, there would be no Pirates of the Caribbean without Treasure Island, and there would have been no Treasure Island without the exploits of one Owen Lloyd from Flintshire.”
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