Spanish Career
Oriflamme was not brought into the Royal Navy, but was instead sold into mercantile service. She appears to have then entered Spanish service, and was sold at auction to the company of Juan Baptista de Uztaris, Bros & Co.
She set sail on her final voyager on 18 February 1770, departing Cadiz under the command of Captain Joseph Antonio de Alzaga, with Joseph de Zavalsa as Master and Manuel de Buenechea as pilot. On 25 July she was sighted by the Gallardo, whose captain, Juan Esteban de Ezpeleta, knew de Alzaga. The Gallardo signalled to her with a cannon shot, but it went unanswered. The first officer of the Gallardo, Joseph de Alvarez, was sent to investigate and found that the Oriflama had been swept by a mysterious plague. Half the crew had already died, and the rest were dying, with only thirty men barely able to haul a sail.
De Alvarez returned to his ship and a boatload of supplies was prepared, but bad weather drove the ships apart and it was impossible to catch up with the Oriflama. It was reported that as the crew of the Gallardo prayed for the safety of the men of the Oriflama, a ghostly light illuminated the latter's sails and she was seen to sail away into the night. On 28 July wreckage of the Oriflama and some bodies were washed up on the coast of Chile near the mouth of the Huenchullami River.
The following spring Manuel de Amat y Juniet, the Viceroy of Peru, sent Juan Antonio de Bonachea, apparently a relative of the pilot of the Oriflama (Buenechea and Bonachea were interchangeable spellings), with trained divers to search for the wreck, but the search was abandoned in January 1772.
Read more about this topic: French Ship Oriflamme (1744)
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