ARRRR, plunder on the high seas!!Follow

http://www.guardian.co.uk/spain/article/0,,2192773,00.html

This time it's the Spanish raiding American Treasure ships!! AHOY!

A Spanish warship forced a US treasure hunting vessel back into port at gunpoint yesterday as it tried to leave Gibraltar in the latest episode in a battle over what is claimed to be the world's largest recovery of treasure from the sea.

How hysterical. Too bad privateering went the way of the Dodo..

Apparently the company will not disclose the location or the Nation to whom the sunken vessel belonged...
but I dunno... Should centuries old plunder from sunken ships beyond a nations borders be given back to it's Nation of origin? EVEN THOUGH that "nation/empire" technically kinda doesn't exist anymore??

I'm not sure exactly how you'd determine it in most cases. Assuming the treasure is in the form of gold or silver, it was almost all melted into bars for the journey for easier carrying and equal distribution of value. Part of the shame of the Spanish conquest of the New World empires wasn't just the plunder of the artworks but that they were destroyed so we can't even place them in museums today. So how do you tell if a silver bar was from Argentina or Peru or Bolivia?

They are still in coin form... but since the Spanish Piece of Eight was used by everyone... I don't see how Spain can will this argument... If anything the money should go to the starving people in the West Indies...