Divers find 1784 British shipwreck

LONDON, Sept. 18 (UPI) -- Two divers say they have found the wreck of the Nancy, a vessel bound from India to London that sank in 1784 off the Scilly Isles.

Todd Stevens and Ed Cumming said they spent a decade looking for the wreck, The Scotsman reported. They found it after realizing other searchers had been looking in the wrong place, mistaking the place where a lifeboat broke up on the rocks for the wreck.

"This has always been one of the most intriguing wrecks to go after," Cumming said Wednesday. "It has everything -- a beautiful actress, a tragic shipwreck and a lost fortune. We are still trying to piece together the human stories around the wreck but we are sure we have found her. We have found the anchor, one of the guns and some bits and pieces. The weather has been awful so diving's extremely difficult.''

The Nancy's best-known passenger was Ann Cargill, an opera singer who went to India with her lover in 1783, only to be ordered out of the country. She was still clutching her illegitimate baby when her body was found.

Cumming and Stevens have become guardians of the wreck through the National Archaeology Society.