Peru joins three-way fight for 204-year-old sunken treasure

The crew of Nuestra Seora de las Mercedes must have thought their ship had fought its final battle on the morning of October 5, 1804.

A little after 10 o'clock, their seven-month voyage from Peru, via Uruguay, to almost within sight of the Iberian peninsula came to an end with the British broadside that sent the treasure-laden frigate and 200 souls to the bottom of the Atlantic and brought Spain into the Napoleonic wars.

But after lying undisturbed on the seabed off Portugal for more than two centuries, the Mercedes is now at the centre of the biggest treasure grab in history.