plate ship

plural plate ships

1. historicalnauticalA galleon, especially a Spanish one, carrying a cargo of precious metals and other treasure.

   She carries not only the West Indies pay chests but also the money for the regiments in the north—in fact she’s as rich as a plate ship—and all good English money too—

   1948, Andre Norton, chapter 14, in Scarface, New York: Harcourt, Brace, page 198

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   Nor had the English Nation any Benefit of the Two Ships taken by Blake in September 1656 off the Coast of Spain; where one was sunk, another burnt, and two broke to pieces on the Shoar; so that of eight Plate Ships, but two got into Cadiz:

   1697, Roger Coke, chapter 2, in A Detection of the Court and State of England during the Four Last Reigns and the Inter-Regnum, London: Andrew Bell, page 388

   1742, Lord Cholmondeley, Debate on Trade and Navigation, 1 June, 1742, in Samuel Johnson (editor), Debates in Parliament, London: John Stockdale, 1787, Volume 2, p. 219, By serving the merchants, they […] enjoy the prospect of a near and certain advantage; they have not indeed any expectations of being suddenly enriched by a plate ship, and of gaining by one engagement such wealth as will enable them to spend the rest of their lives in ease and affluence; but they are sure of a speedy payment of their wages […]

   1803, John Browne Cutting, “A Succinct History of Jamaica” in Robert Charles Dallas, The History of the Maroons, London: Longman and Rees, Volume 1, p. xlix, […] Sir William Phipps […] had discovered the wreck of a Spanish plate ship that had been stranded in 1659, on a shoal to the north east of Hispaniola. By the efforts of skilful divers sent out in sloops from Jamaica, twenty-six tons of silver were said to be recovered.