CLIVE OF INDIA’S gold, lost in a shipwreck off the coast of South Africa in 1755, has finally come to the surface and will be sold in London on September 28.

The hoard of 830 coins, worth about £3,000 at the time, is expected to fetch about £350,000 when it is auctioned at Spink. The treasure was found by two scuba divers but its discovery resulted in a legal challenge in South Africa in 1997.

Mark Rasmussen, one of the firm’s coin specialists, said: “The divers didn’t want to reveal the exact site of the discovery because it was in international waters and would compromise further research in the area. But South Africa claimed strongly that the treasure was stolen from Bird Island, which is inside their territorial waters off Port Elizabeth.”

The dispute ended in an out-of-court settlement. The gold coins on offer are a mixture of Portuguese and Brazilian issues, an international currency at the time, minted between 1727 and 1754.

Robert Clive, then 29, had already laid the foundations of British power in India. The soldier and administrator was on home leave in 1754 and set out from Dover for a second tour of duty aboard the Stretham.

But his chest of coins, representing a fortune for the period, was on board the Dodington, a much faster vessel in the five-ship convoy, which reached the Cape of Good Hope well ahead of the others.

She met heavy weather rounding the tip of southern Africa and ran on to rocks off Bird Island in Algoa Bay. The vessel was smashed to pieces within 20 minutes. Only 23 of the 270 passengers and crew survived. Clive, unaware of the tragedy, sailed on to Bombay. The Dodington was also carrying silver and plate, some of which was washed ashore and prompted squabbling among the castaways. But the gold remained lost until its discovery by the two divers. Individual coins are now expected to be sold for between £350 and £6,000.