Model of the ship La Flora, a 58-gun ship cut down for transporting supplies

This is a model of a fully-rigged 2-decker 58-gun ship with its topsails unfurled and the others furled. It has a high raked prow with a gilded figurehead of a crowned lion with red jaws and embedded ivory for the eyes. The model was built with painstaking accuracy, as can be seen in its detail: the officer of the watch’s table on the quarterdeck; the awning of foldable panels protecting the hatchway leading to the officers’ mess deck; the housing or binnacle in the captain’s room in which the compass would have been kept, mounted behind the spanker mast and now shown on the side of the model; the hammocks stowed in the rails of the gunwales in nets hung from metal stanchions and covered with tarpaulins; and the beautifully decorated stern.

Three similarly-sized frigates named Flora served in the Spanish Navy. The first, a 34-gun ship, was supposedly built in Guarnizo in 1734 although there are doubts over whether it existed at all. The second Flora (alias Santa Rosalía) was a 24-gun ship that was built in Havana in 1747 and remained in service until it was lost in Cuba on January 26, 1768. The third, a 40-gun ship, was launched in Ferrol in 1795 and survived until it was dismantled in Montevideo, as decreed by a Royal Order dated April 3, 1812. The model’s features are unusual for a representation of a cut-down 58-gun ship, with the lower gunports closed so that it could be used for transporting supplies or for merchant sea transport by the Spanish treasure fleet.
Unlike the large fleets that plied the Atlantic during the 16th and 17th centuries, those of the 18th century tended to have between 5 and 10 merchant vessels with a capacity of 200 to 300 tons, escorted by 2 or 3 warships, usually equipped with 40 to 50 (or, at most, 60) guns. Generally speaking, the regulation issued on April 5, 1720 for trade with the West Indies in galleons, fleets, and independent ships was complied with. This established in law a requirement that all ships used for this purpose had to be made in Spanish shipyards. They covered the routes running in both directions connecting the ports of Cádiz, Havana, Veracruz, and Cartagena de Indias.