In May 2016 there were news reports from the United States claiming that the remnants of the 18th century Royal Navy bark Endeavour, used by Lieutenant James Cook on his first voyage of exploration in the Pacific in 1768-71 (during which he circumnavigated New Zealand and mapped the east coast of Australia), had been found on the harbour floor at Newport, Rhode Island. Only on closer reading did it emerge that such ‘news’ was very much overblown: no wreckage had yet been found, while the general location of Endeavour’s resting place was not exactly newsworthy since it had long been known that the ship had been among more than a dozen purposely sunk by British forces in Narragansett Bay in August 1778, to implement a blockade of Newport during the American War of Independence.
What was actually being reported was that the probable location of Endeavour had been ‘narrowed down’, thanks to documents recently discovered in Britain, to a section of seafloor in a channel that contained the remains of a group of five 18th century ships believed to have been scuttled by the British to block Newport Harbor. Even this more modest claim was, however, sufficient to trigger speculation about what might be found once these sites were excavated, and whether there was any prospect of Endeavour artefacts eventually making their way to Australia.
On neither count was there much ground for optimism. Legally, whatever remained of the block ships were the property of the State of Rhode Island, and US authorities were under no obligation to share anything with other countries—not even Britain, let alone Australia. Moreover, after nearly 240 years on the seafloor there would not be much left to find of what might have been Endeavour—probably no more than 10-15 per cent of the original structure (most likely parts of the keel and a few ribs or hull timbers) and piles of rocks which once formed the ship’s ballast.
While there was a possibility that excavation might recover small items such as leather, metal, bone or ceramics, there was another pertinent factor that could not be ignored: any relics could not be regarded as having come from Endeavour, because that ship had changed identity by the time it met its end off Newport. Within weeks of Cook’s return to England in 1771 Endeavour was refitted as a naval transport and used for three resupply voyages to the Falkland Islands before being sold out of the Navy in 1775. It was only the start of the American Revolution that prompted the Navy to rehire the ship from its civilian owner in February 1776, again for transport duty, but under the name of Lord Sandwich 2 (there being already another ship in use called Lord Sandwich). Whatever turns up from the murky waters of Narragansett Bay, therefore, is unlikely to have much provenance with the ship Cook used on his voyage to Australia.
While the significance of developments taking place in the US may have been overplayed, there was, however, considerable synchronicity between the fate of Endeavour and the later story of James Cook. Following Cook’s first voyage into the Pacific, he was promoted Commander in August 1771 and next year led another scientific expedition on behalf of the Royal Society, this time with two ships called Resolution and Adventure. The voyage was intended to establish whether there was another land mass (the fabled Terra Australis) south of Australia and New Zealand, and led Cook into the Antarctic Circle before he got back to England in 1775.
Promoted Captain on his return, in 1776 Cook embarked on his third voyage to the Pacific—this time tasked to find the Northwest Passage that was thought might exist across the top of North America and Russia. Again commanding Resolution, in company with a second ship Discovery, he reached the island of Kauai in the Hawaiian group in January 1778 and named the archipelago the Sandwich Islands (after the Earl of Sandwich, then First Lord of the Admiralty). By this stage, Cook’s former ship Endeavour (now Lord Sandwich 2) had been serving in America for more than 18 months and was only six months away from going to a watery grave off Newport. Cook himself did not have long to live.
Departing Kauai in February, Cook spent the next nine months exploring the west coast of North America and entering the Bering Strait until blocked by sea ice, whereupon he sailed west and continued exploration of the Pacific coast of Siberia. By November he was back in Hawaii looking for a suitable place to rest and refit his expedition. In January 1779 he anchored Resolution and Discovery at Kealakekua Bay, on the west coast of the big island of Hawaii. After enjoying an initial period of good relations with the local inhabitants the visitors became embroiled in a dispute ashore which resulted in Cook and four of his marines being killed on 14 February—just six months after Endeavour/Lord Sandwich met its end.
Reinforcing this chronology for me personally was a cruise holiday of the Hawaiian Islands that we took a month after the news reports appeared regarding Endeavour’s supposed rediscovery. On a sunny afternoon in June 2016 we stood on the deck of a cruise boat taking us on a tour of historical sights on the coast south of Kona. As our boat edged into the sheltered cove of Kealakekua Bay, facing us on the shore was the white obelisk commemorating Cook’s death. What was once an important ceremonial site for native Hawaiians is these days an inhospitable and inaccessible spot, popular mainly with snorkel-divers.
(Left) Nathaniel Dance-Holland’s 1776 portrait of James Cook; (centre) depiction of Cook’s death painted by George Carter in 1783; (right) monument erected in 1874 near where Cook is believed to have been killed at Kealakekua Bay, pictured in June 2016