The remarkable quest to identify Captain Cook's Endeavour
The announcement that a shipwreck in Newport Harbor, 200 miles up the coast from New York City, has been proven to be James Cook's HMS Endeavour, will not surprise those who have followed the search for years. In 1768, when Cook set out to record the transit of Venus in Tahiti, the first of his voyages of discovery, he was a mere lieutenant. The Endeavour was not the best of his ships, and the solo journey – two ships sailed on each of his second and third Pacific voyages – was not the most productive.
Every detail of what has survived of the timbers of ship 'RI 2394', matches the Endeavour's. Keel lengths are identical but for 20 centimetres. Garboard strakes are exactly the same thickness
Yet the Endeavour's extraordinary history, of which Cook's command was but an adventurous prelude, gives it an iconic status around the world, in different ways for different communities. The emotive power of the stories that swirl around its decaying timbers makes this a great find, and one that will further stimulate debate about the meaning and significance of its major expedition.
First, the history. The Earl of Pembroke, as the ship was originally known, was not designed to leave British waters; with a large, deep hold, it was a slow and steady conveyor of coal. The Royal Navy renamed it and gave it a complete refit, including adding guns and lining the hull with layers of tar-coated rags, wooden planks and White Stuff, a mix of whale oil, turpentine and other strong-smelling liquids.
It was refitted for the transit of Venus, a rare chance to make observations that would inform our understanding of the solar system. But it was also a pretext for a secret mission – Cook opened his sealed instructions in the Pacific – to go in search of a southern continent, then commonly believed to be necessary to balance out the land north of the Equator.
After stopping at other Polynesian islands and finding no polar continent, the Endeavour headed west and reached Aotearoa New Zealand, over a century after the only previous European visit. Having rounded both islands and claimed bits for George III (and shot a number of Māori people), Cook and his crew became the first outsiders to see the east coast of Australia. An industry is devoted to identifying the exact point where this occurred, an event that has divided peoples of Aboriginal and European descent ever since. Cook took the ship north, until it hit the Great Barrier Reef. With a lesser commander and crew it would have been wrecked, but luck and determination – all the guns were thrown overboard in the attempt to float it – the Endeavour reached land with a chunk of coral embedded in its hull.
Back in Woolwich, it was refitted for more naval service, making three voyages to the Falkland Islands before being sold. Repairs had been considered too costly, but in 1776 it was taken back by the government as the Lord Sandwich to carry soldiers to the American War of Independence. Arriving at a British garrison at Newport, it was converted into a prison. In 1778 it became one of 22 ships scuttled to create a barricade against an attacking French fleet. The following year Newport was in French hands. The long journey of the Earl of Pembroke/Endeavour/Lord Sandwich was over.
The scuttled ships' private owners wanted compensation. Some hulks were refloated, some were salvaged. Many remained partly above water, damaged by French shot and storms. Archaeological study of the seabed began when the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project (RIMAP) was launched in 1993. The Australian National Maritime Museum (ANNM), who partnered with RIMAP in 1999, had a particular interest in the Endeavour. While, as Dave Parham, Professor of Maritime Archaeology at Bournemouth University put it to me, RIMAP was more interested in looking than finding, ANNM was convinced that the Endeavour's rich contemporary records would make identification possible. When ANNM announced early success in 2022 – a 'political error', says Parham – RIMAP dismissed the claim.
The confirmation that the Endeavour has been found is the result of the extremely thorough examination that followed, of eighteenth-century ships' records, and underwater remains and artefacts, from strakes and futtocks to 'a handful of undecorated buttons'. The ANNM's report is among the best of its kind I have seen. Every detail of what has survived of the timbers of ship 'RI 2394', matches the Endeavour's. Keel lengths are identical but for 20 centimetres. Garboard strakes are exactly the same thickness. The timber types are right. And so on.
The Endeavour has lent its name to replica ships, Apollo 15's module, the ill-fated Space Shuttle and a SpaceX capsule. Its six cannon, long recovered from the Great Barrier Reef, now lie in museums around the world. The wreck's final discovery will resonate from Whitby, where the Earl of Pembroke was made, to the marine graveyard in Rhode Island, and all the places visited in between – Britain's ports and boatyards, Russia, the Falklands, Pacific islands, Aotearoa New Zealand, Indonesia, and especially Australia. Identifying the Endeavour was a long, cooperative project involving many people. Making sense of Cook's expedition, and reconciling its consequences, may yet prove more challenging.
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