HMS Endeavour - Final Resting Place

Final Resting Place

Endeavour’s end came in August 1778, when the British occupation of Newport was threatened by a fleet carrying French soldiers in support of the Continental Army. The British commander, Captain John Brisbane, determined to blockade Newport Harbor by sinking surplus vessels in its approaches. Between 3 and 6 August, a fleet of Royal Navy frigates and transports, including Lord Sandwich, were scuttled at various locations in Narragansett Bay.

The owners of the sunken vessels were compensated by the Admiralty for the loss of their ships. The Admiralty valuation for the sunken vessel recorded the specifications of Lord Sandwich as matching those of the former Endeavour, including construction in Whitby, a burthen of 368 tons, and re-entry into Navy service on 10 February 1776.

In 1834 a letter appeared in the Providence Journal of Rhode Island, drawing attention to the possible presence of the former Endeavour on the seabed of the bay. This was swiftly disputed by the British consul in Rhode Island, who wrote claiming that Endeavour had been bought from Mather by the French in 1790 and renamed La Liberte. The consul later admitted he had heard this not from the Admiralty, but as hearsay from the former owners of the French ship. It was later suggested the Liberty, which sank off Newport in 1793, was in fact another of Cook's ships, the former HMS Resolution, or another Endeavour, a naval schooner sold out of service in 1782. A further letter to the Providence Journal stated that a retired English sailor was conducting guided tours of a hulk on the River Thames as late as 1825, claiming that the ship had once been Cook's Endeavour.

In 1991 the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project, or RIMAP, began research into the identity of the ten transports sunk as part of the Narragansett Bay blockade, including whether the Lord Sandwich recorded as having sunk there was originally Cook's Endeavour. Evidence from the Public Records Office in London confirmed that Endeavour had been renamed Lord Sandwich, had served as a troop transport to North America, and had been scuttled as part of the blockade of Narragansett Bay.

In 1999 a combined research team from RIMAP and the Australian National Maritime Museum began examining known wrecks in the Bay, to determine if any could be Endeavour. In 2000, a site was identified containing the remains of one of the blockaded vessels, partly covered by a separate wreck of a twentieth-century barge. The older remains were those of a vessel of the same size, design and materials of Lord Sandwich, the ex-Endeavour.

Confirmation that Cook's former ship was indeed in Narragansett Bay sparked considerable media and public interest in confirming her location. However, while researchers were able to photograph relics at the site, including a cannon, an anchor and part of an eighteenth-century ceramic teapot, too little evidence existed to definitively establish that this particular wreck had been Cook's ship. In 2006, the Director of RIMAP announced that the wreck would not be raised.