COOKS OLD ENDEAVOUR

Shannon News, 24 February 1925, Page 3

COOKS OLD ENDEAVOUR

END OF A FAMOUS SHIP. NOT THE DUSKY SOUND WRECK. TWO VESSELS OF SAME NAME. In Faile Harbour, Dusky Sound on the south-western shores of the South Island, lie the remains of the first vessel to end her career on the coasts of New Zealand. About this wreck have clustered an astounding number of mythical tales. One of the most romantic was that told in 1882 by Messrs Angle and Gilroy. This was to the effect that the vessel was the Madagascar,, which had sailed from Melbourne with a cargo of gold.' The crew mutinied, the vessel was> burned, and the survivors, having buried the treasure and marked the spot with a pick, made for Lake Wakatipu. In "the time honoured way some fabled bcarcher discovered the pick and became rich beyond the dreamis of avarice. The tale of the deserted treasure ship even induced a syndicate of Sydney speculators to fit out an expedition which visited Dusky Sound to search for possible sunken gold. The most popular story of the wreck, however, is the one,, which time to time rises like the phoenix, identifying the wreck with Captain James Cook's famous Endeavour. Unfortunately this ~tory cannot be substantiated. - In May, 1795, one, Captain William Wright Brampton, arrived in Sydney in an 800-ton vessel,, the Endeavour, with a cargo ' of cattle from India. This vessel he had purchased in Bombay in May of the previous year. alter discharging her cargo, the Endeavour sailed for Dusky Sound, i'i company with the scow Fancy, on September 18, 1795. Soon after sailing the Endeavour commenced to leak badly, and on arriving at Dusky Bound she was fou'nd to be so unseawor thy that her captain was compelled to abandon her there. On October 25 she was unmoored, after the stores had been removed, masts and rigging ■ taken down and all fittings of value dismantled, and two days later she struck a rock and settled down. Such wais the wreck of the vessel destined to be for many years the inspiration of jnany and varied tales. The End of Cook's Endeavour. It was Left to the m late Dr Robert McNab to place beyond doubt that this vessel was not Cook's E'adeavoux". That indefatigable searcher after historical truth, in hiß "Murihiku and the Southern Islands," thus traces the vicissitudes of Cook's boat. In 1768 a vessel called the East Pembroke, budlt at Whitby, was purchased by the Admiralty, renamed the Endeavour,, and sailed with Captain Cook, a"nd in 1770 sailed round the southern portion of portion of New Zealand during February and March. On March 7, 1775. she was sold by the Admiralty for the sum of £645.

After this there are conflicting reports concern : ng the vessel. The Newport Historical Society (U.S.A.) claimed that slie was identical with La Liberte, a French vessel which ended her .days at Rhode Island, having been sold to an American, Captain Wm, Hayden, in France. This vessel arrived at Newport Harbour on August 23, 1793, from a whaling voyage near the Cape of Good Hope, was disabled attempting to leave Newport, subsequently condemned and sold, and was demolished in 1815 in Newport Harbour by a great gale. In the book quoted Dr McNab shows conclusively that the statement that the French La Liberte and Cook's Endeavour were identical is based merely on personal recollection, in the yeair 1824, of the statements of men who could only have known that to be so from hearsay. When this statement was first made, in 1834, all the nautical mel of Boston challenged it, saying that the Endeavour was then actually on the Thames, between Greenwich and Woodwich. Other evidence adduced shows that the Endeavour was on the Thames nine years before the time mentioned, when she was looked after by an old pensioner who obtained a livelihood by showing her to visitors. It is perhaps possible that the La Liberte may once have belonged to the Admiralty and may have been called the Endeavour. A sloop of war of that name was sold out of the service in 1783. At any rate, the contention that the Dusky Sound wreck is Cook's Edeavour is one that Dr McNab's researches have exploded, though it is interesting to remark that no less an authority than the late Captain Faiirchild is said to have held it to be correct. First Vessel Built in Dominion. It is interesting to recall that the crew of the abandoned Endeavour escaped .some on the accompanying vessel, the Fancy, and some on a small vessel which was called the Providence. In 1792 aMr William Raven had landed a sealing party at Dusky Sound, with stores for a 12months' stay* and these men had built and almost completed a vessel of the following dimensions:—4ft. 6in. keel, o&ft. length on deck, 16i't. 10in. beam, and 12ft. hold. She was built entirely of timber cut in the Sound, and as the first vessel to be built in New Zealand or Australia of - New Zealand wood, her building is an event of some historical interest. It was this vessel which had been abandoned on the stocks by Raven's- party, which was completed by the Endeavour party, named the Providence, and sailed by ■them, in company with the Fancy, to Norfolk laiand. Even these two boats, however, could not accommodate all the shipwrecked folk, and another boat was constructed from the frame of the long-boat of the Endeavour* and sailed to Sydney reaching, there on March 17, 179 G. There still remained 35 castaways at the Sound, who were eventually landed at Norfolk Island by an American vessel, the Mercury, after being 20 months in exile. Even , though it cannot claim to be the rest-

ing-place of Capta'ii Cook's Endeavour, Dusky Sound, as tl:o foregoing helps to show, certainly rnn.<claim to be what Dr McNab'. luus called it, "The most historic ground in New. Zealand."