CAPTAIN COOK'S SHIPS.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 258, 31 October 1929, Page 9

CAPTAIN COOK'S SHIPS.

DISCOVERY OF FIGUREHEAD

REPORT DISCREDITED.

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, this day. Lieut.-Colonel H. C. H. Burton, late of the Royal Artillery, writes to the Press Association from Nelson: "The reported discovery of the figurehead of the Endeavour is interesting. Unfortunately it is on record that when Captain Cook returned from his first voyage (the only one in which the Endeavour was employed) he reported to the Admiralty that he had been put to some difficulty in the Brazils because the Portuguese Governor refused to believe the Endeavour was a man-o'-wai , , owing to her having no figurehead, and Cook thereforeasked the Admiralty to furnish his ships on liis second and third voyages with figureheads, that they might be duly recognised asmen-o'-war.

"The absence of a figurehead on the Endeavour during the time- she was employed by Cook is further borne out by the original dockyard draft of the ship showing the alterations made to her by the Admiralty when she was purchased into the service for Cook's voyage. This drawing is now a valued possession of the Sydney Yacht Club. The vessel is shown with a straight stem and no figurehead. "These data are taken from a lecture on. Cook's ships by W. Laird-Clowes, the eminent naval historian, published in the 'English Geographical Journal' in its March, 1927, number."