CAPTAIN COOK'S SHIP

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23887, 15 August 1939, Page 15

CAPTAIN COOK'S SHIP

"THE ENDEAVOUR BARK"

CENTENNIAL STAMP CONTROVERSY Suggestions that the sketch of Captain James Cook's famous barque Endeavour, which appears on the Centennial penny stemp contains several serious errors (states the Dominion) are refuted by research in the Alexander Turnbull and the Wellington Public Libraries. Ample evidence supports the correctness of the principal details complained of. The Wellington Chamber of Commerce, in a letter sent by the secretary, Mr E. M. Bardsley, to the Directorgeneral of the Post and Telegraph Department, suggested that the ship shown in the stamp was not a " bark," but a full-rigged ship, that its sails did not appear to be drawing properly, the design of the bow was incorrect, and the spelling of the word "bark" was wrong, having from the earliest times been spelt " barque." The difference between a full-rigged ship and a barque is that the latter vessel has the mizzen, or rear, ;nast, fore-and-aft rigged, instead of carrying square sails. '• The ship shown in the stamp carries square sails on all three TYISSts In all known existing and authentic drawings of the Endeavour made by contemporary artists, however, she is portrayed with mizzen topsail yards This is the case in two sketches made by Parkinson, who sailed on board her and in the engraving of her careened in Hawkesworth's " Voyages," supposed to be done from a sketch made at the time The marine painter W. J. Huggins subsequently drew her as an orthodox barque. G. S. Laird Clowes and Cecil Trew say that it is not proved whether she originally carried a square mizzen topsail, absence of which denned the latter barque rig, but after refitting by the Admiralty she certainly carried this sail. Public records filed in London bear out the spelling used on the stamp The letter of instructions, sent by the Lords of the Admiralty to Captain James Cook on his appointment begins with the words "Whereas we have appointed vou First Lieutenant of H.M Bark the Endeavour " She. was registered as "H.M. Endeavour Bark" to distinguish her from the H.M.S Endeavour, then stationed at the Nore The Endeavour was a "cat-built bark," very bluff in the bow, as pictured in the stamp, and. unlike the majority of the King's ships, she carried no figurehead. This deficiency caused Cook considerable trouble as the Portuguese authorities at Rio de Janeiro declined to recognise her as a British naval vessel. The Endeavour is depicted in the stamp as sailing before a wind dead aft. as indicated by her burgee; and the sails are all shown full with the exception of the jibs, apparently flapEing empty in opposite directions lanketed by the foresail and fore tonsail

The vessel, before her purchase by the Admiralty for the expedition of which Cook was placed in command, was a Whitby collier. She was formerly known as the Earl of Pembroke was of 368 tons burthen, and from all accounts accorded closely with the general appearance of the boat depicted on the Centennial stamp. It was also remarked that to describe a full-rigged shiD as a barque would make New Zealand the laughing-stock of the world; but it appears that the term "bark" was in use long years before the restricted type of vessel to which it lias latterly applied made its appearance upon the seas. Indeed the term is recorded from as far back as the fifteenth century and not till the early nineteenth century did it acouire its present-day significance.