CAPTAIN COOK AND HIS SHIP.

Colonist, Volume LIV, Issue 13277, 30 November 1911, Page 4

CAPTAIN COOK AND HIS SHIP.

The recent discovery on a reef in northern Australia of au old cannon believed to have belonged to Captain Cook's ship, the Endeavour, is not the only record to be handed down to posterity of the famous navigator'B vessel. By the efforts of the troasurer of the, Australasian Pioneers' Club, tho original shipwright's plans of tho little vessel have been added to tho club's collection of documents connected with Australian history. They wero rescued from the flames by a Mr. Maitlandj, the owner regarding the mas mere rubbish. It. is a -dMcult matter to trace their career since 1768, when they ceased to be of definite use.' All that is known is that the plans wero once in the possession of a man named Korff, a naval carpontor, who used long ago to have a shipyard on the Hunter river, and who was a descendant of ono Jordan, of tho crew of the Endeavour. As to tho authenticity of Jhis interesting document, experts who have compared it with other representations, declare it to be the original genuine draft preparod by the Admiralty authorities for tho direction of Dcptford Yard, the object being to give more suitable and ample accomodation on the Endeavour, partly for Captain Cook himself, but principally for Sir Joseph Banks. Before the Endeavour made history, she was called the Earl of Pembroke —"a cat-like bark"—and was presumably employed as a merchantman, but was rechristened and remodelled, being purchased by the Admiralty in 1768. She was less than 100 ft. long, no broader than 30ft., and not more than 367 tons in burthen. It was in the Endeavour that Captain Cook surveyed the coast of New Zealand, and took formal possession of tho island for tho King on January 30th, 1770 Before this sho had mado other voyages of importance, notably the journey to Tahiti to' observe the transit of Venus in 1769. An Australian writer states that the general opinion is that afterwards the vessel was sent to the Falkland Islands as a storoship, and in 1775 was sold by the Admiralty, and resumed duty as a collier, for which purpose she was originally built. In 1789 she was sold in Franco, and her name changed to La Liberto. In 1789-90, after having been fitted out as a whaler, she sailed from Dunkirk, and in 1791 or 1793 was chased into Newport (U.S.A.) Harbour by a British frigate, and subsequently, authorities are now pretty well agreed, sho was condemned, dismantled, and sold, a great gale in Nowport Harbour in 1815 demolishing the hull. In 1827 a piece of the hull was dragged from tlie mud, and a souvenir was made from it and presented to Fenimore Cooper,