Captain Cook's Endeavour found off coast of America

By Aussiegirl

As a child growing up in Australia I learned about the exploits of Captain Cook the way American children learn about Christopher Columbus. Here's a fun bit of news about how Cook's ship wound up wrecked off the coast of America.

Captain Cook's Endeavour found off coast of America

The ship in which Captain James Cook claimed Australia for the British crown is resting at the bottom of an American harbour, archaeologists said yesterday.

The Endeavour ended her days as part of the British war effort against rebellious American colonists in Newport, Rhode Island.

Marine archaeologists say the ship was renamed the Lord Sandwich and pressed into service during the successful defence of the town against the French in 1778. Endeavour was one of 13 vessels scuttled in the harbour entrance to keep the French at bay.

[...]Renamed Lord Sandwich, the ship was used to transport Hessian mercenaries to America at the start of the Revolution. It was later converted to a prison ship and used to hold prominent American rebels.

By 1778, as the Americans and their French allies planned to attack Newport, its British defenders began to fear that the deep water channel nearby provided the French navy with a means to bombard the town, so the mass scuttling followed.