NEWPORT, RHODE ISLAND—Marine archaeologists investigating shipwrecks off the coast of Rhode Island say they may have found HMS Endeavour, according to a report in The Guardian. Known as the ship in which Captain James Cook traveled to Australia in 1770, Endeavour later served as a prison ship for Americans captured by the British during the War of Independence, and was eventually scuttled with 12 other vessels in 1778 to build a blockade before the Battle of Rhode Island. Kevin Sumption, director of the Australian National Maritime Museum, said divers are gathering samples of timber from five shipwrecks at one site in the Atlantic. At least one of the wrecks is said to be the size of Endeavour’s hull. “Most of the ships that were scuttled in Newport in August 1778 were built of American or Indian timbers [but] the Endeavour was built in the north of England of predominately oak,” Sumption added. If the tests show that one of the vessels was constructed in England, excavation around the wreckage site could produce further evidence of the ships’ identities, such as materials known to have been used on a prison ship. To read in-depth about the excavation of a 17th-century ship off a small Dutch island, go to “Global Cargo.”
