[A view of Endeavour River, on the coast of New Holland, where the ship was laid on shore in order to repair the damage which she received on the rock.]

Description

The first engraved view of Australia’s east coast printed in 1773, in the official accounts of James Cook’s first voyage and one of only a handful of c.18th images to depict the Endeavour.

The Endeavour a converted collier, was chosen by Cook because of it’s flat-bottomed design which allowed it to sail in shallow waters and to be beached for loading and unloading. Here it is shown careened for repairs near present day Cooktown. On Cook’s seminal chart of the east coast he gives the name, The Labyrinth,  to the maze of reefs now named the Great Barrier Reef.

Cook’s own account of the Endeavour striking the reef 10 June 1770;

‘before ten, we had twenty and one twenty fathom, and this depth continuing, the gentlemen left the deck in great tranquillity, and went to bed; but a few minutes before eleven, the water fhallowed at once from twenty to feventeen fathom, and before the lead could be caft again, the fhip ftruck, and remained immoveable, except by the heaving of the furge, that beat her against the craggs of the rock upon which she lay.‘. Cook Journal I, 3, 545-

‘In the morning of the 17th, though the wind was still fresh, we ventured to weigh, and push in for the harbour; but in doing this we twice run the ship aground.. In the morning of Monday the 18th, a stage was made from the ship to the shore, which was so bold that she floated at twenty feet distance.’ Cook, Journals I, 3, 556-7.

‘The next morning we went early to work, and by four o’clock in the afternoon had got out all the coals, cast the moorings loose, and warped the ship a little higher up the harbour to a place, which I thought most convenient for laying her ashore in order to stop the leak. …At eight o’clock, it being high-water, I hauled her bow ashore; but kept her stern afloat, because I was afraid if neiping her; it was however necessary to lay the whole of her as near the ground as possible.’ Thursday 21, June 1770. Cook, Journals I, 3, 559.

From Hawkesworth, John; Account of the voyages undertaken by the order of His present Majesty for making discoveries in the southern hemisphere