Rhode Island Star

She was built as a merchant collier (a cargo ship designed to carry coal) and christened Earl of Pembroke. She was launched in 1764 from the North Yorkshire port of Whitby. Four years later she was purchased by the Royal Society and refitted as a research vessel. Renamed the HMS Endeavor, she would carry Captain Cook’s expedition to the Pacific to observe the 1769 transit of Venus across the sun and to search for Terra Australis Incognita – the “Unknown Southern Land.” When the expedition returned in 1771, Cook was promoted to Commander and the Endeavor was refitted as a naval transport. Then war broke out in the Colonies and the Endeavor was repaired and renamed Lord Sandwich 2 (because the name Lord Sandwich was already in use). She crossed the Atlantic carrying Hessian mercenaries to retake New York. The Earl of Pembroke/Endeavor/Lord Sandwich 2 is believed to have been scuttled during the Battle of Rhode Island in 1778.