LAST OF THE ENDEAVOUR.

The good ship which had so bravely borne her part, was not given much rest; but after being paid off at Woolwich, was despatched, under lieutenant James Gordon, to the Falkland Islands on 16th October, and returned with "perishable and unserviceable" stores; in 1772 and 1773 she again made voyages to the same destination, the last one to bring away the garrison and stores, as those islands were to be handed over to Spain. She was paid off at Woolwich in September 1774, and shortly afterwards was sold out of the Navy for the sum of 645 pounds. She is then believed to have been employed as a collier in the North Seas. Mr. Gibbs, of the firm of Gibbs and Canning of Newport, Rhode Island, one day pointed out to the English Consul the remains of an old vessel falling into decay, and informed him that it was Captain Cook's ship, the Endeavour. His story was that the French Government being anxious to compete with England in the whale fishery, offered a bounty to the ships in that trade sailing under the French flag. A Mr. Hayden purchased the old ship from a Dunkirk firm and re-christened her La Liberte, loaded her with oil and consigned her, under French colours, to Gibbs and Canning at Newport. She was chased by an English ship, but escaped, and after laying alongside a wharf for some months received a cargo, but running aground in trying to leave the harbour, she was found in such a bad condition that she was allowed to remain to drop to pieces. Enquiries into this story gave satisfactory results, and a box made from her timbers was presented to J. Fennimore Cooper, the American author, with letters authenticating, as far as possible, the vessel from which the wood had been taken. Miss Cooper mentions this box in her preface to her father's Red Rover, and several other relics of the old ship are still to be found in the neighbourhood of Newport.