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 Resolution and Adventure with fishing craft inMatavai Bay byWilliam Hodges, painted 1776, shows the two ships at anchor inTahiti in August 1773. | |
| History | |
|---|---|
.svg) Great Britain | |
| Name | HMSResolution |
| Builder | Thomas Fishburn,Whitby |
| Launched | 1770 |
| Acquired | November 1771 asMarquis of Granby[1] |
| Renamed |
|
| Fate | Unknown, last sighted 5 June 1783. Fate disputed. |
| General characteristics | |
| Class & type | ex-mercantilecollier |
| Tons burthen | 462bm |
| Length |
|
| Beam | 30 ft 6 in (9.30 m) |
| Draught | 13 ft 1 in (3.99 m) |
| Propulsion | Sails |
| Complement | 112, including 20 marines[2] |
| Armament |
|
HMSResolution was asloop of theRoyal Navy, a converted merchantcollier purchased by the Navy and adapted, in which CaptainJames Cook made hissecond andthird voyages of exploration in the Pacific. She impressed him enough that he called her "the ship of my choice", and "the fittest for service of any I have seen".
Resolution began her career as theNorth SeacollierMarquis of Granby, launched atWhitby in 1770, and purchased by the Royal Navy in 1771 for £4,151 (equivalent to £687,377 today). She was originally registered as HMSDrake, but fearing this would upset the Spanish, she was soon renamedResolution, on 25 December 1771. She was fitted out atDeptford with the most advanced navigational aids of the day, including anazimuth compass made byHenry Gregory, ice anchors, and the latestapparatus for distilling small, supplemental amounts of fresh water from sea water.[3][4] Her armament consisted of twelve 6-pounder guns and 12swivel guns. At his own expense Cook had brass door-hinges installed in the great cabin. It was originally planned that thenaturalistJoseph Banks and an appropriate entourage would sail with Cook, so a heightened waist, an additional upper deck and a raisedpoop deck were built to suit Banks. This refit cost £10,080.12.9d. However, in sea trials the ship was found to be top-heavy, and under Admiralty instructions the offending structures were removed in a second refit atSheerness, at a further cost of £882.3.0d. Banks subsequently refused to travel under the resulting "adverse conditions" andJohann Reinhold Forster and his son,George, replaced him.
Resolution departedSheerness on 21 June 1772, carrying 118 people, including 20 volunteers who had sailed on Cook's first voyage inHMSEndeavour in 1768–1771,[5] and two years of provisions.[6][a] She joinedHMSAdventure atPlymouth and the two ships departed English waters on 13 July 1772.
Resolution's first port of call was atFunchal in theMadeira Islands, which she reached on 1 August. Cook gave high praise to her sailing qualities in a report to the Admiralty from Funchal Roads, writing that she "steers, works, sails well and is remarkably stiff and seems to promise to be a dry and very easy ship in the sea".[7] The ship was reprovisioned with fresh water, beef, fruit and onions, and after a further provisioning stop in theCape Verde Islands two weeks later, set sail due south toward theCape of Good Hope. Several of the crew had brought monkeys aboard as pets, but Cook had them thrown overboard to prevent their droppings from fouling the ship.[7]
On his first voyage Cook had calculatedlongitude by the usual method oflunars, but on her second voyage theBoard of Longitude sent a highly qualified astronomer,William Wales, with Cook and entrusted him with a newmarine chronometer, theK1,recently completed byLarcum Kendall, together with three chronometers made byJohn Arnold. Kendall's K1 was remarkably accurate and was to prove to be most efficient in determining longitude on boardResolution.
On 17 January 1773,Resolution was the first ship to cross theAntarctic Circle and crossed twice more on the voyage. The third crossing, on 3 February 1774, was the most southerly penetration, reaching latitude 71°10′ South at longitude 106°54′ West.Resolution thus provedAlexander Dalrymple'sTerra Australis Incognita to be a myth.[8] She returned to Britain in 1775 and was thenpaid off.
She was recommissioned in February 1776 for Cook's third voyage, which began on 12 July 1776, departing fromPlymouth, England, during whichResolution crossed theArctic Circle on 17 August 1778, and again crossed it on 19 July 1779, under the command ofCharles Clerke afterCook's death inHawaii. She arrived back in Britain on 4 October 1780.
In 1780,Resolution was converted into an armed transport and sailed for theEast Indies in March 1781.Sphinx andAnnibal ofSuffren's (French) squadron capturedResolution on 9 June 1782. In early July 1782, during the run-up of theBattle of Negapatam, Suffren sentResolution toManila to purchase sparespars, food and ammunition to resupply his fleet.[9] She then sailed on 22 July 1782 and was never seen again.
On 5 June 1783, Suffren wrote thatResolution had last been seen in theSunda Strait, and that he suspected she had either foundered or fallen into the hands of the English. An item from the MelbourneArgus, 25 February 1879, said that she ended her days as a Portuguese coal-hulk atRio de Janeiro, but this has never been confirmed.Viscount Galway, aGovernor-General of New Zealand, owned a ship's figurehead described as that ofResolution, but a photograph of it does not agree with the figurehead depicted in Holman's famouswatercolour of her.
Alternatively, in 1789 she may have been renamedGénéral Conway, in November 1790Amis Réunis, and in 1792Liberté.[10] Martin Dugard's biography of Cook,Farther Than Any Man, published in 2001, states: "Her fate, by some cruel twist of historical irony, is as incredible asEndeavour's – she[Resolution] was sold to the French, rechristenedLa Liberté, and transformed into awhaler, then ended her daysrotting inNewport Harbor. She settled to the bottom just a mile fromEndeavour." (p. 281, Epilogue)
In 1881 the British Consul inAlexandria, looking from theRas El Tin Palace, pointed out a ship in the harbour he identified as theResolution, to William N. Armstrong, attendant to Hawaiian KingDavid Kalākaua during his trip around the world.[11]
^[a] Provisions loaded at the outset of the voyage included 60,000 pounds ofhardtack, 7,637 pieces of salted beef and 14,200 pieces of pork, 1,900 pounds of suet, 3,102 pounds of raisins, 300 gallons of oatmeal, 210 gallons of olive oil and 2,000 pounds of sugar.Antiscorbutic supplies comprised 640 gallons of malt, 20,000 pounds of sauerkraut, 4000 pounds of salted cabbage, 400 pounds of mustard and 30 gallons of carrot marmalade. Alcohol supplies included 19 tons of beer and 642 gallons of wine.[5][12]