HMS Resolution (1771)

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For other ships with the same name, see HMS Drake and HMS Resolution.

Resolution and Adventure with fishing craft in Matavai Bay by William Hodges, painted 1776, shows the two ships at anchor in Tahiti in August 1773.
History
Great Britain
NameHMS Resolution
BuilderThomas Fishburn, Whitby
Launched1770
AcquiredNovember 1771 as Marquis of Granby[1]
Renamed
  • Renamed HMS Drake in November 1771
  • Renamed HMS Resolution on 25 December 1771
FateUnknown, last sighted 5 June 1783. Fate disputed.
General characteristics
Class and typeex-mercantile collier
Tons burthen462
bm
Length
  • 110 ft 8 in (33.73 m) overall
  • 93 ft 6 in (28.50 m) keel
Beam30 ft 6 in (9.30 m)
Draught13 ft 1 in (3.99 m)
PropulsionSails
Complement112, including 20 marines[2]
Armament
  • 12 × 6pdrs
  • 12 × ½pdr swivels

HMS Resolution was a sloop of the Royal Navy, a converted merchant collier purchased by the Navy and adapted, in which Captain James Cook made his second and third 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".

Purchase and refitting

Resolution began her career as the

collier Marquis of Granby, launched at Whitby in 1770, and purchased by the Royal Navy in 1771 for £4,151 (equivalent to £578,950 today). She was originally registered as HMS Drake, but fearing this would upset the Spanish, she was soon renamed Resolution, on 25 December 1771. She was fitted out at Deptford with the most advanced navigational aids of the day, including an azimuth compass made by Henry Gregory, ice anchors, and the latest apparatus for distilling fresh water from sea water.[3] Her armament consisted of 12 6-pounder guns and 12 swivel guns. At his own expense Cook had brass door-hinges installed in the great cabin. It was originally planned that the naturalist Joseph Banks and an appropriate entourage would sail with Cook, so a heightened waist, an additional upper deck and a raised poop 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 at Sheerness, at a further cost of £882.3.0d. Banks subsequently refused to travel under the resulting "adverse conditions" and Johann Reinhold Forster and his son, George
, replaced him.

Cook's second voyage

Main article: Second voyage of James Cook

Resolution departed

HMS Endeavour in 1768–1771,[4] and two years of provisions.[5][a] She joined HMS Adventure at Plymouth
and the two ships departed English waters on 13 July 1772.

Resolution's first port of call was at

Cape Verde Islands two weeks later, set sail due south toward the Cape 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.[6]

On his first voyage Cook had calculated longitude by the usual method of lunars, but on her second voyage the Board of Longitude sent a highly qualified astronomer, William Wales, with Cook and entrusted him with a new marine chronometer, the K1, recently completed by Larcum Kendall, together with three chronometers made by John Arnold. Kendall's K1 was remarkably accurate and was to prove to be most efficient in determining longitude on board Resolution.

On 17 January 1773, Resolution was the first ship to cross the

paid off
.

Cook's third voyage

Main articles:
Kidnapping of Kalaniʻōpuʻu by Captain James Cook

She was recommissioned in February 1776 for Cook's third voyage, which began on 12 July 1776, departing from Plymouth, England, during which Resolution crossed the Arctic Circle on 17 August 1778, and again crossed it on 19 July 1779, under the command of Charles Clerke after Cook's death. She arrived back in Britain on 4 October 1780.

Later service and loss

In 1780, Resolution was converted into an armed transport and sailed for the

Suffren's (French) squadron captured Resolution on 9 June 1782. In early July 1782, during the run-up of the Battle of Negapatam, Suffren sent Resolution to Manila to purchase spare spars, food and ammunition to resupply his fleet.[8]
She then sailed on 22 July 1782 and was never seen again.

On 5 June 1783, Suffren wrote that Resolution had last been seen in the

watercolour
of her.

Alternatively, in 1789 she may have been renamed Général Conway, in November 1790 Amis Réunis, and in 1792 Liberté.[9] 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 as Endeavour's – she [Resolution] was sold to the French, rechristened La Liberté, and transformed into a whaler, then ended her days rotting in Newport Harbor. She settled to the bottom just a mile from Endeavour." (p. 281, Epilogue)

In 1881 the British Consul in

David Kalākaua during his trip around the world.[10]

See also

Notes

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.[4][11]

Citations

  1. ^ Hough 1995, p. 219
  2. ^ Beaglehole 1959, pp. 3–5
  3. ^ "Log book of HMS 'Resolution'". Cambridge Digital Library. Archived from the original on 14 October 2013. Retrieved 23 July 2013.
  4. ^ a b Hough 1995, pp. 235–236
  5. ^ Beaglehole 1959, p. 15
  6. ^ a b Hough 1995, p. 239
  7. ^ Wales, William. "Log book of HMS 'Resolution'". Cambridge Digital Library. Archived from the original on 26 May 2013. Retrieved 28 May 2013.
  8. ^ Cunat, p. 164
  9. ^ Demerliac (1996), p. 104, no. 725.
  10. ^ William N Armstrong: Around the world with a king. New York 1904, pp. 193, 194, 196
  11. ^ Beaglehole 1959, p.13

Bibliography

External links
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