Cannon, from HMB Endeavour

This cannon is one of six thrown off HMB Endeavour when it hit the Great Barrier Reef, Australia, in 1770. The cannon were recovered in 1969 and this one was given to New Zealand by the Australian Government in 1970.

The voyage

HMB Endeavour, captained by James Cook, sailed from Plymouth in August 1768. The official mission of the voyage was to observe the Transit of Venus in Tahiti, but Cook was also instructed to venture south and search for Terra Australis Incognita, the Great Southern Land. Failing that, Cook was to chart the coasts of New Zealand, analyse the flora and fauna and, with the permission of tāngata whenua, take possession of land in the name of the King of Great Britain.

Violence

During their six months circumnavigating Aotearoa, collisions between the crew of the Endeavour and tāngata whenua led to the deaths of numerous Māori in multiple locations with further Māori also wounded. 
 
The Royal Society, a group of wealthy patrons and scientists who planned the voyage and petitioned King George III for funds, instructed Cook to avoid resorting to violence until ‘every other gentle method had been tried’. Contrary to those instructions, the crew of HMB Endeavour used weapons and violence to demonstrate their power.
 
While near Whakaari, White Island, in November 1769, the crew of the Endeavour traded with tāngata whenua. When trading had ceased, Cook’s crew accused one group of stealing a piece of linen, and they fired their muskets at them three times while they sat in their waka. Once the group in the waka were out of reach of the muskets they shook their paddles at Cook and his crew in what was interpreted as an act of defiance, so Cook ‘gave the Ship a yaw and fir’d a four pounder[.] this sent them quite off’.

The waka was retreating and thus the crew of the Endeavour was in no danger, but as the expedition’s botanist Joseph Banks wrote in his journal, using the cannon ‘shewed them that they could not easily get out of our reach for [once it was fired] they immediately began to paddle and proceeded quite ashore without stopping to look behind them.’ The firing of the cannon was a show of power, an attempt by Cook and his crew to control their encounters with tāngata whenua through force of arms. Using the cannon was a deliberate move, seeking to induce terror through the roaring boom and blast of an unfamiliar weapon.

Aground

After six months in New Zealand the Endeavour carried on to Australia and arrived at the southern tip of the east coast on 19 April 1770. As they sailed north along the eastern coast James Cook painstakingly manoeuvred through a labyrinth of islands and sandy shoals, but on the night of 10 June 1770 the Endeavour struck the Great Barrier Reef. The crew frantically jettisoned ballast, water from casks, rotting stores and six cannon in an attempt to lighten the ship, and at high tide on the 11th they were able to free it.

Identifying the cannon

The cannon is marked with the embossed monogram of King George II, a broad arrow identifying it as property of the British Crown, the weight in hundredweight, quarters and pounds (11-3-0), and the letters ‘D’ and ‘IC’. Based on these marks, the cannon was tentatively attributed to gunfounder Joseph Christopher, although John Churchill of Essex has also been suggested as the manufacturer.

In 1969, an American team went in search of the Endeavour’s jetsam. Using a magnetometer they found the six deserted cannon, as well as metal and stone ballast, at the site where the ship hit the reef. A metre-thick covering of coral was blasted off the cannon so they could be prised from the reef, and they were cleaned and conserved by the Australian Defence Scientific Service before being distributed to institutions in Australia, England, America and New Zealand. Replicas of the original wooden gun carriages were made by the Australian Department of Shipping and Transport, based on the design of the gun carriages used on HMS Victory.

References

• Banks, Joseph. 1768-1771. Endeavour Journal. Transcribed by the State Library of New South Wales. http://southseas.nla.gov.au/journals/banks/contents.html
• Callegari, Dennis. 1994. Cook’s Cannon and Anchor. Kenthurst: Kangaroo Press.
• Cook, James. 1768-1771. Endeavour Journal. National Library of Australia. Manuscript 1. Transcribed by National Library of Australia. http://southseas.nla.gov.au/journals/cook/contents.html
• Salmond, Anne. 1991. Two Worlds: First Meetings between Maori and Europeans 1642-1772. Auckland: Viking.
• Salmond, Anne. 2003. The Trial of the Cannibal Dog: Captain Cook in the South Seas. London: Allen Lane.