In “The Search for a Legendary Ship” (American Archaeology, pp 43-47, mostly offline), Alexandra Witze describes Lieutenant (later Captain) Cook’s use of HMS Endeavour to explore the Australian coast for the European powers, and at the end of that journey the ship disappears from the history books. Now a volunteer group named the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project, in conjunction with some amateur historians, has suggested she was paid off and sold, renamed and then sunk by the British near Newport Harbor during the American Revolutionary War to discourage an approaching French force.
All this is to lead up to this head-scratching paragraph. All typos mine….
In a rare use of salvage law, the state of Rhode Island filed to “arrest” the abandoned wrecks as its property. A federal court agreed. Now, if and when the Endeavour is identified, the vessel will belong to Rhode Island.
I suppose no other law applied for taking possession of the wrecks, so one had to be stretched to make it work. It still makes for an uncomfortable sentence and concept.
