HMS ''Grenville'', was a schooner (later re-rigged as a brig) built in Marblehead, Massachusetts, and originally named ''Sally''. The ship was purchased and renamed ''Grenville'' (for the British Prime Minister

George Grenville George Grenville (14 October 1712 – 13 November 1770) was a British Whig statesman who rose to the position of Prime Minister of Great Britain. Grenville was born into an influential political family and first entered Parliament in 1741 as an ...

) by Thomas Graves, Governor of Newfoundland on 7 August 1763 in

Newfoundland Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region ...

.Robson. Page 136 From 1763 to 1767 English surveyor and explorer

James Cook James Cook (7 November 1728 Old Style date: 27 October – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean an ...

commanded ''Grenville'', his first independent command. Over the winter of 1764–65 ''Grenville'' sailed to

Deptford Dockyard Deptford Dockyard was an important naval dockyard and base at Deptford on the River Thames, operated by the Royal Navy from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. It built and maintained warships for 350 years, and many significant events a ...

for a refit. She was re-rigged as a brig, at Cook's request. Among many advantages, the greater maneuverability of a brig was important for surveying work. (It is a common misconception that a schooner of that era sailed better to windward than a brig.) ''Grenville'' left Deptford on 22 April 1765 and sighted

Cape Race Cape Race is a point of land located at the southeastern tip of the Avalon Peninsula on the island of Newfoundland, in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. Its name is thought to come from the original Portuguese name for this cape, "Raso", mea ...

on 31 May. For each summer season of Cook's command, Grenville sailed from Deptford to

Newfoundland and Labrador Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region ...

to survey the coastal waters. Much of the area that he covered had not been surveyed in any way beforehand. Cook employed new surveying techniques, using shore-based theodolites to record the position of a

ship's boat A ship's boat is a utility boat carried by a larger vessel. Ship's boats have always provided communication with the shore and with other ships. Other work done by such boats has varied over time, as marine technology has changed. In the age o ...

that made a running survey of depths. This avoided many of the inaccuracies of calculating the position of the surveying boat from a ship whose position might not be totally accurately known. In 1766, Cook was able to make an exact fix of longitude from observations of a solar eclipse. At the end of the 1767 surveying season, ''Grenville'' ran aground near the

Nore The Nore is a long bank of sand and silt running along the south-centre of the final narrowing of the Thames Estuary, England. Its south-west is the very narrow Nore Sand. Just short of the Nore's easternmost point where it fades into the cha ...

lighthouse in a severe storm (shortly after taking on board a pilot for the Thames estuary). The crew were taken off and the ship left whilst the storm took two days to blow itself out. She was got off on the next high tide. In 1768, Cook left ''Grenville'' to begin his first circumnavigation of the world on

HMS Endeavour HMS ''Endeavour'' was a British Royal Navy research vessel that Lieutenant James Cook commanded to Australia and New Zealand on his First voyage of James Cook, first voyage of discovery from 1768 to 1771. She was launched in 1764 as the Coll ...

. In 1770 ''Grenville'' brought troops to Tobago from Barbados and they, together with troops from Fort Granby, helped suppress a slave rebellion. The ship was broken up in March 1775.Marquardt, p.33

Citations

References

* * * * * * *John Robson (2009). Captain Cook’s War and Peace: The Royal Navy years, 1755-1768. Seaforth Publishing. {{DEFAULTSORT:Grenville (1754) 1754 ships Schooners of the Royal Navy