The occasions on which a master had been transferred to the executive line of the Royal Navy were very rare, and many an admiral used his influence in favour of some deserving officer in vain.
This was not without good reason, as the whole training of the Master of those days was unfavourable to success in command of ships or men.

The exception was, however, in this case amply justified.
Cook was allowed to choose his vessel, and bearing in mind the dangers of grounding in unknown seas, he pitched upon his old friends, the stoutly-built, full-bottomed colliers of the North Sea trade.
His ship, the Endeavour, was a Whitby built vessel of three hundred and seventy tons, and was known as H.M.Bark Endeavour, there being another vessel, a cutter, of the same name in the Royal Navy.

She was brought to the dockyard at Deptford to fit out.

Her appearance was, of course, wholly different from that of a vessel built as a man-of-war, and we shall see that this caused trouble at Rio Janeiro, where the combination of merchant build and officers in uniform in an armed ship, aroused suspicions in the mind of the Portuguese Viceroy.
It is nowhere directly stated whether the Endeavour was sheathed with copper or not; but as Cook in the account of his second voyage expresses himself as adverse to this method of protecting ships' bottoms, and the operation is recorded of heeling and boot topping, which was cleaning and greasing the part of the ship just below waterline, it may be concluded that her sheathing was wood.
She proved a most suitable vessel.

The log states she was a little crank, but an admirable sea-boat.