Scuba divers have recently damaged a sunken Revolutionary War British ship in Newport Harbor, USA in an apparent search for artifacts.  The looting took place 20 feet underwater at the site of one of about a dozen transport ships that the British scuttled while fleeing Newport in 1778. 

The Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project, a group of volunteer divers led by archaeologist and marine historian D.K. Abbass [see Cook’s Log, page 1946, vol. 25, no. 2 (2002)], has spent several years trying to confirm whether one of the ships is the Endeavour. 

From information supplied by
Brian Sandford

Originally published in Cook's Log, page 2010, volume 25, number 4 (2002).