John Fish sailed on Cook’s Second Voyage in Adventure under Captain Tobias Furneaux.  He joined on 23 February, 1772, as an able seaman (AB).  

The muster records him as being born in Epping in Essex about 1750, and there is a baptism record for a John Fish for 4 November, 1750, at Epping, Essex, the son of Jonathan and Elizabeth Fish. 

Fish's will was written on 7 September, 1775, in HMS Syren.1  It was witnessed by Tobias Furneaux, William Edwards and Richard Hutchings.2  Furneaux was given command of Syren after leaving Adventure.  Fish presumably followed him to the new ship.  Fish was serving in HMS Sultan in the East Indies at the time of his death in 1785. 

In his will, Fish had left everything to his “trusty friend Elizabeth Mitchell of Chatham in Kent”.  She married a Richard Patten in 1776, and died before Fish’s will was proven, leaving her husband to do that on 3 August, 1785.

John Robson

References

1.PROB 11/1133.  It is held at The National Archives (TNA). 
2.Richard Hutchings had sailed with Cook in Endeavour, finishing the voyage as boatswain.

Originally published in Cook's Log, page 6, volume 39, number 4 (2016).