In 1770 James Cook (then a lieutenant in the Royal Navy) in His Majesty’s Bark the Endeavour sailed past the coast off Mackay. After travelling north for a further two days, in his journal for Monday 4 June he recorded that he named the body of water through which he sailed Whitsunday’s Passage "… as it was discovered on the day the Church commemorates that Festival" and called the islands in the area "Cumberland Isles in honour of His Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland" (Henry Frederick, the brother of His Majesty King George III of England).