However, it is a fully functioning United States Coast Guard-certified vessel capable of passenger and crew voyages, which makes special sailings during various times of the year.

The replica's color scheme was taken from an 1805 painting of the ship by noted marine artist, George Ropes, Jr., who was a nephew of Jerathmiel Peirce (see below).

The original Friendship was built in Salem, Massachusetts by Enos Briggs's shipyard at Stage Point on the South River for owners Aaron Waite and Jerathmiel Pierce.

[5] The Friendship made fifteen voyages during her career and visited Batavia, India, China, South America, the Caribbean, England, Germany, the Mediterranean and Russia.

[6] The Friendship cleared Salem for Canton in August 1797 on her first voyage under the command of Captain Israel Williams, but changed her destination to Batavia in the Dutch East Indies.

[7] On her third voyage the Friendship was commissioned as letter of marque, an armed trading vessel authorized by congress to seize enemy ships as prizes of war.

[10] After the Embargo Act went into effect on December 22, 1807, the "Friendship" returned to Salem from the Mediterranean and did not leave port until it was lifted on March 1, 1809.

Having sat at the wharf for extended period of time the Friendship was in poor condition when Israel Williams set out for Gothenburg, Sweden.

Captain Endicott and the other officers on shore tried to return to the Friendship and render aid to the crew unsuccessfully, but were prevented by the superior number of Malay pirates.

Three days after the Friendship arrived in Salem her owners wrote President Andrew Jackson and demanded he take action against the Malay pirates at Quallah Battoo.

[14] Commodore John Downes departed New York with the frigate Potomac, her Bluejackets and Marines on the First Sumatran Expedition, to avenge the attack on Friendship[15] – which also helped launch the diplomatic career of New Hampshire merchant Edmund Roberts.

The previous service and ultimate fate of this Friendship is unknown, but she is reported as having belonged to Joseph Peabody, a Salem merchant and shipowner who dominated trade between Massachusetts and the Far East for a number of years.