Captain Cook Part 1

Captain Cook.

by W.H.G. Kingston.

CHAPTER ONE.

CAPTAIN COOK--HIS LIFE, VOYAGES, AND DISCOVERIES.

EARLY TRAINING.

Among all those Englishmen who, from a humble origin, have risen to an honourable position, Captain James Cook is especially worthy of record.

His parents were of the peasant cla.s.s--his father having commenced life as a farm-labourer, and his mother being a cottager's daughter.

Probably, however, they were both superior to others of the same station, as the husband, in process of time, became farm-bailiff to his employer--a Mr Thomas Skottowe. This was about the year 1730, and the farm of which he had the management was called Airy-Holme, near Ayton, in Yorks.h.i.+re. Not far from this place, at the village of Marton, near Stockton-upon-Tees; his son James was born, on October 27, 1728. James was one of nine children, all of whom he survived, with the exception of a sister who married a fisherman at Redcar.

The father of this family spent the latter years of his life with his daughter at Redcar, and was supposed to have been about eighty-five years old at the time of his death; so that he must have had the satisfaction of seeing his son rising in his profession, though probably he little thought of that son as establis.h.i.+ng a fame which would be handed down in history.

James Cook does not appear to have enjoyed any peculiar educational advantages, but owed his subsequent advancement chiefly to his own intelligence, perseverance, and diligence. He first went to a village school, and was afterwards sent, at the expense of Mr Skottowe, to an ordinary commercial school, kept by a Mr Pullen. He continued there four years, and was then apprenticed to Mr William Sanderson, a grocer and haberdasher at the fis.h.i.+ng town of Straiths, ten miles from Whitby.

It may be supposed that the occupation in which he was engaged was not suited to his taste. The sea was constantly before his eyes, and the desire to seek his fortune on it sprang up within him, and grew stronger and stronger, till in about a year after he went to Straiths he obtained a release from his engagement with Mr Sanderson, and apprenticed himself to Messrs. Walker and Company, s.h.i.+powners of Whitby. He went to sea for the first time when he was about eighteen, on board one of their vessels--the Truelove collier, [Note 1] of four hundred and fifty tons burden, trading between Newcastle and London. The lad soon showed that he was well fitted for his new profession, and in 1748, not two years after he had commenced it, we find him especially directed to a.s.sist in fitting for sea the Three Brothers, a new s.h.i.+p of six hundred tons.

While he served on board this s.h.i.+p she was hired by Government as a transport; and on her being paid off she was employed in the Norway trade.

After making several voyages in the Three Brothers up the Baltic, young Cook was promoted to the rank of mate on board the Friends.h.i.+p. He had by this time gained the goodwill of his employers; and had made several other friends on sh.o.r.e, who, before long, were enabled to render him essential service. He was now known as a thorough seamen; indeed, from the moment he went on board s.h.i.+p, he had steadily applied his mind to acquiring a knowledge of his profession. Still he served on as mate of the Friends.h.i.+p till the breaking out of the war between England and France in 1756, when he made up his mind to push his fortunes in the Royal Navy. He knew that at all events there was a great probability of his being pressed into the service, and he had good reason to hope that he might be placed ere long on the quarter-deck, since many young men at that time had been who went to sea, as he had done, before the mast. He accordingly volunteered, and entered as an able seaman on board the Eagle, of sixty guns, then commanded by Captain Hamer, but shortly afterwards by Captain Palliser, who became the well-known Sir Hugh Palliser--Cook's warm and constant friend.

As soon as the young sailor's Yorks.h.i.+re friends heard that he had entered on board a man-of-war, they exerted themselves on his behalf, and a letter of introduction was procured from Mr Osbaldeston, Member for the county, to his captain, who, having already remarked the intelligence and a.s.siduity Cook exhibited in all his professional duties, was the more ready to give him a helping hand.

Considering how best he could a.s.sist the young man, who had served too short a time in the Navy to obtain a commission, Captain Palliser advised that a master's warrant should be procured for him--this being a position for which, both from age and experience, he was well fitted.

[Note 2.] This was done; and on May 10, 1759, James Cook was appointed to the Grampus, sloop of war, and was now in a fair way of gaining the object of his ambition. He had, however, to undergo a trial of patience at the first outset of his career; for the former master returning, his appointment was cancelled. His friends were not idle, and four days after this he was made master of the Garland; but on going to join her he found that she had already sailed for her destination. On the following day, May 15, he was appointed to the Mercury, on the point of sailing for the North American station to join the fleet under Sir Charles Saunders, which, in conjunction with the army under General Wolfe, was engaged in the siege of Quebec. The termination of that contest gained for Great Britain one of her finest provinces. To this success Cook contributed in his particular department; and it is remarkable that he should have been in various ways instrumental in giving to his country the three finest provinces she possesses--Canada, the Australian settlements, and New Zealand.

James Cook was now about thirty-two years of age, and although the position in life he had filled for the previous twelve years was not one (especially in those days) conducive to refinement of manners, he appears from the first to have conducted himself with propriety and credit. He had already shown his superiority as a seaman. He was now to exhibit his talents in the more scientific part of his profession, in which officers in the Navy were in those days greatly deficient.

It was necessary to take the soundings in the channel of the Saint Lawrence, between the Isle of Orleans and the north sh.o.r.e, directly in front of the French fortified camp of Montmorency and Beauport, in order to enable the admiral to place his s.h.i.+ps so as to oppose the enemy's batteries, and to cover the projected landing of the British army under Wolfe, and a general attack on their camp. Captain Palliser, who now commanded the Shrewsbury, a seventy-four gun s.h.i.+p, recommended Cook for this difficult and dangerous service. He was engaged on it for many consecutive nights, it being a work which could not be performed in the daytime. At length his proceedings were discovered by the French, who laid a plan to catch him. They concealed in a wood near the water a number of Indians with their canoes. As the Mercury's barge, in which Cook was making the survey, pa.s.sed, the canoes darted out on him and gave chase. His only chance of escape was to run for it. He pushed for the Isle of Orleans with a whole host of yelling savages paddling at full speed after him. On they came, every moment gaining on his boat.

The English hospital, where there was a guard, was before him; towards this he steered, the bows of the Indian canoes almost touching the barge's stern; a few strokes more, and the Indians would have grappled him. He sprang from his seat over the bow of his boat, followed by his crew, just as the enemy leaped in overwhelming numbers over the quarters. They carried off the barge in triumph, but Cook and his comrades escaped; and he succeeded, in spite of all difficulties, in furnis.h.i.+ng the admiral with a correct and complete draft of the channel and soundings. This was the more extraordinary, as Sir Hugh Palliser afterwards expressed his belief that before this time Cook had scarcely ever used a pencil, and knew nothing of drawing; and it is one of many proofs that the ardent seaman not only threw his soul into the duties of his profession, but that this determination enabled him quickly to master every subject to which he applied his mind.

While his s.h.i.+p remained in the Saint Lawrence, Cook, at the desire of the admiral, made an accurate survey of the more difficult parts of that river below Quebec. So complete and perfect was the chart which he executed, and which, with his sailing directions, was afterwards published, that until a late period no other was thought necessary. So little were the English acquainted with the navigation of the river before this, that when, early in the season, the fleet under Rear-Admiral Darell arrived at its mouth, some difficulty was expected in getting up it. Fortunately, when off the island of Caudec, the inhabitants, mistaking the English s.h.i.+ps for their own fleet, sent off their best pilots. These were of course detained, and proved of great use in taking the English fleet up the river.

After the conquest of Canada had been accomplished, Admiral Saunders despatched the larger s.h.i.+ps to England, following himself in the Somerset, and leaving the command of the fleet in North America to Captain Lord Colvill, who had his commodore's flag flying on board the Northumberland. To this s.h.i.+p Cook was appointed as master, by warrant from his lords.h.i.+p, on September 22, 1739. The squadron wintered at Halifax. Cook employed the leisure which the winter afforded him in acquiring that knowledge which especially fitted him for the service in which he was thereafter to be engaged. At Halifax he first read Euclid, and began to study astronomy and other branches of science, in which, considering the few books to which he had access, and the want of a.s.sistance from others, he made wonderful progress. In the following year, 1760, a lieutenant's commission was presented to him as a reward for his services.

In 1762 the Northumberland was engaged in the recapture of Newfoundland.

The activity which Cook displayed in surveying its harbour and heights attracted the attention of Captain Graves, the acting governor, and commander of the Antelope. Captain Graves, on becoming farther acquainted with Cook, formed a high opinion of his abilities, while he admired the energy and perseverance he exhibited in surveying the neighbouring coasts and harbours.

At the end of the year Cook went to England, and on December 21 he married, at Barking, in Ess.e.x, Miss Elizabeth Batts, a young lady of respectable family, to whom he had some time before been engaged. As she died in 1835, at the age of ninety-three, she must at the time of her marriage have been twenty years old. Her husband was tenderly attached to her, but his married life, like that of most sailors, had long and frequent interruptions. She bore him six children, three of whom died in their infancy.

Soon after Cook's marriage, peace with France and Spain was concluded.

On this Captain Graves was again appointed Governor of Newfoundland. As the island was of great importance to England, he obtained from the Government, with some difficulty, an establishment for the survey of its coasts, and offered the direction of it to Cook, who, notwithstanding his recent marriage, accepted the offer. In the following year, 1764, Sir Hugh Palliser being appointed Governor of Newfoundland and Labrador, Cook was made Marine Surveyor of the Province, the Grenville schooner being placed under his command. The charts made by Cook enlightened the Government as to the value of Newfoundland, and induced them, when drawing up articles of peace with France, to insist on arrangements which secured to Great Britain the advantages which its coasts afford.

Not content, however, with merely surveying the sh.o.r.e, Cook penetrated into the interior of the country, and discovered several lakes. .h.i.therto unknown.

On August 5 an eclipse of the sun occurred, an observation of which was taken by Cook from one of the Burgeo Islands, near the south-west end of Newfoundland. The paper that he wrote on it was published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. This fact alone proves that he must already have become a good mathematician and astronomer.

The last time he went to Newfoundland as marine surveyor was in 1767.

We have now briefly traced the career of James Cook from his childhood to the period when he had established his character as an able seaman, a scientific navigator, and a good officer. He was soon to have an opportunity of proving to his country and to the world in general the very high degree in which he possessed these qualities, and which enabled him to accomplish an undertaking which has proved of inestimable benefit to millions of the human race. By his means, discovery was made of fertile lands of vast extent, previously trodden only by the feet of wandering savages; and numberless tribes, sunk in the grossest idolatry and human degradation, were made known to the Christian world. And Christians, roused at length to a sense of their responsibility, began to devise means, under the blessing of G.o.d, for teaching these, their ignorant brethren of the human family, the knowledge of the only true G.o.d, and the way of eternal life.

Note 1. In the biographies of Cook the name of the vessel in which he first went to sea is given as the Freelove--evidently a misprint. I have never known a vessel of that name, whereas the Truelove is a favourite name.

Note 2. Masters in the Navy were in those days appointed by warrant, and were very generally taken direct from the merchant service without going through any preparatory grade, as at present. They are now also commissioned officers, and on retiring receive commanders' rank.

CHAPTER TWO.

FIRST VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. AUGUST 1768 TO JULY 1771.

In the year 1763, on the restoration of peace, the desire to explore unknown seas and to discover new countries revived among the English, and was warmly encouraged by King George the Third. Two expeditions were at once fitted out to circ.u.mnavigate the globe--one under Lord Byron, and the other under Captains Wallis and Carteret; the former commanding the Dolphin, in which Lord Byron had just returned, the latter the Swallow. As, however, Captains Wallis and Carteret accidentally parted company at an early period of their voyage, and kept different routes, they are generally considered as having led two separate expeditions.

Before the return of these s.h.i.+ps, another expedition was determined on, the immediate object of which was to observe a transit of Venus which it had been calculated by astronomers would occur in 1769. It was believed that one of the Marquesas, or one of the Friendly Islands, called, by Tasman, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Middleburg, would be an advantageous spot for making the proposed observation.

The King was memorialised by the Royal Society, and through his Majesty's intervention the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty undertook to furnish a suitable vessel and crew to convey the astronomers and other scientific persons who might be selected to carry out the proposed objects. The Royal Society had fixed on Mr Alexander Dalrymple to take the direction of the expedition; but as he was not in the Royal Navy, Sir Edward Hawke, then at the head of the Admiralty, would not hear of his being appointed. Mr Dalrymple, on the other hand, would not consent to go unless he received a brevet commission as captain. It was necessary, therefore, to find some one else, and Mr Stephens, the Secretary of the Admiralty, a warm supporter of the expedition, mentioned Cook to the Board, and suggested that Sir Hugh Palliser's opinion should be asked respecting him. This, as may be supposed, was in every respect favourable; and consequently Lieutenant Cook was directed to hold himself in readiness to take command of the proposed expedition. Sir Hugh Palliser was requested to select a fit s.h.i.+p for the purpose, and with Cook's a.s.sistance he fixed on a barque of three hundred and seventy tons, to which the name of the Endeavour was given. She mounted ten carriage and ten swivel guns; her crew, besides the commander, consisted of eighty-four persons, and she was provisioned for eighteen months.

The well-known Sir Joseph Banks, then Mr Banks, one of the chief promoters of the expedition, volunteered to accompany it. On leaving Oxford he had visited the coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador, to obtain information on scientific subjects. Although he suffered no small amount of hards.h.i.+p on that occasion, he returned home with unabated zeal in the cause he had adopted, and ready again to leave all the advantages which his position afforded him, for the discomfort and dangers of a long voyage in unknown seas. Mr Banks was, however, more than a philosopher--he was a large-hearted philanthropist, and he was animated with the hope of diffusing some of the advantages of civilisation and Christianity among the people who might be discovered. He engaged, as naturalist to the expedition, the services of Dr Solander, a Swede by birth, educated under Linnaeus, from whom he had brought letters of introduction to England. Mr Banks also, at his own charge, took out a secretary and two artists--one to make drawings from subjects of natural history, the other to take sketches of scenery and the portraits of the natives who might be met with. He had likewise four personal attendants, two of whom were negroes.

The Government, on its part, appointed Mr Charles Green, who had long been a.s.sistant to Dr Bradley at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, to a.s.sist Lieutenant Cook in the astronomical department of the expedition; and in every respect the persons engaged in this celebrated expedition were well fitted to attain the objects contemplated.

While these preparations were going forward, Captain Wallis returned from his voyage round the world. He expressed his opinion that a harbour in an island he had discovered, and called King George's Island, since well-known as Otaheite or Tahiti, was a fit spot for observing the transit of Venus. That island was accordingly to be the first destination of the Endeavour. After having accomplished the primary object of the voyage, the commander was directed to proceed in making discoveries through the wide extent of the Great Southern Ocean.

Lieutenant Cook received his commission as commander of the Endeavour (which was then in the basin in Deptford Yard) on May 25, 1768. On the 27th he went on board, and immediately began fitting her for sea. The work in dockyards was not executed so rapidly in those days as it is now, and it was upwards of two months before the vessel was ready. On July 30 she dropped down the river; but it was not till August 15 that she reached Plymouth. On Friday, August 26, the wind becoming fair, the Endeavour finally put to sea, and commenced the first of one of the most memorable series of voyages which have ever been performed by a single vessel. Next to Commander Cook in authority in the Endeavour were her two lieutenants--Zachary Hicks and John Gore; her senior mate was Charles Clerke, who accompanied Cook in each of his subsequent voyages, and succeeded to the command of the third expedition on the death of his beloved captain. He had previously served as mids.h.i.+pman under Lord Byron in his first voyage round the world.

A long sea voyage is almost always felt to be extremely tedious and dull to landsmen; but every change in the atmosphere, the varied appearance presented by the sea, the numberless creatures found in it, the birds which hovered about the s.h.i.+p or pitched on the rigging, all afforded matter of interest to the enlightened persons on board the Endeavour.

At Madeira the naturalists of the expedition set to work collecting specimens. The social condition of the people has probably altered little since those days, though the monasteries, which then existed, have long since been abolished. The nuns of the convent of Santa Clara especially amused Mr Banks and his companions by the simplicity of the questions they put on hearing that they were philosophers. Among others, they requested them to ascertain by their art whether a spring of pure water existed within the walls of their convent, and also when the next thunderstorm would occur.

On leaving Madeira the course was shaped for Rio de Janeiro, which was reached on November 13. The voyagers were not treated by the viceroy with the courtesy which might have been expected. The object of the voyage was utterly beyond the comprehension of that functionary, who could form no other conception of the matter than that it had something to do with the pa.s.sing of the North Star through the South Pole. This ignorance and suspicion caused the voyagers a great deal of annoyance during the whole of their stay; though the viceroy could not refuse them water and other necessaries. When, at length, these were procured, and the Endeavour was going out of the harbour, she was fired at from the forts of Santa Cruz. Cook immediately sent on sh.o.r.e to demand the cause of this act. The excuse offered by the commandant of the port was that he had received no orders from the viceroy to allow the s.h.i.+p to pa.s.s.

It appeared that the letter had been written, but that through neglect it had not been forwarded. Through the whole of the contest with the viceroy, Cook behaved with equal spirit and discretion. Among the remarks which Cook makes in his journal on Brazil, is one on the fearful expense of life at which the royal gold mines in that country were worked. No less than forty thousand negroes were annually imported to labour in the royal mines. In the year 1766, through an epidemic, the number required falling short, twenty thousand more were drafted from the town of Rio. A very similar account may be given of the silver and other mines on the other side of the continent; while the treacherous system which was organised to supply the demand for labour from among the inhabitants of the Pacific Islands must be looked on with even greater horror and indignation than that which existed for supplying Brazil with slave labour. So strictly were the Brazilian gold mines guarded, that no stranger was allowed to visit them, and any person found on the roads leading to them was immediately hanged by the guards stationed there. Altogether Cook formed a very unfavourable opinion of the inhabitants of Brazil, though few parts of the tropics surpa.s.s it in beauty of climate, fertility of soil, and power of production.

After a stay of three weeks in the harbour of Rio, the Endeavour put to sea on December 7, and stood down the coast of South America. On approaching the lat.i.tudes of the Falkland Islands, the crew, complaining of cold, received what was called a Magellanic jacket, and a pair of trousers made of a thick woollen stuff called Fearnought. Instead of going through the Straits of Magellan, as was the custom in those times, the Endeavour was steered from the Strait of Le Maire between Helen Island and Tierra del Fuego. On her anchoring in the Bay of Good Success, several of the party went on sh.o.r.e. Thirty or forty Indians soon made their appearance, but, distrustful of the strangers, quickly retreated to a distance. On this, Mr Banks and Dr Solander advanced, when two of the Indians approached them and sat down. As the Englishmen drew near, the savages rose and each threw away from him a stick which he had in his hand, returning immediately to their companions and making signs to the white men to follow. This they did, and friendly relations were at once established between the two parties. Three of them were induced to go on board, and were chiefly remarkable for the entire want of interest with which they regarded all the novelties by which they were surrounded. One of them, who was conjectured to be a priest, did little else than shout all the time he was on board. He was supposed, by this, to be engaged in the performance of some heathenish incantation. When these three men were landed, their fellow-savages showed great eagerness to learn what they had seen in the strange big canoe, as they would probably have termed the English s.h.i.+p.

On December 16, Mr Banks and Dr Solander, with Mr Green, Mr Monkhouse the surgeon, and several attendants, landed, with the intention of ascending a mountain seen in the distance, and penetrating as far as they could into the country. The atmosphere when they set out was like that of a warm spring day in England. It being the middle of summer, the day was one of the longest in the year. Nothing could have been more favourable for their expedition. They had gone through a wood, and were about to pa.s.s over what at a distance they had taken to be a plain, but which proved to be a swamp covered thickly with tangled bushes three feet high. Still they pushed across it, and reached the mountain, on which Mr Banks and Dr Solander commenced collecting specimens. Most of the party were greatly fatigued, and Mr Buchan, the draughtsman, was seized with a fit. He was therefore left with some of the party while the rest went forward. The weather, however, changed-- the cold became intense, and snow fell very thickly. Dr Solander had warned his companions not to give way to the sensation of sleepiness which intense cold produces, yet he was one of the first to propose to lie down and rest. Mr Banks, however, not without the greatest difficulty, urged him on, but the two black servants lay down and were frozen to death, and a seaman who remained with them nearly shared the same fate. The survivors collected together at night, but their provisions were exhausted; one or two were very ill, and they were a long day's journey from the s.h.i.+p. There appeared, indeed, a great probability that the chief objects of the voyage would be frustrated by the death of the princ.i.p.al scientific persons engaged in it. After a night of great anxiety, a vulture they had shot being their only food, the snow partially cleared off, and they made their way to the beach, which was not so far distant as they had supposed.

After this disastrous adventure the party again went on sh.o.r.e, and found a tribe of savages, numbering fifty persons, living in a collection of conical huts, rudely formed of boughs, and open on the lee side. The people, who are stout and clumsily formed, had their faces painted, and were very imperfectly covered with seal-skins. Their chief article of clothing, indeed, was a small cloak which they wore on the side on which the wind comes when walking or sitting. They lived chiefly on sh.e.l.l-fish, and in search of them wandered from place to place. They were considered as among the most dull and stupid of the human race. No wonder, indeed, considering the few objects on which their minds could be expanded. A farther acquaintance with these tribes has shown that they have minds as capable of receiving good impressions as other human beings, and that they are not dest.i.tute of a considerable amount of intelligence.

The Endeavour took her departure from Cape Horn on January 26, 1769.

She ran for seven hundred leagues without land being seen. After that she pa.s.sed several coral islands, the appearance of which is now familiar to most people, but in those days was but little-known. To three of them the names of Lagoon Island, Bow Island, and Chain Island were given; several of them were inhabited.

On April 11 she sighted Otaheite, [now known as Tahiti] called King George's Island by Captain Wallis, which appeared high and mountainous, and on the 13th came to an anchor in Matavai Bay. As she approached the land numerous canoes came off, their crews carrying young plantains and other green branches as a sign of friends.h.i.+p. Several of the boughs were handed on board, and it was intimated that they should be placed in different parts of the s.h.i.+p to show that the voyagers also wished for peace. The natives exhibited great satisfaction on this being done.

They gladly exchanged cocoanuts, fruit resembling apples, bread-fruit, and small fish, for beads and other trifles. They had a pig, which they would not part with for anything but a hatchet; this Cook would not allow to be given, considering that if a hatchet was given them it would be considered from that time forward to be the proper price of a pig.

The bread-fruit, with which the voyagers now first became acquainted, grows on a tree about the height of an ordinary oak. Its leaves are about a foot and a half long, of an oblong shape, deeply sinuated like those of the fig-tree, which they resemble in consistency and colour; they also, on being broken, exude a white, milky juice. The fruit is about the size and shape of a child's head, and the surface is reticulated. It is covered with a thin skin, and has an oblong core four inches long. The eatable part, which lies between the skin and the core, is as white as snow, and of the consistency of new bread. It must be roasted before it is eaten, being first divided into three or four parts. Its taste is insipid, with a slight sweetness somewhat resembling the crumb of wheaten bread mixed with a Jerusalem artichoke.

The first person who came off was Owhaw. He was well-known to Mr Gore, and to others who had been there with Captain Wallis. It was hoped that he would prove useful, and he was therefore taken on board and every attention shown him. Captain Cook at once issued a set of rules to govern the s.h.i.+p's company in all their intercourse with the natives.

They were as follows:--