The Life of Captain James Cook
X — New South Wales
X
New South Wales
Tasman, in November 1642, had picked up the western coast of Tasmania, or Van Diemen's Land, had rounded the island to the south, and left the eastern coast in the latitude of about 41°34' some-where near St Patrick Head, where a wind in his teeth stopped him from following the north-west trend of the shore. Sailing east, he discovered New Zealand. Cook, sailing west from New Zealand, and from Cape Farewell in latitude 40°30', hoped to pick up the coast of Van Diemen's Land where Tasman had left it, and trace the coast of New Holland northwards from that point. What he should expect to find it was impossible to say, whether a continuous coast or a congeries of islands, or a coast broken by a strait leading through to some inlet on the north coast, or whether in due course he would arrive plump on the coast of New Guinea as a part of New Holland, or would be guided into some certainty about the discoveries of Quiros. On board the Endeavour were at least two pieces of evidence which cast some light on the New Guinea question, arguing—or, as Cook might say, ‘conjecturing’—that, there was a clear passage between it and New Holland. One of these was the ‘Chart of the South Pacifick Ocean’, in Dalrymple's pamphlet of 1767, the copy of which he had presented to Banks. It had a number of strongly individual features, the existence of some of which, to a person able to check, would have cast doubt on the credibility of others; but it did show, clearly enough, a strait south of New Guinea, and a track for Torres marked through it. The other piece of evidence was the strait shown in the maps provided by Robert de Vaugondy for the volumes of de Brosses: from these maps Cook deduced ‘that the Spaniards and Dutch’ had ‘at one time or a nother circumnavigated the whole of the island of New Guinea as the most of the names are in these two Languages’; which was all the more curious because ‘I allways understood before I had a sight of these Maps that it was unknown whether or no New-Holland and New-Guinea was not one continued land and so it is said in the very History of Voyages these Maps are bound up in’. 1 So he had at once in his hands conjecture, assertion, and contradiction. All he knew for certain was that New Holland, like New Zealand, must have an east coast, and that if he sailed west far enough he would come to it.
1 Journals I, 410–11. De Brosses's plate V might well seem conclusive.
2 The spritsail topsail, according to Alan Villiers, was of no use anyway. It was ‘a sort of hangover from the days when a small mast was stepped cumbrously on the end of the bowsprit and sail set from a light yard which hoisted on it… . Its successor in Cook's time, this sprits'l-tops'l, was little if any better, except that being set from a light yard (or “sprit”) hauled out along the jib-boom and sheeted to the arms of the spritsail-yard inboard of it on the bowsprit, it did not strain the headgear so much.’— Captain Cook, the Seamen's Seaman (London, 1967), 133.
The long procedure of coasting began, in which two thousand miles of shore, brought out of the shades, were placed in a firm line on the chart. If Cook could have prefigured exactly the four months that lay ahead of him, until he should round the northern tip of New Holland, he might have paced his deck uneasily; as it was, the weather cleared, the winds were manageable, he had a good view of the coast as he sailed, sometimes two or three miles off it, sometimes increasing his distance to three or four leagues. As he advanced past promontories and bays the names of admirals and captains and other naval persons advanced with him, interspersed with metaphor and experience and reminiscence, plain characteristics, and—later—his own emotions. There were few resources for nomenclature his chart did not illustrate in the end: even in the first few days he had Ram Head, Cape Howe, Mount Dromedary, Bateman Bay, Point Upright, the Pigeon House, Long Nose, Red Point. He turned the south-east corner of the land at Cape Howe and steered north, bringing to not infrequently at night, sometimes tacking off shore and in again in the morning: for there was a high surf beating on the shore all along. Beyond the surf the appearance of the country, in those first days, was agreeable enough, moderately high with gentle slopes, grass-grown here and there though mainly covered with trees. Banks, in a week, expressed himself differently: “The countrey tho in general well enough clothd appeard in some places bare; it resembled in my imagination the back of a lean Cow, covered in general with long hair, but nevertheless where her scraggy hip bones have stuck out farther than they ought accidental rubbs and knocks have entirely bard them of their share of covering.' 1 It was not possible, unfortunately, to investigate every potential harbour. The name Long Nose was given to the north point of a bay, itself unnamed that seemed sheltered from the north-east, Cook had then an unfavourable wind, ‘and the appearance was not favourable enough to induce me to loose time in beating up to it.’ Thus he passed by that fine haven Jervis Bay, when he was thinking the time had come for a landing; but it was not the only fine haven that his fate caused him to pass by. There were a few people seen on the beach, and a fire or two.
1 Banks, II, 51. He is describing the country about Jervis Bay.
2 This seems to have been between Bulli and Bellambi Point, about nine miles north of Red Point (Port Kembla). See Edgar Beak, ‘Cook's First Landing Attempt in New South Wales’, in Royal Australian Historical Society Journal and Proceedings, Vol. 50 (1964), 191–204. The landing attempt and the ship's movements can be pictured quite clearly from the flat land above the beach.
In the morning enough water was found for the ship's needs in a small stream and in holes dug in the sand. There was plenty of wood, there was plenty of fish. Having come into a harbour, Cook surveyed it thoroughly and explored the country round about it as far as he could in the week he stayed there—and the wind kept him longer than he had intended. He wrote a favourable account of it, perhaps too favourable; for though it was ‘capacious safe and commodious’, a good deal of it was also shallow. Green made the latitude 34°. The land was low and level, its soil in general poor sandy stuff, though some of it was rich, some mere swamp; shrubs; palm trees, mangroves grew, with greater trees, heavy and hard—probably black-beans and casuarinas. The sand and mud flats fostered pelicans and other waterfowl, the oysters, mussels, and cockles which formed a large part of the native provision; parrots and cockatoos were beautiful. Banks describes animals that may have been bandicoots, dingos, native cats, and the dung of something—could it have been a stag? he wondered—that must have been a kangaroo. Gore the sportsman went out over the shallows at high water and struck a number of huge stingrays. Banks and Solander collected so many new plants that their preservation became a large problem, and the drying paper had to be carried on shore into the sun to hasten the process. The ‘Indians’, in no great number around the bay, were shy, dark-skinned, as Cook had already noticed, lean and active, quite naked, with black lank hair, some with bushy beards, certainly not negroes; they threw a dart or two but generally behaved on the principle of live and let live. Small parties of them visited the watering place, unattracted by presents, ‘all they seem'd to want was for us to be gone'. To learn anything of their customs, beyond their use of bark and shellfish, their lack of acquaintance with clothing and their painting of themselves, was impossible. Cook's own men remained healthy, except for one young seaman from the Orkneys called Forby Sutherland, who here died of tuberculosis seemingly acquired at the Strait of Le Maire. Cook named the inner south point of the bay after him. What name, however, would he give to the harbour itself, where he had displayed the English colours ashore every day, and cut upon a tree near the watering place, as at Mercury Bay, the ship's name and the date? He made no patriotic choice. He wrote in his log, after the last catch of stingrays, ‘The great quantity of these sort of fish found in this place occasioned my giving it the name of Sting ray's harbour.’ On this he had second, third and fourth thoughts, as he considered in his journal another kingdom of nature and its princes: ‘The great quantity of New Plants &c a Mr Banks and D r Solander collected in this place occasioned my giving it the name of’—Botanist Harbour? Botanist Bay? The famous name at last was written—‘ Botany Bay’; 1 the heads at its entrance Points Solander and Cape Banks. When the name emerged he had long left the place. He sailed out with his rejoicing natural historians, who had spent the whole of their last day collecting specimens, on the morning of 6 May, in a light north-west breeze that immediately went round to the south, as if a benediction were being laid upon him.
1 For the process of naming see Journals, I, ccix and 310, n. 4.
1 ibid., 316. He is describing the country as the coast ran northwards from Botany Bay towards Cape Byron.
2 Banks, II, 62.
There had been on the previous night, while the ship lay at anchor, a grave breach of discipline, ‘a very extraordinary affair’ which came upon Richard Orton the captain's clerk. He had gone to bed drunk—and again we are left amazed that these men could so often find the wherewithal for the purpose: was it by careful saving, or by robbing the ship's stores, or private casks?
Some Malicious person or persons in the Ship took the advantage of his being drunk and cut off all the cloaths from off his back, not being satisfied with this they some time after went into his Cabbin and cut off part of both his Ears as he lay asleep in his bed.
The furious captain went into the matter.
The person whome he suspected to have done this was M
rMagra one of the Midshipmen, but this did not appear to me upon inquirey. However as I Know'd Magra had once or twice before this in their drunken frolicks cut of his Cloaths and had been heard to say (as I was told) that if it was
1 Journals I, 318, n. 3.
2 Banks, II, 64.
not for the Law he would Murder him, these things consider'd induce'd me to think that Magra was not altogether innocent. I therefore, for the present dismiss'd him the quarter deck and susspended him from doing any duty in the Ship, he being one of those gentlemen, frequently found on board Kings Ships, that can very well be spared, or to speake more planer good for nothing. Besides it was necessary in me to show my immediate resentment against the person on whome the suspicion fell least they should not have stoped here.
Yet it was puzzling. Orton was a man not without faults, but he had not designedly injured any man in the ship.
Some reasons might, however be given why this misfortune came upon him in which he himself was in some measure to blame, but as this is only conjector and would tend to fix it upon some people in the Ship whome I would fain believe would hardly be guilty of such an action, I shall say nothing about it unless I shall hereafter discover the Offenders which I shall take every method in my power to do, for I look upon such proceedings as highly dangerous in such Voyages as this and the greatest insult that could be offer'd to my authority in this Ship, as I have always been ready to hear and redress every complaint that have been made against any Person in the Ship.
1
The thing is more than a storm in a teacup, and one would like to have Cook's earlier drafts of these passages, as well as the modifications we do have; for it casts some light, of which we have too little, an odd and dubious light, on the human nature and strains of the voyage. In what ways was Mr Orton to blame? Who were the persons Cook would fain believe innocent? The allusions make for curiosity. And do we not begin to see, not merely the indiscipline of the age, not merely ‘resentment’, but a little of the interior of the captain's mind—his sense of justice, here defeated; his regard for evidence, in other matters than marine surveying; his picture of himself as a commander?
1 Journals I, 323–4, and the notes to those pages, on Cook's deletions and rewriting.
A little before noon the boat made the Signal for meeting with Shoal water, upon this we hauld close upon a wind to the Eastward but suddenly fell into 3 1/4 fathom water, upon which we immidiatly let go an Anchor and brought the Ship up with all sails standing and had then 4 fathom course sandy bottom; we found here a Strong tide seting to the
Nwbw
1/2W at the rate of between 2 and 3 Miles an hour which was what carried us so quick Jai Jai Jaily upon the Shoal… . Having sounded about the Ship and found that there was sufficient water for her over the Shoal we at 3 oClock weigh'd and came to sail and stood to the westward as the land lay having first sent a boat ahéad to sound. At 6 o'Clock we Anchord in 10 fathom water a sandy bottom about 2 Miles from the Main land… .
1
1 Journals I, 330.
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having at that time 7 fathom, the next cast 5 and than 3 upon which we let go an Anchor and brought the Ship up.’ 1 Round about the shoal there was deep water. Cook got under sail and anchored for the night in the lee of a nearby island. How much more of this was there to be? he must have asked himself; and now, if ever, he must have blessed the nature of his cat, her broad bottom and stout timbers, the comparative lightness of her spars that made for quick Jai Jai manoeuvring. Now was he remarking with care the rise and fall and set of tides. Islands of various sizes lay parallel with the coast all the way along it, a fair distance in the offing, other smaller ones were close to the land. Islands can be avoided, can even be a convenience; but only the most consummate seamanship, with a little good luck added to it, can explain how Cook kept his ship off the ground in the next few days. His chart is no less good than it was; it, and his journal pages, are soon thick with the names he gave to every notable feature; his descriptions are no less lucid. One long fair afternoon, that of 3 June, was spent steering through Whitsunday Passage, between the Cumberland Islands and the main, in deep water, with pleasant bays and coves on either side, hills and valleys, woods and green levels. On a beach were seen two men with an out-rigger canoe, very different from the crude bark contrivances further south. So, past Cape Gloucester and Edgcumbe Bay, Cape Upstart springing from its level base, ‘ Magnetical head or Isle as it had much the appearance of an Island’—1 ibid., 333.
1 Journals I, 342.
2 Banks, II, 77.
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, and two low woody islands, which could be taken for mere rocks above the water, N1/2W. ‘At this time’, says Cook, ‘we shortend sail and hauld off shoreEne
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close upon a wind.’ There were those who, after his story appeared, accused him of rashness and argued that he should have anchored. He could have answered that he was not on the edge of a shoal, or in a bay preparing to land. His intention was not to risk danger but ‘to stretch off all night as well to avoid the dangers we saw ahead’—the dubious island-rocks, and according to Banks, shoals—‘as to see if any Islands lay in the offing, especialy as we now begin to draw near the Latitude of those discover'd by Quiros which some Geographers, for what reason I know not have thought proper to tack to this land, having the advantage of a fine breeze of wind and a clear moonlight night.' That is, he had the ideal conditions for night sailing that he had exploited before. He had a man heaving the lead continuously, and the ship being under way was in the best state for manoeuvring. ‘In standing off from 6 untill near 9 oClock we deepen'd our water from 14 to 21 fathom when all at once we fell into 12, 10 and 8 fathom. At this time I had every body at their stations to put about and come too an anchor but in this I was not so fortunate for meeting again with deep water I thought there could be no danger in stand g on.' The gentlemen were at supper: they must, they concluded in Banks's words, have passed over ‘the tail of the Sholes we had seen at sunset and therefore went to bed in perfect security’; 1 the sea was calm, the moon continued her radiance, in it the Endeavour stole along under double-reefed topsails. ‘Before 10 o'Clock' (we return to Cook) ‘we had 20 and 21 fathom and continued in that depth untill a few Minutes before a 11 when we had 17 and before the Man at the lead could heave another cast the Ship Struck and stuck fast.’ 2 They were on a coral reef, at high tide.1 ibid.
2 Journals I, 343–4. The ship had been here passing just northward of Pickersgill Reef, which is about three miles long north-west and south-east. Four and a half miles north of it the next—Endeavour—reef stretched for five miles east and west. This reef is in two sections. It appears from the work done in reclaiming the ship's guns in January-February 1969 that she struck at a point three-quarters of the way from the eastern end of the eastern section; not the main reef, but a small detached upthrusting ‘bornic’ just in front of it. This is now marked by a steel peg.
Within an instant Cook was on deck; sails were taken in, boats sounding round the ship, yards and topmasts struck, anchors carried out for heaving her off. In some places about here were three or four fathoms, in others ‘not quite as many feet’ of water, a ship's length from the starboard side as much as twelve fathoms, even more astern. She would not budge under any strain, but was making little or no water, while the horrible sound was heard of her bottom scraping on the coral underneath. Everything heavy that could be thought of was thrown overboard—the six guns and their carriages, half a ton each, iron and stone ballast, casks, decayed stores, a general miscellany of fifty tons and more. She had struck at high water at night; at high water twelve hours later, with all this lightening, she still would not move. Fortunately there was a flat calm, the grating of her bottom ceased; but as the tide went down again she heeled to starboard and began to make water. Everybody, including the gentlemen, took to the pumps in quarter-hour reliefs; there were four pumps, but one of them had rotted and would not work. Banks admired the coolness of the officers; he was surprised at the unusual absence of oaths among the men; he had understood that under such circumstances sailors generally ran riot and plundered the ship. Some hope was now born from the old belief that night tides rose higher than day tides, and while the pumps worked Cook got all ready for another attempt at heaving off. The leak was gaining: if the ship did come off into deep water she might go straight down. This risk had to be taken: what alternative was there? The tide rose high and higher, she floated; she was hauled off, after twenty-three hours. While the leak still gained a mistake happened ‘which for the first time caused fear to operate upon every man in the Ship.’ A new man measuring the depth of water in the ship took it from a different level and reported a terrifying increase. Realisation of the mistake caused an equal reaction; vigorous pumping gained upon the leak. The anchors were brought in, except the small bower, which had to be cut away with the cable; the stream anchor cable also was lost. The foretopmast was sent up, the ship was got under sail, and she edged in for the land, six or seven leagues distant. If she could not make it there were the two low woody islands seen at dusk two days before, still visible—Hope Islands—surely they could be reached? While she sailed she was fothered—that is, a sail sewn with tufts of wool and oakum and spread with sheep's dung was dragged over the place of the leak, which was thus partially plugged by the force of the water itself. Jonathan Monkhouse, who had had some experience of this, was in charge of the operation, and ‘exicuted it very much to my satisfaction’, says Cook; high praise indeed for the midshipman from that measured pen. The leak could now be kept down with one pump. As for the ship's company all through the crisis—the captain gives judgment again—no men ever behaved better. At night between the 12th and 13th she was anchored; next day she was again edged in with boats ahead sounding and looking for a harbour. The first that was examined—Weary Bay, as Cook significantly called it—had not enough water, and another night was spent at anchor, among shoals, two miles off shore. The pinnace then reported a good one, the ship ran down to it, by which time it had begun to blow, she would not work and missed stays twice; still entangled among shoals Cook again anchored, and went and buoyed the narrow channel into the harbour himself. It was in the midst of these anxieties that the captain found time for an act of justice: ‘This day I restore’d M r Magra to his Duty as I did not find him guilty of the crimes laid to his Charge.' 1 The weather turned to gales and rain. He could not move. He got in spars to lighten the ship forward; and at last, after two more days, he ran in, grounding first on the bar, then inside. It was 16 June: he was not free of that harbour until 4 August.
1 This is a marginal note in one copy of the journal.— Journals I, 347, n. 5.
Parties sent into the country to forage brought back a few pigeons, palm cabbages, wild plantains and taro. All these ate pretty well, as long as the taro experiments were confined to the leaves; ‘the roots were so Acrid that few besides my self could eat them’, says Cook. What was there that he could not eat? Fishing with the seine, which began badly, improved so as to provide fresh food for the whole ship's company. There seemed to be no game animal on land, unless the animal of which fleeting glances were several times caught (once by Cook himself)—about the size of a greyhound, slender, mouse-coloured, swift, with a long tail, jumping like a hare—was a game animal. Banks began to refer to it as ‘the’ animal. Then there were one or two ‘wolves’, probably dingos or native dogs; and the thing so oddly described by a seaman, ‘about as large and much like a one gallon cagg as black as the Devil and had 2 horns on its head, it went but slowly but I dard not touch it’ 1 —which may have been a flying-fox. Banks and Gore, the naturalist and the hunter, were determined to secure specimens of ‘the’ animal; they went up the river until they had to drag their boat, saw some which easily outdistanced Banks's greyhound by bounding over the long grass, and returned with only a few ducks and the additional sight of an alligator. Gore was a determined man; a week later he shot a small one, a fortnight after that a second, much larger. They were kangaroos, grateful both to the curiosity and to the stomachs of those who dined on them, and a capital contribution to knowledge of the world's fauna. Purslane and wild beans were added to the diet. The master came back from examining the shoals with quantities of large clams; then, to general jubilation, with hundredweights of turtle. Cook's policy was settled: ‘Whatever refreshment we got that would bear a division I caused to be equally divided amongest the whole compney generally by weight, the meanest person in the Ship had an equal share with my self or any one on board, and this method every commander of a Ship on such a Voyage as this ought ever to observe.’ 2
1 Banks, II, 84.
2 Journals II, 366.
Turtle led to what might have been a highly embarrassing episode. Traces had been seen of the native people by the hunters and naturalists. It was not till after three weeks had gone by that a few of them, shy and suspicious like those of Botany Bay, naked, nimble, painted in the same way, but of smaller size, began to approach the ship—even then leaving their women at a distance, for glasses to scrutinise. They did not seem interested in gifts. They let their weapons be examined; Banks was allowed by one of them to experiment with a wet finger and get below the layers of smoke and dirt to the brown chocolate skin underneath. They chattered somehow to Tupaia, and a few of their words were picked up. When they saw turtles lying on the deck of the ship they showed real animation and prepared to go off with two of them, as their own property; resentful at being stopped, no sooner were they on shore than one seized a handful of dry grass, lighted it at a fire that was burning and in an instant had the whole place in flames; immediately after which they set fire to the grass surrounding some fishing nets and linen laid out to dry. Luckily the ship's powder had been returned on board, and only that morning her tents; there was nothing lost but a piglet, and nobody hurt but an aboriginal grazed by small shot. Reconciliation was soon effected. They fired the woods on the hills round about, however, perhaps as a warning—the first bush fire seen by Europeans in that inflammable country.
1 His result was 214°42′30″ W—i.e. 145°17′30″ E, the now accepted longitude being 145°15'. He made another observation of the emersion on 16 July, which gave him 145°6′15″ E, not quite so good, with a mean of 145°11′52 1/2″.
1 Journals I, 361; Banks, II, 95. The different copies of Cook's journal show more than one version of Cook's own words: in the holograph he has improved on himself by copying Banks.
Se
the way we came as the Master would have had me done would be an endless peice of work, as the winds blow now constantly strong from that quarter without hardly any intermission—on the other hand if we do not find a passage to the north d we shall have to come back at last.’ 1 The ship began to drive towards a reef astern; he gave her more cable and another anchor, struck topgallant masts and topmasts and yards, and at last she rode fast. She stayed thus for three days, the last of which was spent wrestling to get up the anchors again.1 Journals I, 370.
1 These islands were the Howick group.
2 The Cook Passage.
3 Journals I, 375–6.
The wind was at ESE and then changed to EBN, which was right upon the reef where the sea was breaking, ‘and of course made our clearing of it doubtful’. Cook stood north with all the sail he could set for the rest of the day and till midnight, then tacked and stood to the Sse. He had run two miles when the wind fell quite calm, and he was left to the mercy of the waves. To anchor in that vast deep was impossible. Before dawn the roaring of the surf could be heard; when the day came it could be seen, only too clearly, not a mile away; and towards it the ship was being resistlessly impelled. Her men by now knew the nature of the reef, a perpendicular wall standing up from unfathomable depths, at which the whole ocean hurled itself, flooding over the top in a chaos of smashed water and foam, or withdrawing, infinite force all reversed, for another ruinous blow. In that tremendous surge the heavy-timbered Endeavour might have been a cork: except that the cork would have gone over with the foam, or back with the retreat, while the Endeavour would smash and sink in a moment. Yet men will struggle: if there was no wind to fill the sails the boats must tow; the pinnace was under repair but the yawl and the longboat were hoisted out, and with the help of sweeps from the aft ports got the ship's head round to the northward; the carpenter got another strake on the pinnace and she was sent down too. At this time the ship was perhaps eighty yards from the breakers; one sea washed her and then fell into the trough before its final rise and descent; a seaman was heaving the lead; and on the deck Green, helped by Clerke and Forwood the gunner, with what was either the last refinement of professional coolness or stark insensibility, was taking a lunar. Suddenly a little breath of air moved, blew for a few minutes, faded, the merest cat's-paw; the ship moved with it about two hundred yards; it blew again as briefly and again she moved outwards. About a quarter of a mile distant a narrow opening appeared in the reef; the boats and the sweeps together got her abreast of this, when the force of the ebb tide, gushing out, carried her a quarter of a mile off. By the end of the morning the boats had made the gap something between a mile and a half and two miles. Then the struggle became one with the flood. There was still no wind, and how long could the human arm endure? Another narrow opening was seen in the reef, the ship's head was pulled round again, a light breeze at last sprang up, at ENE, with which the boats and the tide now combined in her favour, the tide hurried her through this ‘Providential Channell’; and Cook anchored in smooth water.
It has been ‘the narrowest Escape we ever had and had it not been for the immeadate help of Providence we must Inavatably have Perishd’, said Pickersgill; and he was not the only one to heave a sigh. Cook's own words at last show signs of strain, as of a man dropped suddenly from extremest peril, the climax of unremitted effort, into exhausted reaction. His mind, so self-contained, suddenly opens. It would be wrong not to quote him again at length.
It is but a few days ago that I rejoiced at having got without the Reef, but that joy was nothing when Compared to what I now felt at being safe at an Anchor within it, such is the Visissitudes attending this kind of Service & must always attend an unknown Navigation where one steers wholy in the dark without any manner of Guide whatever. Was it not for the Pleasure which Naturly results to a man from his being the first discoverer even was it nothing more than Sand or Shoals this kind of Service would be insupportable especially in far distant parts like this, Short of Provisions & almost every other necessary. People will hardly admit of an excuse for a man leaving a Coast unexplored he has once discover'd, if dangers are his excuse he is then charged with Timerousness & want of Perseverance, & at once pronounced the most unfit man in the world to be employ'd as a discoverer, if on the other hand he boldly encounters all the dangers & Obstacles he meets with & is unfortunate enough not to succeed he is then Charged with Temerity & perhaps want of Conduct, the former of these Aspersions I am confident can never be laid to my Charge, & if I am fortunate to Surmount all the Dangers we meet with the latter will never be bro
tin Question, altho' I must own that I have engaged more among the Islands & Shoals upon this Coast than Perhaps in prudence I ought to have done with a single Ship, & every other thing considered, but if I had not I should not have been able to give any better account of the one half of it, than if I had never seen it, at best I should not have been able to say wether it was Main land or Islands & as to its produce, that we should have been totally ignorant of as being inseparable with the other & in this case it would have been far more satisfaction to me never to have discover'd it, but it is time I should have done with this Subject W
chat best is but disagreeable & which I was lead into on reflecting on our late Danger.
1
1 This extract is from the Mitchell Library copy of the journal, printed in Journals I, 546–7, a version a little closer to Cook's original thoughts, before he had had the advantage of scrutinising Banks's more elevated account of the whole episode. The danger was then so vivid in his mind that in his entry for the 16th he wrote, ‘It pleased GOD at this very juncture to send us a light air of wind’; but later consideration of the chances apparently led him to dismiss the Deity as a likely agent of salvation. He nevertheless preserved the name Providential Channel. His later version of the passage quoted ( Journals I, 380) is shorter.
This, we may guess, is hardly Cook composing a public statement—hardly even, with its reminiscences of his instructions, a commander justifying himself to the Lords of the Admiralty; it is a man, not unduly nervous but emerging from one of the dark places of the soul, communing with himself, passing judgment on himself.
1 Over all the reefs and shoals noted down by Cook on his chart north of the Endeavour Reef he spaced out in capital letters the word LABYRINTH.
At daylight on 21 August, after another night at anchor, seeing for once no danger ahead, Cook made all the sail he could towards the northernmost land in sight. In two hours the shoals appeared again, but the northernmost land revealed itself as islands, separated from the main by a passage sown with shoals, through which, however, with boats ahead on each bow and a man at the masthead, he made his way on a strong flood tide. At noon he was through. The nearest part of the main, ‘and which we soon after found to be the Northermost’, bore west a little south. It was the end of the land, ‘the Northern Promontary of this country’, and Cook named it York Cape. 3 He had come through what we know as the Adolphus Channel, and at once stood along shore to the west, boats still ahead. There seemed here too an open channel. At four in the afternoon he anchored off a small island, ‘in great hopes that we had at last found a Passage into the Indian Seas’; landed, Banks and Solander in company, to the fright of a few people who were seen, and climbed the highest hill. It was no great height; ‘but I could see from it no land between Sw and WSW so that I did not doubt but what there was a passage.’ To the north-west, as far as sight could carry, was nothing but islands. Just before sunset on that day Cook carried out his final act of annexation. His words have become classic.
1 Journals I, 382.
2 ibid., 384.
3 He gave it the latitude of 10°37' S for the north point, corrected in the Admiralty copy of his journal by himself to 10°42', and 10°41' S for the east point; and the longitude of 218°24' W—i.e. 141°36' E. The position as now received is lat. 10°41' S (presumably the north point), longitude 142° 32' E.
Having satisfied my self of the great Probability of a Passage, thro' which I intend going with the Ship, and therefore may land no more upon this Eastern coast of New Holland, and on the Western side I can make no new discovery the honour of which belongs to the Dutch Navigators; but the Eastern Coast from the Latitude of 38° South down to this place I am confident was never seen or viseted by any European before us, and Notwithstand[ing] I had in the Name of His Majesty taken posession of several places upon this coast, I now once more hoisted English Coulers and in the Name of His Majesty King George the Third took posession of the whole Eastern Coast from the above Latitude down to this place by the name of
New South Wales
, together with all the Bays, Harbours Rivers and Islands situate upon the said coast, after which we fired three Volleys of small Arms which were Answerd by the like number from the Ship.
1
Classic words: but what did they mean, or what did Cook intend them to mean? In the first place, we may note that, however the present page of his journal runs, in taking possession of this eastern coast (without the agreement of the aboriginal inhabitants) Cook did not give it the name of New South Wales, or any name at all, though when he found a name he may have called it New Wales by analogy with Dampier's New Britain, earlier detached from New Guinea. New South Wales was a name that emerged later, certainly not before he despatched a copy of the journal to the Admiralty. In the second place, we are unaware what proportion of the country Cook thought he was annexing under the head of ‘coast’: how far into the interior did the ‘coast’ run? Did the ‘Rivers … situate upon the said coast’ include river systems back to their sources? We may conclude that the resounding statement meant no more than a vague assertion of authority over a quite vague area, a gesture which the discoverer thought he was bound to make. The island on which he made the gesture was called Possession Island.
1 Journals I, 387–8.
2 He was anchored on the Rothsay Banks, extending sixteen miles west from the southern point of Prince of Wales Island, which forms the northern coast of Endeavour Strait To the south of these banks are Red and Wallis Banks; between them and Rothsay Banks is deep water, but Cook, standing north-west, had put that behind him.
Those shoals! He cannot but recur to them. He had done his best with his chart; but as a conscientious hydrographer he must say to seamen who might come after him that he did not believe he had one half of them laid down; and how could he lay down every island, ‘especially between the Latitude of 20° and 22°, where we saw Islands out at Sea as far as we could distinguish any thing’? He could not deny that his work had some value, that it was solidly founded.
However take the Chart in general and I beleive it will be found to contain as few errors as most Sea Charts which have not under gone a thorough correction, the Latitude and Longitude of all or most of the principal head lands, Bays &c
amay be relied on, for we seldom faild of geting an Observation every day to correct our Latitude by, and the observation for Settleing the Longitude were no less numberous and made as often as the Sun and Moon came in play, so that it was impossible for any material error to creep into our reckoning in the intermidiatc times. Injustice to M
rGreen
1 Journals I, 390. Cf. 411, on the ‘two Seperate Lands or Islands’: ‘however we have now put this wholy out of dispute, but as I beleive it was known before tho’ not publickly [a reference to Dalrymple?] I clame no other merit than the clearing up of a doubtfull point.' The best channel through Torres Strait is the Prince of Wales Channel discovered by Flinders in the Investigator in 1802.
2 ibid., 391.
I must say that he was Indefatigable in making and calculating these observations which otherwise must have taken up a great deal of my time, which I could not at all times very well spare. Not only this, but by his Instructions several of the Petty officers can make and Calculate these observations almost as well as himself….
1
He is carried away by his fervour to recommend the lunar method to all sea officers; to assert his hope for the extended publication of the Ephemeris.
1 ibid., 392.
1 He repeats this nonsense in a letter to John Walker after he got home, 13 September 1771 ( Journals I, 508–9), so one must presume that he was rather taken with it.
2 He was on the Cook Shoal. ‘This was one of the many fortunate escapes we have had from shipwreck for it was near high-water and there run a short cockling sea that would soon have bulged the Ship had she struck… .’—ibid., 403.
1 Banks, II, 145.
1 Journals I, 417.
1 ibid., 427.
This was off Bantam Point, the north-eastern extreme of the strait; thence four days of slow and painful sailing, labouring against strong currents, past almost as many islands, reefs and shoals as were met within the Great Barrier, anchoring and weighing with light winds from the land, brought her into Batavia road. There, on the afternoon of 10 October, by Cook's time, he found an English East Indiaman, and learnt that it was 11 October. Another boat came on board him, to enquire who he was. Both its officer and his people, notes Banks, ‘were almost as Spectres, no good omen of the healthy-ness of the countrey we were arrivd at; our people however who truly might be called rosy and plump, for we had not a sick man among us, jeerd and flouted much at their brother sea mens white faces.’ 1 Cook sent Hicks ashore to announce his arrival to the governor, and to apologise for not saluting, as he had not enough guns to do it properly.
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7a. ‘A View of part of the West Side of Georges Island’ (Tahiti) Drawing by Cook
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7b. ‘The West-Elevation of the Fort’ (at Point Venus, Matavai Bay) Drawing by Cook
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8a. ‘A Plan of Royal or Matavie Bay in Georges Island’ (Tahiti) Drawing by Cook
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8b. Peaks of Matavai Bay Pen and wash drawing by Parkinson
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9. Fortified pa on arched rock, Mercury Bay Drawing by Cook, after a drawing by Parkinson
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10. The watering-place in Tolaga Bay Drawing by Cook, after a drawing by Parkinson
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11 a. The Endeavour at sea Drawing by Parkinson
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11 b. The hull of the Endeavour Drawing by Parkinson
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12. ‘New Zealand War Canoe. The crew bidding defiance to the Ships Company’ Drawing by Spöring
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13. ‘A Chart of New Zealand or the Islands of Aeheinomouwe and Tovypoenammu lying in the South Sea’ By Cook
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14. Entry in Cook's Journal, 16 August 1770 From the original in the National Library of Australia, Canberra
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15 a. The reef where the Endeavour struck, 11 June 1770 Detail from ‘Chart of Part of the Sea Coast of New South Wales’. By Cook
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15 b. ‘A Plan of the entrance of Endeavour River’ By Cook
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16. The Endeavour being careened Engraving by W. Byrne after Parkinson
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17. ‘A Map of the Southern Hemisphere’ By Cook; showing his proposed route by a strong continuous line (yellow in the original)