The Life of Captain James Cook
XVII — From New Zealand to England
XVII
From New Zealand to England
The Extraordinary voyage proceeded. Cook had completed his parenthesis, which would have made a brilliant reputation for any other explorer; he could revert to the tracing of his main theme, as he had laid it down in early February, in latitude 64° S, longitude 99° W. Having steered south from Austrialia del Espiritu Santo as far as New Zealand, he must now steer still farther south to a latitude somewhere between 50° and 60°, and then east. He could not be the length of Cape Horn in November, because it was November already, and he could not cross the whole width of the Pacific in three weeks; but except for the most untoward happening he could still be at the Horn in time to explore, that summer, the southern part of the Atlantic Ocean. There was no untoward happening of great importance. Sails split and ropes gave way in gales that were generally favourable, there were few light airs or calms to slow the ship. It seemed to the captain an uninteresting passage; he strained himself, he thought, to record anything beyond the variation of the compass. Perhaps the period was one of those in which he rewrote—as he kept on rewriting and revising—his journal, until his secretary must have sighed at the prospect of yet another version to copy. Wales fixed a device to measure the roll of the ship. The Resolution sailed well: on 27 November Clerke registered the note, 'We've had a fine steady Gale and following Sea these 24 Hours, and run the greatest distance we've ever reach'd in this ship'—the distance being 183 miles. In the first twelve days Cook had steered south-east to latitude 55° 48', where he altered course to the east. On the day of the great run, convinced that he could abandon hope of finding more land in the Pacific Ocean, he resolved to make for the west entrance of the Strait of Magellan. He had no thought of passing through the Strait. He had modified his plan of action once more, quite otherwise, 'with a View of coasting the out, or South side of Terra del Fuego round Cape Horn to Strait La Maire. As the world has but a very imperfect knowlidge of this Coast, I thought the Coasting it would be of more advantage to both Navigation and Geography than any thing I could expect to find in a higher latitude.' 1 There was reason enough why the world's knowledge should be imperfect: it was a coast which, so far from inviting seamen to examine it, inspired in them a sort of horror. Cook, decreasing his latitude, made straight for it, meaning to fall in with Cape Deseado, the north-west extremity of Desolation Island, behind which is the entrance to the strait; and at midnight of 17 December he sighted land not far from the cape. He had made the first run across the South Pacific in a high latitude—unless Furneaux had preceded him, and who knew where Furneaux had gone?—and he was done with that ocean. 'I hope those who honoured me with this employ will not think …'—no, he could allow himself a little self-approval: 'I … flatter my self that no one will think that I have left it unexplor'd', or that more could have been done towards that end in one voyage than in this. Having said which, he did not enlarge on the matter. There was too much to say of the shore he had now to range.
1 Journals II, 583.
2 Waterman Island.
1 'In some Charts Cape Horn is laid down as belonging to a small island, this was neither verified nor contridicted by us…'.— Journals II, 602. It is the southern point of Horn Island, itself the most southern of the Hermite group of islands.
2 'It is wonderfull to see how the defferent Animals which inhabited this little spot are reconciled to each other, they seem to have entered into a league not to disturb each others tranquillity. The Sea lions occupy most of the Sea Coast, the Sea bears take up thier aboad in the isle; the Shags take post on the highest clifts, the Penguins fix their quarters where there is the most easiest communication to and from the sea and the other birds chuse more retired places. We have seen all these animals mix together like domesticated Cattle and Poultry in a farm yard, without the one attempting to disturb or molest the other…'.— Journals II, 614–15.
1 Journals II, 615.
2 I have discussed these discoveries more at length in Journals II, 615, n. 1; 617, n, 2.
1 ibid., 621–2.
2 ibid., 626.
The two weeks that followed his departure, on 20 January, were weeks of prevailing fog or haze or thick mist, with some variety of drizzle or sleet, but also, fortunately, enough clear weather to make the period tolerable, and to reveal most of what there was to see. Cook began with circumnavigating, at some distance and owing to the conditions, over some days, a group of rocks, Clerke's Rocks, a short distance south and east of Georgia, to make sure that they were rocks only; after which he struck south to 60°, expecting to meet ice at any moment. Further south he would not go, unless he had quite certain signs of land. Cape Circumcision seemed now as likely as anything that might lie in that direction. The Gulf of St Sebastian had gone; he doubted whether la Roche or the Léon had ever seen the Isle of Georgia, but if they had, the charts placed it badly out of position; nevertheless, they had helped him to his own discovery, because except for these charts he would probably have sailed south of it. He would stand to the east. He cannot help making a significant admission: 'besides I was now tired of these high Southern Latitudes where nothing was to be found but ice and thick fogs'. 1 There were also penguins, snow petrels and whales.
1 Journals II, 629.
'A point of the Continent,' says Cook, 'for I firmly beleive that there is a tract of land near the Pole, which is the Source of most of the ice which is spread over this vast Southern Ocean:' and he goes on to the first of a series of extended considerations on this continent and on ice. In this first one he is more concerned with his own position as an explorer. There is an echo.
It is however true that the greatest part of this Southern Continent (supposeing there is one) must lay within the Polar Circile where the Sea is so pestered with ice, that the land is thereby inacessible. The risk one runs in exploreing a coast in these unknown and Icy Seas, is so very great, that I can be bold to say, that no man will ever venture farther than I have done and that the lands which may lie to the South will never be explored. Thick fogs, Snow storms, Intense Cold and every other thing that can render Navigation dangerous one has to encounter and these difficulties are greatly heightned by the enexpressable horrid aspect of the Country, a Country doomed by Nature never once to feel the warmth of the Suns rays, but to lie for ever buried under everlasting snow and ice. The Ports which may be on the Coast are in a manner wholy filled up with frozen Snow of a vast thickness, but if any should so far be open as to admit a ship in, it is even dangerous to go in, for she runs a risk of being fixed there for ever, or coming out in an ice island. The islands and floats of ice on the Coast, the great falls from the ice clifts in the Port, or a heavy snow storm attended with a sharp frost, would prove equally fatal. After
1 ibid., 633.
such an explanation as this the reader must not expect to find me much farther to the South. It is however not for want of inclination but other reasons. It would have been rashness in me to have risked all which had been done in the Voyage, in finding out and exploaring a Coast which when done would have answerd no end whatever, or been of the least use either to Navigation or Geography or indeed any other Science; Bouvets Discovery was yet before us, the existence of which was to be cleared up and lastly we were now not in a condition to undertake great things, nor indeed was there time had we been ever so well provided.
1
So he would resume his course to the east, in a northerly gale and a heavy fall of snow, so heavy that he was obliged every now and then to throw the ship up into the wind to shake it out of the sails, and rid both them and her of an insupportable weight. His latitude this day, 6 February, was 58°15′ S, his longitude 21°34′ W.
1 Journals II, 637–8.
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19 a. Captain Tobias Furneaux, by James Northcote, 1776
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19 b. Reinhold and George Forster at Tahiti, after J. F. Rigaud Engraving by D. Beyel
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20. Captain Cook, after William Hodges, 1777 Engraving by J. Basire
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21. The ships watering by taking in ice, in 61° S Water-colour drawing by Hodges
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22. 'Dusky Bay in New Zeland, 1773' Unsigned plan, probably by Cook
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23. 'Family in Dusky Bay, New Zeland' Engraving by Lerperniere after Hodges
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24. 'The Fleet of Otaheite assembled at Oparee' Engraving by W. Woollett after Hodges
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25 a. Omai, after William Hodges Engraving by J. Caldwall
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25 b. O-Hedidee (Odiddy), after William Hodges Engraving by J. Caldwall
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26. The Resolution off the South Sandwich Islands Pen and wash drawing by Joseph Gilbert
On this passage to the Cape Cook had leisure to formulate some of the general conclusions to which he had been led—which he had begun to put into words, indeed, as he left the problematic coast of Sandwich Land. At first he seems to be commenting on the memorandum and the chart with which he had explained his purpose to the First Lord three years—or an age?—before, and on the various restatements and modifications of that plan he had made in the intervening time. There is accomplishment to record.
I had now made the circuit of the Southern Ocean in a high Latitude and traversed it in such a manner as to leave not the least room for the Possibility of there being a continent, unless near the Pole and out of the reach of Navigation; by twice visiting the Pacific Tropical Sea, I had not only settled the situation of some old discoveries but made there many new ones and left, I conceive, very little more to be done even in that part. Thus I flater my self that the intention of the Voyage has in every respect been fully Answered, the Southern Hemisphere sufficiently explored and a final end put to the searching after a Southern Continent, which has at times ingrossed the attention of some of the Maritime Powers for near two Centuries past and the Geographers of all ages.
1
This is the voice of authority and maturity; the change of tone from the letters with which he introduced his first journal to the notice of the Admiralty is marked and remarkable. Yet, beyond that initial statement, he must still deal in the probable and not the certain. His mind went again to Sandwich Land.
That there may be a Continent or large tract of land near the Pole, I will not deny, on the contrary I am of opinion there is, and it is probable that we have seen a part of it. The excessive cold, the many islands and vast floats of ice all tend to prove that there must be land to the South… .
2
1 ibid., 643.
2 ibid.
It must, he argued, be irregular land, extending farthest to the north from opposite the southern Atlantic and Indian oceans—which is perfectly true: for in those parts he had encountered a greater quantity of ice farther north than elsewhere, and greater cold, and the greater part of those immense quantities of ice must originate with land. If there was no great extent of land, if ice did not need land for its formation, then there should be a belt of ice, and a belt of cold, right round the earth, at a more or less uniform distance from the Pole, say at the parallel of 60° or 70°. This was not so, and his conclusion followed. His argument was not unreasonable within the context of his own observation. But he knew too little of the oceanography of those regions; the movement of the great cold-water current, its effect on the movement of the ice, were notions as sealed from him as was the Pole. He was not, of course, dead to the drift of currents, and he had measured them.
There was more to say about ice, whether 'islands' or 'vast floats of low ice'—as we should say, bergs or the pack. The traditional theory, that as sea water did not freeze, all this ice must come from frozen rivers, would not do. Cook had never seen any earth or the products of earth, detritus, incorporated in it; he doubted the existence of rivers in a land too cold for water. No water ran on the coast of Georgia, no stream from any ice island. Vast ice cliffs he had seen at the edge of the sea (and he thought they might project a good way into the sea), valleys deep in snow; in Possession Bay he had seen the masses of ice breaking away. He arrived at his own theory, which, apart from the movement of glaciers, clearly accounted for the tabular, or flat-topped, bergs, with their sheer sides.
'It is here'—at the ice-cliffs—'where the Ice islands are formed, not from streames of Water, but from consolidated snow which is allmost continually falling or drifting down from the Mountains, especially in Winter when the frost must be intence. During that Season, these ice clifts must so accumulate as to fill up all the Bays be they ever so large, this is a fact which cannot be doubted as we have seen it so in summer; also during that season the Snow may fix and consolidate to ice to most of the other coasts and there also form Ice clifts. These clifts accumulate by continual falls of snow and what drifts from the Mountains till they are no longer able to support their own weight and then large pieces break off which we call Ice islands.'
1
1 Journals II, 644.
must be formed on or under the side of a Coast, composed of spired Rocks and precepices, or some such uneven surface, for we cannot suppose that snow alone, as it falls, can form on a plain surface, such as the Sea, such a variety of high spired peaks and hills as we have seen on many of the Ice isles. It is certainly more reasonable to suppose that they are formed on a Coast whose surface is something similar to theirs.
1
He appears to think of them, that is, as breaking away directly from the land, moulded to the land, carrying the land's impression with them. Yet they all, if of any extent, had a perpendicular side or sides of clear ice. 'This to me was a convincing proof that these, as well as the flat isles, must have broke off from a substance like themselves, that is from some large tract of ice'; so that subdivision went on all the while.
As for the pack or field ice, Cook has also his theory, built on his own observation. He has still to struggle with the dogma that sea water does not freeze, and fortunately he was never in water shallow enough to be able to watch it freezing around him. His observations are correct, though his initial doubt 'if ever the Wind is violent in the very high Latitudes', so violent, that is, as to keep the water in motion sufficient to stop freezing, is itself violently wrong-headed. He proceeds,
that the Sea will freeze over, or the snow which falls upon it, which amounts to the same thing, we have instances in the Northern Hemisphere; the Baltick sea, the Gulf of S
tLaurence, the Straits of Bell-isle and many other equally large Seas are frequently frozen over in Winter; nor is this attall extraordinary, for we have found the degree of cold at the surface of the sea, even in summer, to be two degrees below the freezing point, consequently nothing kept it from freezing but the Salts it contained and the agitation of its surface; when ever this last ceaseth in Winter, when the frost is set in and there comes a fall of Snow, it will freeze on the Surface as it falls and in a few days or perhaps in one night form such a sheet of ice as will not be easy broke up; thus a foundation will be laid for it to accumulate to any thickness by falls of snow, without it being attall necessary for the Sea Water to freeze. It may be by this means that these vast floats of low ice we find in the Spring of the Year are formed and after they break up are carried by the Currents to the North; for from all the observations I have been able to make, the Currents every where in the high Latitudes set to the North or to the
Ne
or
Nw
but we have very seldom found them considerable.
2
1 ibid., 645.
2 ibid., 645–6.
This is, as he says, an imperfect account. The winter winds in the high latitudes are, in fact, violent; in the very low air temperatures of autumn the sea does itself freeze. But there are quiet periods; and, beginning with the freezing of the sea, the build-up of the winter pack-ice of Antarctica does proceed much as Cook here defines it. Once this build-up is well under way the blizzards of winter can do little to stop it, since the weight of frozen snow on the water inhibits the formation of waves. We may say, as we have said, that Cook knew too little of the oceanography of these regions. He was founding it.
He has a final word for the inexpressible, the 'horribleness' of the lands he had discovered, where these floating islands of ice were formed. What could be expected more to the south ?—'for we may reasonably suppose that we have seen the best as lying most to the North, whoever has resolution and perseverance to clear up this point by proceding farther than I have done, I shall not envy him the honour of the discovery but I will be bold to say that the world will not be benefited by it'. 1 He had, he thought, gone as far as man could go. He now, by implication, withdraws this certainty. His prophecy was wrong. It would in his day have required too much imagination to be right.
Storms did not cease as the ship stood north, and contrary winds; sails and rigging continued to give way; but as February passed and March drew on the temperature rose, and sea-birds gave a little variety to the stale and tedious diet. Cook thought hard about winds and currents. Possibly it was at this time that the Muse overcame the otherwise able-bodied seaman, Thomas Perry, with the ballad beginning
It is now my brave boys we are clear of the Ice
And keep a good heart if you'll take my advice
We are out of the cold my brave Boys do not fear.
For the Cape of good Hope with good hearts we do steer—
1 Journals II, 646.
2 These verses are in an album in the Dixson Library, Ms F I, called 'Captain James Cook Relics and Mss'. A note appended to them by Miss Louisa Jane Mackrell, greatniece of Isaac Smith, reads, 'This song composed by Thomas Perry one of the Sea Men that went round the world with Captain Cook and was very much valued by the Captain. Mrs Cook kept it with the Gold Medal till her death.' I have printed the whole thing in Journals II, 870–1.
We were all hearty seamen no cold did we fear
And we have from all sickness entirely kept clear
Thanks be to the Captain he has proved so good
Amongst all the Islands to give us fresh food
And when to old England my Brave Boys we arrive
We will tip off a Bottle to make us alive….
1 Nevertheless they appear solidified on Henry Roberts's General Chart that accompanied the official account of the third voyage, A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean … (1784), to the south of Africa, about latitude 41° S, longitude 21° E.
2 This short passage appears to have been what Cook first wrote. For the second sentence, when revising his text he substituted, 'I must however observe in favour of the New Zealanders that I have allways found them of a Brave, Noble, Open and benevolent disposition, but they are a people that will never put up with an insult if they have an oppertunity to resent it.'— Journals II, 653 and n. 1 on that page.
Here he remained five weeks. The Dutch were welcoming, Cook reaffirmed his friendship with the merchant Christoffel Brand. There was much to do to the ship: her masts, spars and standing rigging had come through their trials extremely well, but running rigging and sails were in a desperate state, caulking was long overdue, the rudder had to be unshipped for repair. There was ample leave, ample refreshment for all officers and men, it is plain that the Brave Boys saw no reason to wait till old England to tip off a Bottle. Cook discharged from his company, 'by request', James and Nathaniel Cook; Forster parted with Mr Sparrman, who resumed his researches at the Cape. Wales took his instruments on shore. Some ten days after their arrival, another Indiaman, the Ceres, was leaving for England. Cook sent by her to the Admiralty copies of his journal and charts, a sheaf of Hodges's drawings, and a long letter summarising the voyage since he had parted with Furneaux. He praised his men. 'Mr Kendals Watch has exceeded the expectations of its most Zealous advocate.' How far his mission had been successful he submitted to their Lordships' better judgment. 1 He followed these up in April with two of the officers' journals. There was a letter waiting for himself to read, from Furneaux. It was true that that officer had reached Queen Charlotte Sound and lost ten of his best men there, together with a boat. He had not followed Cook to the Antarctic or the islands because of this, and because his bread was damaged. Between New Zealand and the Horn he had gone south beyond the latitude of 60°; on his passage to the Cape he had sailed over the place where Cape Circumcision was said to lie. (His track indicates that he narrowly missed sighting South Georgia, and passed just north of Bouvet Island.) Cook, revising his journal, perhaps at the Cape, perhaps later, found a few words more to say on the fatal event. He knew well the capacity of his own men for getting into trouble; he hesitated to accept it as simple murder. The New Zealanders, he reflected, with a certain idealisation, he had always found 'of a brave, Noble, Open and benevolent disposition, but they are a people that will never put up with an insult if they have an oppertunity to resent it'. 2 He had more to learn, on both sides.
1 P.R.O. Adm 1/1610. The letter is dated 22 March 1775. It is printed in full in Journals II, 691–3.
2 Cf. p. 437, n. 2.
1 The Solomon Islands. See John Dunmore, French Explorers in the Pacific, I (Oxford, 1965), 135–45; Colin Jack-Hinton, The Search for the Islands of Solomon (Oxford, 1969), 261–6.
2 Journals II, 656.
1 Elliott, Memoirs, f. 41 v.
2 Cook to the Admiralty secretary, 'Resolution at Sea / May 24 th 1775 / Lat. 13° S / Long. 10° W t'; P.R.O. Adm 1/1610; Journals II, 694.
3 Foxon is a rather shadowy figure: even his Christian name appears to be unknown. His log was a self-recording device. Phipps also tried it, on his arctic voyage of 1773, but found it unsatisfactory, though he thought it would be useful in smooth water and fair weather.—E.G.R. Taylor, Mathematical Practitioners of Hanoverian England (Cambridge, 1966), 54, 55, 287.
[ unclear: f]
St Matthew believed to lie two degrees south of the equator. As the island did not exist we may be the less concerned that the wind was against him. He turned his attention, after considering what might best be done, to fixing the longitude of Fernando de Noronha, off the coast of Brazil. His thoughts, at this moment, are extremely characteristic, and his words are words he has used before, as he balances his duties. 'The truth is I was unwilling to prolong the passage in searching for what I was not sure to find, nor was I willing to give up every object which might tend to the improvement of Navigation and Geography for the sake of geting home a Week or a fortnight sooner. It is but seldom that oppertunities of this kind offer and when they do they are but too often neglected.' 1 After this cogitation, and a pleasant run, on 9 June he and Wales settled the position of Fernando de Noronha without landing, by observation and watch, within a mile or two; he then struck north to Fayal, in the Azores, reaching it on 14 July. He set up again the apparatus he had been given for distilling fresh water—useful if one had the fuel but inadequate, last tried on his outward passage to the Cape: the fact that he was doing this only a second time as the voyage drew towards its end indicates, if nothing else did, that for him the aid was superfluous. Fayal's position was fixed, fresh beef given to the crew, water taken on board. Cook collected information about the little Portuguese place as if it had been a South Sea island. He stood away from the Azores on 19 July. On the 29th he made the land near Plymouth. Next morning he anchored at Spithead, 'Having been absent from England Three Years and Eighteen Days, in which time I lost but four men and one only of them by sickness.'1 Journals II, 669.