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F.H. Comer Esq., with presidential but respectful greetings. August 1965
This paper has undergone some revision since being delivered as the presidential address to Section E of the ANZAAS Congress, Canberra, 21 January 1964. I must confess that I find it difficult to annotate other than clumsily and irregularly. The paper is founded on work done for my edition of the Journals of Captain James Cook, mainly for Vol. Ill; and at the moment of writing, the parts of this volume I should like to cite are still in galley-proof. I feel compelled therefore to leave some large statements unsupported, or supported only in the most large and general way; and smaller ones, that should be tied down specifically and tidily, sheltering uncertainly under some vague umbrella of reference. The discontented reader is asked to accept this apology, even if he remains discontented.
Thomas Wright (ed.), On 9 October 1784 A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean … for Making Discoveries in the Northern Hemisphere, which were at last in that year given to an impatient public. ‘The reading of those volumes afforded me much amusement, and I hope some instruction’ wrote the poet. ‘No observation, however, forced itself upon me with more violence than one, that I could not help making on the death of Captain Cook. God is a jealous God, and at Owhyhee the poor man was content to be worshipped. From that moment, the remarkable interposition of Providence in his favour was converted into an opposition, that thwarted all his purposes … Nothing, in short, but blunder and mistake attended him, till he fell breathless into the water, and then all was smooth again. The world indeed will not take notice, or see, that the dispensation bore evident marks of divine displeasure; but a mind I think in any degree spiritual cannot overlook them …—though a stock or stone may be worshipped blameless’, concludes Cowper, ‘a baptized man may not. He knows what he does, and by suffering such honours to be paid him, incurs the guilt of sacrilege.’Correspondence of William Cowper, London, 1904, Vol. II, pp. 249-50.
It is unlikely that many will be prepared to accept this explanation of what seemed to contemporaries so tremendous an event; though it should be pointed out that to the servants in
What then were the facts, commonly considered? They are so well known that perhaps I should blush to recount them. On 17 January 1779, after a hard season on the north-west coast of Resolution and Discovery. He was enthusiastically received by the Hawaiians. He himself was at once the recipient of divine honours; he was granted the use of a heiau, or religious enclosure, for his observatory tents; his officers and men were popular and could wander and explore where they liked in perfect safety, and aided in every possible way; women were kind; there was great trade in every sort of provisions the island grew, at generous rates of exchange, ironware being the article most in demand on the native side. The only drawback was the assiduity with which the people stole—stole anything, but more particularly, again, anything of iron. The supply of provisions was not quite so lavish by the time the ships departed, on 4 February; for the British numbered 180, and they were no small eaters. Two days later, as they worked up the northern coast of the island, the weather turned squally, and on the 8th the head of the foremast was found sprung. After some deliberation about possible harbours for its repair Cook rather reluctantly—because he feared he might have outworn his welcome—decided to put back to the known convenience of Kealakekua Bay; and there he anchored again on the morning of the 11th. Greetings were not as warm as before, but they were warm enough. The mast was taken on shore. The struggle against theft was resumed. On the 13th there was a first scene of violence. During the succeeding night the Discovery's cutter was stolen. As this was a serious loss, Cook decided to get the ruling chief on board as a hostage for the boat's return, and went on shore with a body of marines early in the morning to do so. It could not be done; the Hawaiians took to arms in large numbers and on both sides tempers rose; Cook shot a man; and in walking down to his boat to re-embark he was himself killed.
A simple tale. No one can impugn its truth. But Or, to take an earlier example that came to the mind of a shipmate of the second voyage, Magellan? 'I receive early the shocking news of the Death of Captain Cooke', wrote why? What were the circumstances? Cook had taken hostages before, repeatedly, peacefully, successfully; it was standard and proven practice with him, he had done it earlier on this voyage. When, once, he adopted a different policy, which involved much destruction of native property, some of his puzzled officers asked why: why did he not take a hostage, instead of doing such needless damage? Was this, asked those who had not sailed with him before, the Cook whose reputation for humanity stood so fabulously high? Why, again, now marines?—he had never used marines before. Cook had been annoyed with his own men the afternoon before at their getting into a mess: then why did he get into this fatal mess himself? Why, after spending so
Johann Georg Forster's Briefwechsel, Leipzig, 1829, Vol. II, p. 748.
First, without taking my questions in order as I asked them, let us look at Cook himself. Obviously, at the moment of crisis, he lost control, and the reason for this loss must lie partly in his own character. He had, one must note, lost control on an earlier occasion, but this was in his prentice days as a diplomat, in Journals of Captain James Cook, Vol. I, pp. ccx-ccxii. and 170-71.
I think one can put it best by saying that on this voyage Cook was a tired man. He would himself undoubtedly have rebutted the remark, and none of his officers seems to have made it. I am therefore proposing the result of much reading between the lines. He may have seemed to those around him unchanged: his physique was magnificent, he had on this voyage none of the sickness of his previous one, which had caused his life to be despaired of; his conduct of the voyage, for its prime purpose of geographical discovery, his seamanship, under the difficult conditions of the American north-west coast and the ice-ridden arctic seas, seemed to those officers as admirable and masterly as ever. We have records of their admiration. Yet we can point to a time when the ships were saved from piling up on the Aleutian coast in fog only by startlingly good luck, after a piece of blind navigation that a modern commission of enquiry would examine with the most acute horror. Cook's Journal, B. M. Egerton MS 2177A, 26 June 1778. It was off the south-east end of Unalaska. Compare Clerke's wry comment, P.R.O. Adm 55/23, for that date: 'very nice pilotage, considering our perfect Ignorance of our situation'.
Consider Cook, in July 1775, at the end of that wonderful second voyage, in his forty-eighth year. For the last seven of those years he had been, we may say, at the full stretch of human endeavour—except for the leisure (we do not know how much it was, but it must have been little enough) he could snatch between voyages. The fitting out of the Cook to Andrew Kippis, 'It is certain I have quited an easy retirement, for an Active, and perhaps Dangerous Voyage[.] My present disposition is more favourable to the latter than the former, and I imbark on as fair a prospect as I can wish. If I am fortunate enough to get safe home, theres no doubt but It will be greatly to my advantage.' Cook to John Walker, 14 Feb. 1776, Dixson Library MS.Resolution was in itself a matter of extreme worry. For years he had been subject to every possible strain of body and mind and spirit, varying from the
Life of Captain James Cook, London, 1788, pp. 324-5,
There is no doubt about it—I make the point again—that this third voyage was technically a great achievement, though from the nature of things it was doomed to failure, and Australians and New Zealanders tend to think of it mainly as a frame for the last great picture, the slaying of Cook. Nonetheless its details are fascinating, however laborious to follow. Where is the significant detail, the evidence of what I have called the rather different man? I have given one little bit already. It would not be fair to adduce Cook's miscalculation of the winds after he left New Zealand
Journals, Vol. II, pp. 153 and nn; 165.
What, you may ask, has all this to do with Cook's death? A good deal, I answer—if it is, as I suggest it is,
evidence of a mind that has through weariness lost its finest edge. Let us turn to his dealings with men. One of the things that emerge clearly about him in his previous voyages is his understanding of the genus James Trevenen, midshipman P.R.O. Adm 51/4559/212; 10, 11, 12 Dec. 1778. For the 12th, '…At the same time ySeaman, his practical wisdom as a psychologist, his readiness to forgive and to expunge the record of offence. The evidence of this third voyage is not so clear. At Resolution, note on Voyage, Vol. II, p. 4-57. This was one of a series of notes that Trevenen wrote on the Voyage, I have used the copy of these notes now among the MSS in the Archives of British Columbia.e Captn address'd ye Ships Company, telling them He look'd upon their Letter as a very mutinous Proceeding & that in future they might not expect the least indulgence from him.' The letter was partly about short allowance of provisions, which Cook rectified.
Certainly the islanders suffered more in this way; and for the old cause, theft. Polynesians thieved enthusiastically and with the utmost skill—by day, by night, surreptitiously, brazenly, by way of highway robbery mingled with assault or with a bold David Samwell, 'Some Account of a Voyage to South Seas,' B. M. Egerton MS 2591, f.61v. J. J. H. de Labillardiere, Journal, 10 October 1777.insouciance that almost calls forth admiration. In the Tongan islands they stole tools, muskets, a quadrant, all Captain Gierke's cats. The things they stole, from New Zealand to Account of a Voyage in search of La Perouse, London, 2nd ed., 1802, Vol. II, pp. 149-50, 181-2.
Cook, we know, was a passionate man. He stamped and swore on his deck, and his midshipmen, were accustomed to refer to his rages as his ‘heivas’, after the expressive Tahitian dance: ‘the old boy has been tipping a heiva’ at someone. It is from the third voyage that we pick up this anecdote, Trevenen, note on Voyage, Vol. II, p. 283.
We may therefore return to Kealakekua Bay with all these considerations in mind, and look as closely as possible at the narrower circumstances of Cook's last hours. Before we do that, however, let me clear out of the way two or three misapprehensions that gained great currency during the course of the nineteenth century—largely, I think, from the somewhat anti-British, American-missionary writers who imposed a tradition on the Hawaiians themselves, or from students of Polynesian culture whose learning was not quite adequate enough. Cook has not, on the whole, had a very
See the very illuminating study by J. G. F. Stokes, 'The Origin of the Condemnation of Captain Cook in Hawaii', Hawaiian Historical Society Annual Report, 1930, pp. 68-101. Stokes takes it back to Ka Moolelo Hawaii of the Rev. Sheldon Dibble, published at the mission press at Lahainaluna in 1838, and translated into English In 1839.
Another attempt to account for the unpopularity, supposedly growing, of the visitors, is a more directly theological one. On 1 February, the The origin of this theory seems to have been John Ledyard's book, P.R.O. Adm 55/122, f. 124v.Resolution being short of firewood, Cook asked Lieutenant King to see if he could buy the paling round the heiau where the observatory was set up, a paling interspersed with carved images. King succeeded in doing so, and the paling, not in good repair, was taken off, together with a variety of these images. Now here was a shocking piece of vandalism, say the critics, a monstrous affront to Hawaiian religion, a deliberate over-riding of tapu, a forcing of the people into a signal act of impiety. How could Cook make himself so guilty, or expect that such guilt could go unrequited by a people devoted to their gods?A Journal of Captain Cook's last Voyage to the Pacific Ocean…, Hartford, Conn., 1783, pp. 136-7. The thing is a worthless production which nevertheless managed to make a place for itself in American historical folklore.heiau itself, which they regarded as important and were tapu, were carefully preserved.heiau. It has been alleged that here was a revelatory thing, convincing the people that their visitors were after all not gods, and therefore it had some influence on the events that followed. Once again I can find no evidence to support the allegation. Certainly the Hawaiians took a great interest in the burial, and added their own ceremony to it in great form; but their behaviour was simply that of a friendly and sympathetic nation, who displayed no sense of surprise to see this intimation of a common mortality. Whatever they thought of Cook, there is no indication whatever that they endowed his followers with the attributes of godhead. It may seem sadly contradictory. We must accept the fact that they themselves were human beings, and had a quite human capacity for self-contradiction. I cannot see that the fate of
It is true, I think, that familiarity with the seamen had bred among the people not contempt but, perhaps, a little boredom, a willingness to tease, a certain experimental attitude towards quarrelling, to see how far it could safely go. Something of the same sort had caused minor trouble in Tonga in 1777. This, added to the increased number of thefts, was only too likely to cause major trouble now. On the morning of 13 February the Hawaiians behaved so badly on board both ships that they were all ordered off. In the afternoon the carpenters were busy over the mast on the Ibid., f. 130.heiau, and at the other end of the little beach a party of men in charge of a midshipman were filling water for the Discovery, helped by natives who were paid for their assistance. Other natives began to be very troublesome in hindering this work, and the midshipman came to King, who was in command, to ask him for a marine as a guard. King sent a marine without a musket. The Hawaiians thereupon armed themselves with stones, the midshipman came to King again; and King, a highly respected person, took another marine, this time armed with a musket, and with his authority put an end to the trouble. At this moment Cook came on shore. King told him what had happened, and—I use King's words—‘he gave orders to me that on the first appearance of throwing stones or behaving insolently, to fire ball at the offenders: This made me give orders to the Corporal, to have the Centries pieces loaded with Ball instead of Shot’.
Late in the afternoon there was worse trouble. While a chief of some importance was calling on Gierke in the Edgar gives his own account of this incident in P.R.O. Adm 55/24, S. 58v-59v. Adm 55/122, f. 130v.Discovery, a bold fellow managed to get up the side, ran across the deck, snatched the armourer's tongs and a chisel, and was overboard again before anyone had recovered from the
Discovery, put off in the ship's small cutter in pursuit, so hurriedly that neither he nor his men had time to seize a musket or any other weapon; but the canoe outdistanced them and got safe to shore. Meanwhile Cook, inspecting the carpenters, heard the noise of firing and saw the chase, and calling to Resolution's pinnace pulling towards him, and Cook and King in full cry. An unhappy impulse determined him, with such reinforcements, to seize the thief's canoe, as it was paddling off, and take it on board. The men in the pinnace, all of whom were, like Edgar and his men, unarmed, did seize the canoe; but alas, it belonged not to the thief, but to a very friendly chief called Parea, who in his turn was just coming on shore. He seized back his own canoe; a fracas broke out, a man in the pinnace hit him on the head with an oar, the crowd stoned the pinnace so heavily that her men were forced to leap out and swim to a rock, Edgar and Midshipman n expressed his sorrow, that the behaviour of the Indians would at last oblige him to use force; for that they must not he said imagine they have gained an advantage over us’.
I have gone into that afternoon in a little detail, because its events, and their repercussions, are not detached and separate. Its hours are the first, in a period of less than twenty-four hours, that contains the climax of our story. We can, as it were, see the wave rising that is to break next day. In the night a few men crept about the base of the P.R.O. Adm 51/4561. Clerke's account of the incidents of 14 Feb. and the week thereafter is in this volume, ff. 209-27; it is copied out, I think as a communication for the Admiralty, in Adm 55/124. Adm 55/122. f. 131.heiau where King slept, and a sentry shot off his musket, but no harm was done. There was, however, the final theft. The Discovery's large cutter had been submerged at a buoy between the ship and the shore to keep her planks from splitting. The
Discovery had. Her recovery seemed essential As soon as Resolution to tell Cook of it, and it was resolved—the plan was Cook's—to send boats to the two points of the bay to prevent any canoes from leaving; ‘for he said [I quote Clerke] he would sieze them all and made no doubt but to redeem them they would very readily return the Boat again’.Resolution than King came on board, and ‘found them all arming themselves & the Captn loading his double Barreld piece; on my going to acquaint him with the last nights adventure,’ writes King (meaning the disturbance round the heiau) ‘he interrupted me & said we are not arming for the last nights affairs, they have stolen the Discoverys Cutter, & it is for that we are making preparations.’
The first miscalculation lay in taking the marines. Hawaiians were used to marines, standing about as sentries, amiably hobnobbing or pursuing their womenj but this was too obviously something different, a body of marines, a set piece of menace. There is no doubt that Cook on his own, at a more normal hour, could quite easily have got the chief on board. For tact he was substituting a threat} and threats, as he had already proved at Moorea, do not always work. They sometimes work in quite the wrong way. We may add that if he were going to take marines at all, and really anticipated having to use them, then the number he thought necessary—a lieutenant and nine men—was a melancholy underestimate. The total number in the ships was thirty-one. Some of these were with King, on ordinary guard-duty. How many were then actually on board the Resolution, and available, I do not know. Perhaps Cook merely thought in terms of more men than he had had with him the afternoon before. Or it may be an indication that not force
The second miscalculation was over the effect of muskets loaded with ball. I have already said, again, that Cook disliked firing at native peoples with ball, for he disliked killing. His hasty preparations this morning therefore themselves cast a light on the irritation of his mind. His officers did not all agree with his general theory; much better, some thought, to kill a man or two at once on the first sign of disagreement and make an example, prove your superiority, and save trouble in the future. Small shot was useless. This could be turned into a humanitarian argument; for saving future trouble, you might also save future slaughter. The actual event seems to have stimulated this feeling. Law, the surgeon of the Burney, Mitchell MS, 14 Feb. Cf. Edgar, P.R.O. Adm 55/24, f. 60, (…had Capt: Cooke came down to the boats, directly as he was advised he most probably would have sav'd his life, but he too wrongly thought, as he said, that the Flash of a Muskett, would disperse the whole Island, led on by these Idea's he hearken'd to no Advice, till it was too late.'Resolution, writes (B.M. Add. MS 37327, 23 Feb.), 'It is now the Opinion of almost Everybody that Had we held at first our Musquets More Sacred & not have fired Small Shot at a Thief, but if necessary have killed him with a Ball these People would have dreaded the Idea of a Musquet as Much as a Taheitean who were so Beat by W[allis]—and certainly the Death of One Man is much better than Daily wounding Many—for instance the order & Discipline that was kept up at Atowi the last Year and without the least trouble to Us, as the Arees thought it Policy to keep the Vulgar in good order.' The last phrases refer to the incident at Kauai 20 Jan. 1778, when Lieutenant Williamson, looking with the boats for a landing-place, shot and killed a man. Cook was not pleased. Williamson was a professed humanitarian, critical of his captain on more than one occasion, and (at least in his journal) argumentative with him—on this point among others.
There were three boats, the men in them all armed—the 'There was that morning a swell of the sea in the bay, and more surf on the shore than usual, insomuch that the boats were obliged to lie off on their oars; the shore also consisted of uneven and slippery rocks; which were circumstances extremely inconvenient for embarking, if pressed on by an enemy.' Burney, Molesworth Phillips kept a journal, which has now disappeared. Clerke incorporated the report in his own journal, Adm 51/4561, entry for 14 Feb. King has printed his in Resolution's small pinnace, small cutter, and launch. The cutter was sent to lie off the north-west point of the bay to keep the canoes from leaving. The village of Kaawaloa, where Kalei‘opu‘u had his habitation, lay just inside this point. The shore close to the village was then partly sand, partly an irregular lip of lava above shallow water; though the sand has gone, the line of the shore seems to have survived pretty well the earthquakes and tidal-waves that have altered so much the appearance of the rest of the bay, and if one thinks away the trees and the prickly American lantana and acacia that have spread over most of the place, it is possible to visualize there the events of the morning without great difficulty. Cook, the young Lieutenant Chronological History of North-Eastern Voyages of Discovery, London, 1819, p. 262. This detail about the surf comes into no other source, not even into Burney's own journals. If true, it is doubtful whether it had any real importance.Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, Vol. Ill, pp. 41-6. SamwelPs pamphlet was A Narrative of the death of Captain James Cook…, London, 1786; reprinted most recently by Sir Maurice Holmes, San Francisco and London, 1957; the corresponding portion of his MS journal is about 1000 words longer. His journal for 4 Feb. to 22 Feb. was printed, not with entire accuracy, in Historical Records of New South Wales, Vol. I, part 1, pp. 450-78. There are interesting passages in the logs or journals of Watts, Harvey (at the time midshipman Discovery), Edgar, Bayly the astronomer, Burney (Mitchell Library MS), and some bitter marginal comments by Bligh (who in his early twenties was master of the Resolution) in the Admiralty Library copy of the Voyage. R. T. Gould printed Clerke, Edgar and Bayly in his article 'Some Unpublished Accounts of Cook's Death', in the Mariner's Mirror, Vol. XIV, 1928, pp. 301-19; and Bligh in his 'Bligh's Notes on Cook's Last Voyage', ibid., pp. 371-85, and more particularly pp. 380-2. Dr. George Mackaness also has printed these notes in his Life of Vice-Admiral William Bligh, Sydney, 1951, pp. 20-5. The printed volumes of Rickman (anonymous, 1781), Zimmerman (1781), Ellis (1782), Ladyard (1783) cannot help being Interesting in one way or another; but none of these men was on the spot, any more than the others I have referred to. Trevenen's remark comes from 'A letter to a friend' quoted in Admiral Sir C. V. Penrose's memoir of Trevenen, Alexander Turnbull Library MS, p. 14. We have the point rammed home in one of the fragments of the MS 'logbook' of Alexander Home, master's mate Discovery, now in the National Library of Australia: ‘I was not present in this Fray being Sick So this Account is Entirely from the Mouths of others Who were present. But these Differed greatly in their Relation of the same Matters So that what I have here said I do not Aver to be the Real truth in Every particul [ar] although in General it may be pretty Nigh the Matter. I have carefully Asserted such Relations as had the greatest apearance of Truth. But indeed they were so Exceedingly perplexed in their Accounts that it was a hard Matter to Colect Certainty, in particular cases or indeed to write any Account at all.’
Cook and the marines marched into the village, where Cook enquired for Kalei‘opu‘u and his two lively young sons, who spent much of their time on board the Adm 55/122, f. 133.Resolution. The boys soon came and took him and Phillips to their father's hut. After waiting some time Phillips went to bring out the just-awakened chief. It was obvious within a few words that he knew nothing of the stolen cutter, and he quite readily accepted the invitation to the ship. He started off for the beach with Cook and Phillips; one of the boys ran ahead and jumped happily into the pinnace. So far all was well;
t and Terre’oboo to divert their atttention from the Manoeuvres of the surrounding multitude.’ I confess I cannot understand this: Phillips does not mention any thing one can recognize as ‘manoeuvres’; and the priest, however artful, was not necessarily a rascal, or diverting attention. And if he was diverting attention, why Kalei‘opu‘u’s attention? At any rate, Cook decided to abandon his plan, and said to Phillips, ‘We can never think of compelling him to go on board without killing a number of these People’. These words I quote partly because they are, as far as I know, one of the very few remarks by Cook ever directly reported. Note that Cook still believed he had the initiative. Clerke agreed: there was nothing at this time to stop Cook, in spite of the clamour, from walking peaceably down to the boat and embarking; nothing to stop him from taking off the marines. He did begin to walk slowly down.
Two things now happened which I cannot put in order, nor is their precise order particularly important. One was, so far as Cook was concerned, a mere chance. At the other end of the bay, to keep a canoe from escaping, muskets had been fired, and a man killed. The man was a notable chief. Another chief hastening to the ships in passionate indignation to find Cook and tell him the story was disregarded, and forthwith made for the beach. It was Cook he wanted, not the crowd; but it was the crowd that got the news, spreading like wildfire, not Cook; and the news was enough, with the other thing, to carry them over the border-line of excitement into attack. The other thing was the culmination of all the wearing irritations and exasperations to which Cook's mind had been subject for so many months, as I have been at such pains to lay before you. As he walked down to the
On the point of psychology, I here quote a passage from Burney, North-Eastern Voyages, p. 263, which if he is correct is fatal to my thesis. ‘The published account, and I believe it was the same in most of the private journals, whence probably the mistake originated, has attributed a motive to Captain Cook which was not natural to the circumstance, instead of one which was. I find it said in my own journal, that Captain Cook was provoked by the man's insolence, and fired at him with small shot. The printed narrative says, “the man persisting in his insolence, Captain Cook was at length provoked to fire a load of small shot”. Insolence is little attended to in actual and deadly hostility. Captain Cook was a man of cool discernment, at no time proud, and not likely, in a time of difficulty and danger, to give way to childish irritation. The Islander continued to draw near, and Captain Cook judged it necessary to his safety to fire, which, having a gun with two barrels, he did first with small shot. The man fired at held up his mat scoffingly, and called out "matte manoo", meaning that the gun was only fit to kill birds; Matte signifying to kill, and manoo bird. The natives then threw stones, and one of the marines was knocked down, on which Captain Cook fired off his other barrel.’ But Burney was not there, and was writing upwards of forty years after his association with Cook, and the particular event. And how, one may ask, did Burney exclusively get the detail of 'matte manoo'?
The men in the pinnace, which had kept in as close to the shore as possible, saw Cook's last moments. He was close to the edge of the lava waving to the boats to come in when he was hit from behind with a club; while he staggered from this blow he was stabbed in the neck, or shoulder, with one of the iron daggers—a blow not in itself fatal, but enough to fell him, strong as he was, face down into the water. There was a great shout and a rush to hold him under and finish him off with daggers and clubs. The man who stabbed him was shot and killed. The overloaded pinnace pulled off, the cutter came round and fired till it was recalled, the So at least Samwell says. There certainly seems to be agreement that he gave little help, though neither Clerke nor King mentions anything to his discredit. Including some of his shipmates. The most dogmatic among moderns is R. T. Gould, 'Some Unpublished Accounts…', p. 319, and Resolution, seeing trouble on shore, had fired some of its four-pounders. The launch had not gone in closer: it was commanded by a very peculiar and unpopular man, Lieutenant Williamson; and Williamson, Captain Cook, London, 1935, pp. 137-8. Cf. in the article referred to, p. 316, the sentence, 'I am confident that if Bligh could have succeeded to the command he would have tried Williamson by court-martial and, in all probability, have hanged him before the ships left Kealakekua Bay'. This is too extravagant. Gould might have considered a footnote in Kippis, p. 468: 'I have been informed, on the best authority, that, in the opinion of Captain Philips [sic], who commanded the marines, and whose judgment must be of the greatest weight, it is extremely doubtful whether any thing could successfully have been done to preserve the life of Captain Cook, even if no mistake had been committed on the part of the launch.' Williamson's own journal as it survives, Adm 55/117, goes no further than June 1778.
Of the ten marines (including Phillips) four had been killed and four wounded. Of the Hawaiians, seventeen were killed; many others were badly wounded. Clerke could find no Hawaiian premeditation in the affair. He was clear that, at the end, Cook had acted unwisely. I have, I suppose, made clear my own hypothesis. One question remains: how, if Cook was deemed a god, could those who exalted him also kill him? The answer to this surely is that many savage peoples have not hesitated to beat or otherwise punish their gods when they have failed in their duty as gods; and Cook, a god who was not without marks of humankind, had given some provocation. He was mourned and honoured by the people who killed him, and a question asked more than once by them of his men was ‘When will the god—when will Erono—come again?’ They were indeed somewhat shocked by what they had done.
In England also, to which I now return, though not to William Cowper, there was a sense of shock. ‘Dear Sir’, wrote Dixson Library MS B