In the spring of 1776 Captain Cook set sail on his last voyage, in
command of the _Resolution_, accompanied by the _Discovery_ under
Captain Clerke, an able officer, who had been Cook's second lieutenant
on board the _Resolution_ in his second voyage round the world.
The expedition was well supplied with everything that might conduce to
its success, or to the comfort of those engaged in it, and many useful
articles were put on board to be given to the South-Sea islanders, with
a view to improve their condition--among other things, some live-stock,
which, it was hoped, would multiply on the islands--such as a bull, and
two cows with their calves, and some sheep; besides a quantity of such
European garden seeds as were likely to thrive in those regions.
It says much for the perseverance and energy of Captain Cook that,
although his education had been so defective that he only began to study
Euclid and Astronomy at the age of thirty-one, he was nevertheless
competent to conduct, without the aid of a scientific man, the
astronomical department of this voyage.
The vessels touched at the Cape of Good Hope in passing, and sailed
thence on their voyage of discovery, which extended over three years,
during which period they visited Van Diemen's land, on the south of
Australia, New Zealand, the Society Islands, Sandwich Islands, and other
groups of the Pacific; also the western and northern coasts of North
America, and saw new and beautiful regions, as well as strange and
wonderful--in some cases terrible--sights, the mere enumeration of
which, without going into detail, would fill many pages. We hasten,
therefore, to that point in the narrative which describes the visit of
the expedition to the island of Owhyhee, where its heroic commander
terminated his brilliant career.
On January 1779 the _Resolution_ and the _Discovery_ put into a large
bay named Karakakooa on the west of the island, for the purpose of
refitting the ships and laying in an additional supply of water and
provisions. They moored on the north side of the bay, about quarter of
a mile from the shore. Here they were well received by the inhabitants,
who at first were extremely hospitable. Captain King, in his journal of
the transactions at this place, writes:--
"As soon as the inhabitants perceived our intention of anchoring in the
bay, they came off in astonishing numbers, and expressed their joy by
singing and shouting, and exhibiting a variety of wild and extravagant
gestures. The sides, the decks, and rigging of both ships were soon
completely covered with them, and a multitude of women and boys, who had
not been able to get canoes, came swimming round us in shoals; many of
them not finding room on board, remained the whole day playing in the
water!"
Afterwards Captain Cook went ashore and was received with many
extraordinary ceremonies, which bore a strong resemblance to religious
worship, but in regard to this he and his companions could only form
conjectures, and were very glad to find that their entertainers were so
friendly. Next morning Captain King went ashore with a guard of eight
marines to erect an observatory in such a situation as might best enable
him to superintend and protect the waterers and other working parties
that were to be on shore. The spot chosen was immediately marked off
with wands by the friendly native priests, who thus consecrated the
ground, or placed it under "taboo"--a sort of religious interdiction,
which effectually protected it from the intrusion of the natives--for
none ever ventured, during their stay, to enter within the _tabooed_
space without permission.
Very different was it on board the ships. These, not being tabooed,
were overwhelmed with visitors, particularly women, who flocked on board
in such numbers that the men were obliged to clear the decks almost
every hour in order to have room to attend to their duties--on which
occasions two or three hundred women were frequently made to jump into
the water at once, where they continued swimming and playing about until
they could again obtain admittance!
While, however, the priests of the island were very attentive to their
visitors--sending them gifts of pigs and vegetables with extreme
liberality, and expecting nothing in return, the warrior chiefs were not
so disinterested. They expected and received many gifts, and they were
so much addicted to theft that a constant watch had to be kept upon
them, while examples had occasionally to be made of those who were
caught in the act. Soon after their arrival the ships were visited in
state by the King of the island, whose name was Terreeoboo. Some of his
chiefs accompanied him, and all of them were dressed in rich feathered
cloaks and helmets, and armed with long spears and daggers. Along with
them they brought their idols, which were gigantic busts made of
wicker-work, curiously covered with small feathers. Their eyes were
made of large pearl oysters, with a black nut fixed in the centre of
each; double rows of dogs' teeth ornamented their mouths, and their
features were strangely distorted. The King and his friends were
hospitably received. Presents were made, and expressions of good-will
and friendship interchanged.
Thus everything went on prosperously. The refitting and provisioning
were completed; games and ceremonies were witnessed; and finally the
ships left the island with the good wishes of a people who had treated
their visitors with singular kindness and hospitality during the whole
period of their sojourn.
Unfortunately, soon afterwards, the _Resolution_ was so much damaged in
a gale, that it was found necessary to return to Karakakooa Bay for
repairs. To the surprise of the voyagers their reception on this
occasion was very different from what it had been at first. There was
no shouting, no bustle, no coming off in shoals--only here and there a
canoe was seen stealing along the solitary shore. On inquiry, they were
told that King Terreeoboo was absent, and had laid the bay under taboo!
This looked very suspicious. However, as there was no help for it, they
landed their men with the foremast of one of the ships, which required
repair, and for two or three days pushed forward their work busily,
expecting that when the king returned and removed the interdict, the
natives would flock round them with the same good feeling as before.
Things went on in their usual quiet way till the afternoon of the 13th
of February. On the evening of that day the watering-party was
interfered with by natives who had armed themselves with stones, and
were becoming very insolent. On the appearance, however, of Captain
King with one of the marines, they threw away the stones, and some of
the chiefs drove the mob away. Captain Cook, on hearing of this,
ordered the sentinels to load with ball, and to fire if the interference
should be repeated. Soon after that the party on shore were alarmed by
a fire of musketry from the _Discovery_. It was directed at a small
canoe which was paddling to the shore in great haste, pursued by one of
the ship's boats. The canoe reached the shore first, and the natives,
who had been stealing, made their escape. Captain Cook and Captain King
pursued them into the woods for about three miles, but failed to
overtake them.
During Cook's absence a serious difference occurred on the shore. One
of the officers conceived it to be his duty to seize one of the native
canoes. This chanced to belong to a great man named Pareea, who soon
afterwards claimed his property. The officer refused to give it up, and
a scuffle ensued, in which Pareea was knocked on the head with an oar.
The natives immediately attacked the sailors with a shower of stones,
which compelled them to retreat precipitately into the sea and swim off
to a rock at some distance from the shore, leaving the pinnace in the
hands of the natives, who at once ransacked it. They would probably
have demolished it entirely had not Pareea, who soon recovered from his
blow, come forward, and, with an admirable spirit of forgiveness,
rescued it from their hands, returned it to the sailors, and afterwards
rubbed noses with the officer who caused all the mischief, in token of
his reconciliation!
During that night the cutter of the _Discovery_ was stolen, and next
morning Captain Cook, landing with nine marines, went up to the village.
It had been his usual practice, whenever anything of importance was
lost at any of the islands in that ocean, to get the king or some of the
chief men on board, and keep them as hostages until the missing article
should be restored. This method, which had been always attended with
success, he meant to pursue on the present occasion. Meanwhile, the
boats of both ships were ordered out, and well manned and armed.
Captain Cook then marched into the village, where he was received with
the usual marks of respect--the people prostrating themselves before
him, and bringing him their accustomed offerings of small hogs.
We cannot help remarking here that Cook was to be blamed for permitting
the natives to treat him with a degree of ceremonious solemnity which
was obviously meant as an act of worship. The only thing that can be
said in his defence, we think, is, that in a region where many
remarkable, and to him incomprehensible, customs prevailed, he could not
certainly assure himself that the people were not paying to him the
ordinary homage which they were accustomed to pay to every great chief
who visited their island.
He found the old king just awakening from sleep, and, after a short
conversation about the loss of the cutter, the captain invited him to
return in the boat and spend the day on board the _Resolution_. The
king readily consented, but while on his way to the beach one of his
wives, who evidently suspected treachery, besought him with many tears
not to go on board. At the same time, two of his chiefs laid hold of
him, and, insisting that he should go no farther, forced him to sit
down. The natives had by this time collected in prodigious numbers, and
the Englishmen were so surrounded that it would have been impossible for
them to use their arms if any occasion had required it. Captain Cook,
therefore, was obliged to give up his efforts to induce the old king to
go on board.
As yet the captain had not expected or feared any attempt at personal
violence, and it is probable that he would have succeeded in coming off
scatheless on this occasion, as he had done many a time before, had not
an unfortunate incident occurred, which gave a fatal turn to the affair.
The boats of the ship, which had been stationed across the bay, fired
at some canoes that were attempting to escape, and unfortunately killed
a chief of the first rank. The news of his death reached the village
just as Captain Cook was leaving the king, and the excitement occasioned
was very great. One evidence that the natives meant to be revenged was
that all the women and children were immediately sent off, and they made
their intention still more apparent by putting on their war-mats, and
arming themselves with spears and stones. Just before this, however,
the nine marines had been ordered to extricate themselves from the crowd
and line the rocks along the shore.
One of the natives having a stone in one hand, and a long iron spike in
the other, came up to the captain in a defiant manner, flourishing his
weapon, and threatening to throw the stone. Cook told him to desist,
but he persisted in his threatening actions, and at length provoked the
captain to fire a charge of small-shot into him, having on his war-mat,
however, it had no other effect than to stir up his wrath. Several
stones were now thrown at the marines, and a native attempted to stab
one of the party with his spear; in this, however, he failed, and was
knocked down with the butt-end of a musket.
Captain Cook now felt that the safety of the party depended on prompt,
decisive action, for the more he exercised forbearance the more did the
savages threaten. He therefore fired his second barrel, which was
loaded with ball, and killed one of the foremost.
A general attack with stones immediately followed. This was met by a
discharge of muskets from the marines and the people in the boats.
Contrary to expectation, the natives stood the fire with great firmness.
From the accounts given of the transaction, it would appear that all
the marines had discharged their muskets--none having reserved fire.
This was a fatal mistake, because, before they had time to reload the
natives rushed upon them in overwhelming numbers, and with fearful
yells. Then followed a scene of indescribable horror and confusion.
Captain King, Cook's intimate friend, says, in regard to this closing
scene, that four of the marines were cut off among the rocks in their
retreat, and fell a sacrifice to the fury of the enemy; three more were
dangerously wounded. The lieutenant, who had received a stab between
the shoulders with a _pahooa_, having fortunately reserved his fire,
shot the man who had wounded him just as he was going to repeat the
blow. The unfortunate Captain Cook, when last seen distinctly, was
standing at the water's edge, calling out to the men in the boats to
cease firing and to pull in. If it be true, as some of those who were
present have imagined, that the marines and boatmen had fired without
his orders, and that he was desirous of preventing further bloodshed, it
is not improbable that his humanity, on this occasion, proved fatal to
him; for it was remarked that while he faced the natives none of them
had offered him any violence, but that having turned about to give his
order to the boats, he was stabbed in the back, and fell with his face
into the water.
On seeing him fall the savages gave a great shout, rushed upon him, and
dragged him on shore. They then surrounded him, and, snatching the
daggers out of each other's hands, showed a savage eagerness to have a
share in his destruction.
"Thus," continues King, "fell our great and excellent commander! After
a life of so much distinguished and successful enterprise, his death, as
far as regards himself, cannot be reckoned premature, since he lived to
finish the great work for which he seems to have been designed, and was
rather removed from enjoyment than cut off from the acquisition of
glory. How sincerely his loss was felt and lamented by those who had so
long found their general security in his skill and conduct, and every
consolation under their hardships in his tenderness and humanity, it is
neither necessary nor possible for me to describe, much less shall I
attempt to paint the horror with which we were struck, and the universal
dejection and dismay which followed so dreadful and unexpected a
calamity."
In commenting on Captain Cook's services, the same gentleman says:
"Perhaps no science ever received greater additions from the labours of
a single man than geography has done from those of Captain Cook. In his
first voyage to the South Seas he discovered the Society Islands;
determined the insularity of New Zealand, discovered the Straits which
separate the two islands, and are called after his name, and made a
complete survey of both. He afterwards explored the eastern coast of
New Holland, hitherto unknown, to an extent of twenty-seven degrees of
latitude, or upwards of two thousand miles." In succeeding years he
settled the disputed point of the existence of a great southern
continent traversing the ocean there between the latitudes of 40 degrees
and 70 degrees in such a way as to show the impossibility of its
existence, "unless near the pole, and beyond the reach of navigation."
(We may be permitted, in these days of general advancement, mental and
physical, to doubt whether any part of the globe is _absolutely_ "beyond
the reach of navigation!") He discovered also the islands of New
Caledonia and Georgia, and the Sandwich Islands; explored the western
coasts of North America into the frozen regions, and ascertained the
proximity of the two great continents of Asia and America. In short,--
to use the words of his biographer, which compress the nature and value
of the great navigator's services into a small and easily comprehended
point--"if we except the sea of Amur and the Japanese Archipelago, which
still remain imperfectly known to Europeans, he has completed the
hydrography of the habitable globe."
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Captain Cook has passed away, and the generation of men, with those whom
he benefited and those who slew him, has gone to its account, but the
coral islands remain as they were of old, resplendent with the beautiful
works of God, though not, _as of old_, marred so terribly by the
diabolical devices of man. "Cannibal Islands" some of them still are,
without doubt, but a large proportion of them have been saved from
heathen darkness by the light of God's Truth as revealed in the Holy
Bible, and many thousands of islanders--including the descendants of
those who slew the great Captain of the last generation--have enrolled
themselves under the banner of the "Captain of our salvation," and are
now, through God's mercy, clothed and in their right mind.