_Corner's Log_, having been re-written, corrected in spelling, &c., and
afterwards printed and circulated as a veritable Cook's Log, what it had
to say about _Botany Bay_ may reasonably excite the deepest interest and
attention.
In various Logs, elsewhere described, the Bay has been called _Sting
Rea_ or _Ray Harbour_, and the reason stated in Cook's own words, and
those of his chief officer, was on account of the numbers of the fish
_Stingray_, _Skeats_, or _Skate_.
Corner's, May 6th, says, on the contrary:
"The great quantity of _plants_ Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander found in
this place occasioned my giving it the name of _Botany Bay_."
On May 30th we read of:
"The same sort of Water Fowl as we saw in _Botany Bay_."
We cannot avoid expressing surprise at finding that the gentleman whose
duty it was to fill up the vacant spaces, purposely left open for the
insertion of names of places, was not always correct in orthography. He
may have intended always to write _Botany_, but varied it in _Bottany_,
_Bottony_, _Bottonest_, _Botony_, _Botanist_.
He is not sure even when describing "which I called _Port Jackson_" as
he is led to write, "it lies 3 Leag^s to the Northw^d of _Botóny Bay_."
When, however, we come carefully to examine the full original paragraph
about Botany Bay, we seem to understand the mode of action. The
alteration was not made by the first copyist of the _Log_, nor by one
particular person afterwards. There may have been some doubt even then
about the settlement, or else why the erasure of one way of spelling,
the substitution of another, and even traces of further erasure before
final arrangement of name.
It was this that excited my suspicions. I was very candid in statement
to some officials at the Admiralty of my honest belief that there had
been some foul play in London. Later on, when I had again, with others,
looked at the real journals in the British Museum, regarded, and copied,
the _Logs_ found at the Deptford Victualling Yard, and especially had
made personal inspection for three days at Sunderland of a Log given by
Cook himself to his old Admiral, Sir Hugh Palliser, my doubts of this
Log were confirmed.
Let us now refer to the original Corner's Log, transported by purchase
from Mr. Corner, to New South Wales, where, if not further affected, it
will be seen as I state.
If the reader mentally divide the Botany Bay story, under May 6, he will
discover first the usual Log transcriber. In the space which he left,
_by somebody's order_, he would perceive quite a different hand ("plants
Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander"). Then returns the first hand, "found in
this place occasioned my giving it the name of" ----. Another space is
filled with a half erased second-hand "Botóny" followed by the word in
original "_bay_."
In a tracing I took some years ago, under head of May 6, I read:
"appeared to be safe anchorage which I called" (in original hand); but
in the space adjoining, in the second hand I read: "_Port Jackson_."
Then, as usual, the first resumed: "it lies 3 Leag^s to the Northw^d
of." After a space, or, rather, within the space, is a bungling
"_Bottony_" Bay.
Under May 13 we read: "we found (in the space) _Bottonist_ Harbour."
Eight lines lower, though in distinctly altered form, we read: "saw at
_Botany_ Harbour."
How different all this from the unaltered, unspaced account by the
Captain's copy, given by himself to Sir Hugh Palliser, in which it only
says: "The great Quantity of these sort of fish found here occasion'd
my giving it the name of Stingray Harbour"!
So it is hardly correct to say, "It is, however, called _Botany Bay_
from the first in the Journals," any more than "No autograph Journal is,
so far as is known, in existence."
The fact of this "Corner's Log" becoming another ground for the
publication of one, or many more, "_Cook's Endeavour_," can arise only
from the supposition of its likeness to the so-called "_Queen's Log_"
and "_Admiralty Log_." But these, admitted to be copies, cannot compare
with the one personally sent by Cook, with his signature, to Palliser,
or that sent to the British Museum as Cook's by his companion on the
voyage, Sir Joseph Banks; or, far more, that in Cook's _own hand_ and
_signature_, as seen in his own official letters.
Yet this Harbour was placed on a French map, dating from the reign of
our Henry VIII, as _Baie des Herbages_.
Geographers have not been the most reticent upon the singularity and
apparent after-thought of the name _Botany Bay_. It was hardly to be
expected that Cook, though a skilled draftsman and interested in charts,
would trouble himself about old _Mappemondes_, dealing with localities
that were scarcely likely to come in his way, or, at any rate, until his
appointment to observe the Transit of Venus in the Northern Pacific; yet
he was not ignorant of what French navigators had done. In the British
Museum one may see his translation of a French Voyage from Havre up the
St. Lawrence. This copy is dated 1755. He may, therefore, be credited
with the knowledge of French Mappemondes before the Fronde Civil Wars;
in which charts, parts, at least, of Australia were delineated, and of
dates anterior to Dutch movements.
The _Gazette Nationale_ of February 11, 1807, discusses the question as
to the possibility of Cook making acquaintance of a celebrated map in
London, before the _Endeavour_ sailed in August, 1768.
That wonderful and precious _Dauphin Mappemonde_, which I have seen at
the Museum, dating from 1542, might not have been known to
non-scientific Englishmen, but found a home at last in our Museum. Was
Dr. Solander, Cook's botanical fellow-voyager, curator at the Museum
when it arrived there? Were he or his friend Banks aware of its
existence, or only learnt of it after their return? On that Map the
_whole_ eastern coast of New Holland, afterwards known as New South
Wales, is laid down distinctly.
In that case, there was no marvel in Cook's striking from New Zealand,
in a _direct_ line to the southern extremity of that coast, at Cape
Howe, and following the shore northward, instead of seeking a connection
with the Dutch Nuyt's discovery to the south-west. He would be going
over the old waters traversed by the ships from Spain and Portugal.
That gorgeous Dauphin map had its places marked in a sort of Frenchified
Portuguese, as if a Dieppe cartographer had not got hold of the right
words, or had, for a purpose, disguised them. Thereon, however, we read
"coste dangerouse" about the spot where Cook was afterwards wrecked, as
well as _Baie des Plantes_ on the site of our _Botany Bay_.
The _Gazette Nationale_ writer notes that the _Dauphin_ map, marked with
the Arms of France, was discovered, by chance, in the house of a private
person, and asks if the news of it could have reached the Dutch, and so
got known to a few English before its real presence in London about
1767, it not being there in 1766.
Referring to the Librarian, Solander, the French critic of 1807 adds:
"That the denomination of _Baie des Plantes_, which he had read upon the
Map confided to him, might be a fresh stimulus in the hope of botanizing
on this unknown coast, since the memory of it no longer existed, and
particularly in a place designated by a name so attractive to him."
It is curious that Cook gave Solander's name to the south point of the
bay, "as if," says the French writer, "he were pleased to compliment his
botanical friend, on perceiving at length this land, the object of his
desires, where since it was already named the _Bay of Plants_, he must
have hoped to reap an ample harvest."
Yet the secret, if so, was well kept till _after_ the voyage of the
_Endeavour_, since then _only_ did the name of _Botany Bay_ appear in
Dr. Hawkesworth's work. In all Cook's old _Logs_ we see merely
_Stingray_ or _Skeat Bay_, and similarly in _all_ the Logs or journals
of the chief officers and the petty officers.
Or, had Dr. Hawkesworth, Cook, Banks and Solander meanwhile made
acquaintance with the appellation of _Baie des Plantes_ and appropriated
it for history? This theory would account for the various alterations of
_Botany_ on Corner's Log.