COOK'S THIRD VOYAGE AND DEATH
Although the importance of his discoveries was not realised at this
time, Cook was given command of two new ships, the _Resolution_ and
_Adventure_, provisioned for a year for "a voyage to remote parts,"
a few months later. And the old _Endeavour_ went back to her collier
work in the North Sea.
Perhaps a letter written by Cook to a friend at Whitby on his return
from the second voyage is sufficient to serve our purpose here; for,
though the voyage was important enough, yet little new was discovered.
And after spending many months in high latitudes, Cook decided that
there was no great southern continent to the south of New Holland and
New Zealand.
"DEAR SIR,"--he writes from London in September 1775--"I now sit down
to fulfil the promise I made you to give you some account of my last
voyage. I left the Cape of Good Hope on 22nd November 1772 and proceeded
to the south, till I met with a vast field of ice and much foggy weather
and large islets or floating mountains of ice without number. After
some trouble and not a little danger, I got to the south of the field
of ice; and after beating about for some time for land, in a sea strewed
with ice, I crossed the Antarctic circle and the same evening (17th
January 1773) found it unsafe, or rather impossible, to stand farther
to the south for ice.
"Seeing no signs of meeting with land in these high latitudes, I stood
away to the northward, and, without seeing any signs of land, I thought
proper to steer for New Zealand, where I anchored in Dusky Bay on 26th
March and then sailed for Queen Charlotte's Sound. Again I put to sea
and stood to the south, where I met with nothing but ice and excessive
cold, bad weather. Here I spent near four months beating about in high
latitudes. Once I got as high as seventy-one degrees, and farther it
was not possible to go for ice which lay as firm as land. Here we saw
ice mountains, whose summits were lost in clouds. I was now fully
satisfied that there was no Southern Continent. I nevertheless
resolved to spend some time longer in these seas, and with this
resolution I stood away to the north."
In this second voyage Cook proved that there was no great land to the
south of Terra Australis or South America, except the land of ice lying
about the South Pole.
But he did a greater piece of work than this. He fought, and fought
successfully, the great curse of scurvy, which had hitherto carried
off scores of sailors and prevented ships on voyages of discovery,
or indeed ships of war, from staying long on the high seas without
constantly landing for supplies of fresh food. It was no uncommon
occurrence for a sea captain to return after even a few months' cruise
with half his men suffering from scurvy. Captain Palliser on H.M.S.
_Eagle_ in 1756 landed in Plymouth Sound with one hundred and thirty
sick men out of four hundred, twenty-two having died in a month. Cook
had resolved to fight this dreaded scourge, and we have already seen
that during his three years' cruise of the _Endeavour_ he had only
to report five cases of scurvy, so close a watch did he keep on his
crews. In his second voyage he was even more particular, with the result
that in the course of three years he did not lose a single man from
scurvy. He enforced cold bathing, and encouraged it by example. The
allowance of salt beef and pork was cut down, and the habit of mixing
salt beef fat with the flour was strictly forbidden. Salt butter and
cheese were stopped, and raisins were substituted for salt suet; wild
celery was collected in Terra del Fuego and breakfast made from this
with ground wheat and portable soup. The cleanliness of the men was
insisted on. Cook never allowed any one to appear dirty before him.
He inspected the men once a week at least, and saw with his own eyes
that they changed their clothing; equal care was taken to keep the
ship clean and dry between decks, and she was constantly "cured with
fires" or "smoked with gunpowder mixed with vinegar."
For a paper on this subject read before the Royal Society in 1776,
James Cook was awarded a gold medal (now in the British Museum).
But although the explorer was now forty-eight, he was as eager for
active adventure as a youth of twenty. He had settled the question
of a southern continent. Now when the question of the North-West
Passage came up again, he offered his services to Lord Sandwich, first
Lord of the Admiralty, and was at once accepted. It was more than two
hundred years since Frobisher had attempted to solve the mystery,
which even Cook--the first navigator of his day--with improved ships
and better-fed men, did not succeed in solving. He now received his
secret instructions, and, choosing the old _Resolution_ again, he set
sail in company with Captain Clerke on board the _Discovery_ in the
year 1776 for that voyage from which there was to be no return. He
was to touch at New Albion (discovered by Drake) and explore any rivers
or inlets that might lead to Hudson's or Baffin's Bay.
After once more visiting Tasmania and New Zealand, he made a prolonged
stay among the Pacific Islands, turning north in December 1777. Soon
after they had crossed the line, and a few days before Christmas, a
low island was seen on which Cook at once landed, hoping to get a fresh
supply of turtle. In this he was not disappointed. Some three hundred,
"all of the green kind and perhaps as good as any in the world," were
obtained; the island was named Christmas Island, and the _Resolution_
and _Discovery_ sailed upon their way. A few days later they came upon
a group of islands hitherto unknown. These they named after the Earl
of Sandwich, the group forming the kingdom of Hawaii--the chief island.
Natives came off in canoes bringing pigs and potatoes, and ready to
exchange fish for nails. Some were tempted on board, "the wildness
of their looks expressing their astonishment." Anchorage being found,
Cook landed, and as he set foot on shore a large crowd of natives pressed
forward and, throwing themselves on their faces, remained thus till
Cook signed to them to rise.
[Illustration: CAPIAIN JAMES COOK. From the painting by Dance in the
gallery of Greenwich Hospital.]
With a goodly supply of fresh provisions, Cook sailed away from the
Sandwich Islands, and after some five weeks' sail to the north the
"longed-for coast of New Albion was seen." The natives of the country
were clad in fur, which they offered for sale. They exacted payment
for everything, even for the wood and water that the strangers took
from their shores. The weather was cold and stormy, and the progress
of the little English ships was slow. By 22nd March they had passed
Cape Flattery; a week later they named Hope Bay, "in which we hoped
to find a good harbour, and the event proved we were not mistaken."
All this part of the coast was called by Cook King George's Sound,
but the native name of Nootka has since prevailed. We have an amusing
account of these natives. At first they were supposed to be dark
coloured, "till after much cleaning they were found to have skins like
our people in England." Expert thieves they were. No piece of iron
was safe from them. "Before we left the place," says Cook, "hardly
a bit of brass was left in the ship. Whole suits of clothes were stripped
of every button, copper kettles, tin canisters, candlesticks, all went
to wreck, so that these people got a greater variety of things from
us than any other people we had visited."
It was not till 26th April that Cook at last managed to start forward
again, but a two days' hard gale drove him from the coast and onwards
to a wide inlet to which he gave the name of Prince William's Sound.
Here the natives were just like the Eskimos in Hudson's Bay. The ships
now sailed westward, doubling the promontory of Alaska, and on 9th
August they reached the westernmost point of North America, which they
named Cape Prince of Wales. They were now in the sea discovered by
Behring, 1741, to which they gave his name. Hampered by fog and ice,
the ships made their way slowly on to a point named Cape North. Cook
decided that the eastern point of Asia was but thirteen leagues from
the western point of America. They named the Sound on the American
side Norton Sound after the Speaker of the House of Commons. Having
passed the Arctic Circle and penetrated into the Northern Seas, which
were never free from ice, they met Russian traders who professed to
have known Behring. Then having discovered four thousand miles of new
coast, and refreshed themselves with walrus or sea-horse, the
expedition turned joyfully back to the Sandwich Islands.
On the last day of November, Cook discovered the island of Owhyhee
(Hawaii), which he carefully surveyed, till he came to anchor in
Karakakooa Bay.
The tragic death of Captain Cook at the hands of these natives is well
known to every child. The reason for his murder is not entirely
understood to-day, but the natives, who had hitherto proved friendly,
suddenly attacked the English explorer and slew him, and "he fell into
the water and spoke no more."
[Illustration: CAPTAIN COOK, THE DISCOVERER OF THE SANDWICH ISLANDS,
WITH HIS SHIPS IN KEALAKEKUA BAY, HAWAII, WHERE HE WAS MURDERED. From
an engraving in the Atlas to _Cook's Voyages_, 1779.]
Such was the melancholy end of England's first great navigator--James
Cook--the foremost sailor of his time, the man who had circumnavigated
New Zealand, who had explored the coast of New South Wales, named
various unknown islands in the Pacific Ocean, and discovered the
Sandwich Islands. He died on 14th February 1779. It was not till 11th
January 1780 that the news of his death reached London, to be recorded
in the quaint language of the day by the _London Gazette_.
"It is with the utmost concern," runs the announcement, "that we inform
the Public, that the celebrated Circumnavigator, Captain Cook, was
killed by the inhabitants of a new-discover'd island in the South Seas.
The Captain and crew were first treated as deities, but, upon their
revisiting that Island, hostilities ensued and the above melancholy
scene was the Consequence. This account is come from Kamtchatka by
Letters from Captain Clerke and others. But the crews of the Ships
were in a very good state of health, and all in the most desirable
condition. His successful attempts to preserve the Healths of his
Crews are well known, and his Discoveries will be an everlasting Honour
to his Country."
_Cook's First Voyages_ were published in 1773, and were widely read,
but his account of the new country did not at once attract Europeans
to its shores. We hear of "barren sandy shores and wild rocky coast
inhabited by naked black people, malicious and cruel," on the one hand,
"and low shores all white with sand fringed with foaming surf," with
hostile natives on the other.
[Illustration: "THE UNROLLING OF THE CLOUDS"--VI. The world as known
after the voyages of Captain Cook (1768-1779).]
It was not till eighteen years after Cook's death that Banks--his old
friend--appealed to the British Government of the day to make some
use of these discoveries. At last the loss of the American colonies
in 1776 induced men to turn their eyes toward the new land in the South
Pacific. Banks remembered well his visit to Botany Bay with Captain
Cook in 1770, and he now urged the dispatch of convicts, hitherto
transported to America, to this newly found bay in New South Wales.
So in 1787 a fleet of eleven ships with one thousand people on board
left the shores of England under the command of Captain Phillip. After
a tedious voyage of thirty-six weeks, they reached Botany Bay in
January 1788.
Captain Phillip had been appointed Governor of all New South Wales,
that is from Cape York to Van Diemen's Land, still supposed to be part
of the mainland. But Phillip at once recognised that Botany Bay was
not a suitable place for a settlement. No white man had described these
shores since the days of Captain Cook. The green meadows of which Banks
spoke were barren swamps and bleak sands, while the bay itself was
exposed to the full sweep of violent winds, with a heavy sea breaking
with tremendous surf against the shore.
"Warra, warra!" (begone, begone), shouted the natives, brandishing
spears at the water's edge as they had done eighteen years before.
In an open boat--for it was midsummer in these parts--Phillip surveyed
the coast; an opening marked Port Jackson on Cook's chart attracted
his notice and, sailing between two rocky headlands, the explorer
found himself crossing smooth, clear water with a beautiful harbour
in front and soft green foliage reaching down to the water's edge.
Struck with the loveliness of the scene, and finding both wood and
water here, he chose the spot for his new colony, giving it the name
of Sydney, alter Lord Sydney, who as Home Secretary had appointed him
to his command.
[Illustration: PORT JACKSON AND SYDNEY COVE A FEW YEARS AFTER COOK
AND PHILLIP. From the Atlas to the _Voyage de l'Astrolabe_.]
"We got into Port Jackson," he wrote to Lord Sydney, "early in the
afternoon, and had the satisfaction of finding the finest harbour in
the world, in which a thousand sail of the line may ride in perfect
security."
"To us," wrote one of his captains, "it was a great and important day,
and I hope will mark the foundation of an empire."
But, interesting as it is, we cannot follow the fortunes of this first
little English colony in the South Pacific Ocean.
The English had not arrived a day too soon. A few days later the French
explorer, La Perouse, guided hither by Cook's chart, suddenly made
his appearance on the shores of Botany Bay. The arrival of two French
men-of-war caused the greatest excitement among the white strangers
and the black natives.
La Perouse had left France in 1785 in command of two ships with orders
to search for the North-West Passage from the Pacific side--a feat
attempted by Captain Cook only nine years before--to explore the China
seas, the Solomon Islands, and the Terra Australis. He had reached
the coast of Alaska in June 1786, but after six weeks of bad weather
he had crossed to Asia in the early part of the following year.
Thence he had made his way by the Philippine Islands to the coasts
of Japan, Korea, and "Chinese Tartary." Touching at Quelpart, he
reached a bay near our modern Vladivostock, and on 2nd August 1787
he discovered the strait that bears his name to-day, between Saghalien
and the North Island of Japan. Fortunately, from Kamtchatka, where
he had landed, he had sent home his journals, notes, plans, and maps
by Lesseps--uncle of the famous Ferdinand de Lesseps of Suez Canal
fame.
On 26th January 1788 he landed at Botany Bay. From here he wrote his
last letter to the French Government. After leaving this port he was
never seen again. Many years later, in 1826, the wreck of his two ships
was found on the reefs of an island near the New Hebrides.