Secret Life of James Cook

by Graeme Lay

  ‘Ten thousand?’

  ‘Yes. Fortunately, the Society will not have to bear that expense.’

  ‘Who will?’

  ‘The naturalist.’

  ‘Oh.’ He had not yet been told who this was to be. ‘And who is this person?’

  ‘Someone you will meet shortly.’ He withdrew his fob watch and glanced at it. ‘He’s late.’ Putting the watch back he said, ‘In the meantime, here is the full list of the equipment he’ll be bringing.’

  James studied the list of devices which would be used for catching and preserving sea and land creatures and botanical specimens. Where will it all be stowed, he wondered.

  Then came the sound of a carriage drawing up outside. The earl looked up. ‘Ah, he’s here,’ he said with obvious relief.

  He went outside, then returned with the latest visitor. Leading him into the study, the earl gestured towards James. ‘James Cook, meet the Society’s naturalist to the expedition — Joseph Banks.’

  Thirteen

  THE TALL YOUNG MAN LOOKED much as James remembered him from their meeting nearly two years earlier in Newfoundland although his face had filled out. He was wearing a dark brown wig, emerald-green brocade jacket, beige waistcoat and breeches. There was a white silk scarf tied loosely around his neck, and his shoes had large buckles of polished brass. His eyes were large and dark, his mouth sensuous and there was a playful aspect to his expression.

  He shook James’s hand vigorously. ‘Cook and I have met. St John’s, wasn’t it? At the governor’s residence?’

  ‘It was. You were meeting to organize a ball.’ James put emphasis on the last word.

  ‘Ah, yes.’ Banks’s eyes twinkled. ‘A ball where there were ten males for every female. Not my idea of favourable odds. It was an unmemorable evening. Give me the Hellfire Club any day. There the ratio is reversed.’

  Banks and the Earl sniggered but James remained unsmiling. The Hellfire Club was run by John Montagu, Earl of Sandwich, a well-known rake. Rumours of the club members’ drunken evenings with groups of harlots circulated in the city and were received by most with a mixture of condemnation and envy. James disapproved of debauchery, especially among the high-born.

  Banks tugged at his coat sleeves and arranged his face into a serious expression. ‘Well, down to business, gentlemen. The expedition’s plans are proceeding, I trust?’

  James nodded, but he was still disconcerted by the news of the appointment. Banks was a civilian so would be unused to naval life. He would also not be subject to James’s orders or discipline. His background, manner and behaviour marked him as a privileged and somewhat flippant fellow. But, James reminded himself, a naturalist was essential to the expedition. And Banks — what a fitting name, it occurred to him — had invested such a colossal sum of money in it that surely he would want to ensure it was well spent. Whether or not James liked it, he would be stuck with Joseph Banks for the duration, landlubber or no.

  But as the meeting proceeded, James became more and more concerned. With all the nonchalance of a man to whom money was no object, Banks announced the details of his retinue. Not only would he be bringing his two dogs, but he would also have with him four servants, including two negroes from the Banks family estate in Revesby (‘They’re strong, healthy bucks, you’ll find them useful’) and a boy servant, Nicholas Young. There was also an insouciance about the naturalist’s manner, a presumption, James sensed, that he would be the most important person on the expedition. Moreover, Banks had chosen as part of his party a botanical illustrator, a young Scotsman named Sydney Parkinson, and another Scotsman as landscape draughtsman, Alexander Buchan (‘I am well familiar with their work; it is splendid’). Banks himself would be assisted by a colleague, one Dr Daniel Solander, and his friend Herman Sporing (‘Scandinavians, but well-qualified ones’). As Banks described this extensive retinue, James felt even more uneasy. Was the expedition to be dominated by botanists, illustrators and their pets? What about the astronomy — the principal motive for the expedition? Yet here, in the headquarters of the Royal Society, he could not admit these concerns. He was aware that Solander, too, was a fellow of the Society.

  James made an arrangement with Banks to meet at Deptford in three days’ time to inspect the refitted Endeavour, then he bade the others farewell and left to take the coach back to Mile End. As he was driven through the streets of the city, past the Tower of London and down the hill to East Smithfield, his thoughts turned to home and family. Although the plans for the voyage were proceeding apace, in the house at Mile End tensions were growing. Elizabeth continued to show little interest in the expedition and instead fretted about the children and the unborn child. James had dismissed Frances, as promised, and Elizabeth had hired a girl from Rotherham to replace her. Susan was a slow-moving but mercifully uncomplaining maid who slept in the parlour and attended closely to the interests of little James, Nathaniel and Elizabeth, who all liked her immediately. But Susan’s presence had made little difference to Elizabeth’s feelings about his impending departure.

  ‘How are you, Beth?’

  ‘Weary. My ankles. They are so swollen.’

  She was lying on the divan under the front window, face flushed with the summer heat, hair hanging loose, hands clasped across her bulging belly. The window was open, giving some relief from the heat, but also admitting the smells of the street along with the clatter of passing coaches, the clopping of horses’ hooves and the shouts of draymen.

  ‘Where are the boys?’

  ‘Susan has taken them to the pond on the common. To catch tadpoles.’

  ‘Ah. Good. And little Lizbeth?’

  ‘She sleeps.’

  James went to his wife. Kneeling, he placed his hands over hers.

  ‘How was your meeting?’ she asked without enthusiasm.

  ‘Satisfactory. But there is yet much to consider.’

  ‘You are still leaving in August?’

  ‘We must. The timing is all.’ He squeezed her hand gently. ‘And I heard today that your cousin has been added to Endeavour’s muster roll.’

  ‘Cousin Isaac?’

  ‘Yes. I requested that he be appointed master’s mate. He’s a good lad. He served me well on Grenville. A hydrographer in the making.’

  She nodded in an uninterested way, then closed her eyes in a gesture of resignation.

  He thought that the news of Isaac’s promotion might have cheered her, but it seemed not. Her mind was on the unborn child, he suspected, which was due after he had sailed. It was the way it had been with the others, but this time was different. He would be venturing into the largely unknown.

  As if reading his thoughts, she murmured, ‘I feel … this child is not the same somehow. I cannot explain, but there is something—’ She turned away, leaving the statement uncompleted.

  Seeing that she had begun to doze, James stood up and began to climb the stairs, intending to go to his study. But as he passed the children’s bedroom he heard a reedy cry coming from little Elizabeth’s cradle. He went to it, then reached in and picked up the little one. As her large blue eyes stared up at him, he stroked her downy hair. She put her thumb in her mouth and sucked it without taking her eyes from his face. Dribble leaked from the corners of her tiny mouth. She was getting more teeth, Elizabeth had reported, which was why she slept only fitfully. That and the summer heat.

  He placed his hand tenderly over her tiny forehead. Now there were two Jameses and two Elizabeths in the house, and this knowledge pleased him. Perhaps the next child would be a Grace. Carefully, he placed little Elizabeth back in the cradle, then began to rock it slowly. His sons he loved deeply, but there was something so special about a daughter. He studied her closed eyes, the long fair lashes which curled upwards and fluttered faintly, her creamy skin. Soon she would be walking. By the time he returned she would be playing, running, skipping, talking. He felt a pang of regret that he would miss these important stages of the little one’s life. Then he dismissed this thought. Seeing that
the child was now fast asleep, he moved away and went up to his study.

  On his desk was the large notebook with marbled covers which he had bought from a stationer’s in Lombard Street. He opened it, picked up a quill and dipped it in the inkwell. At the head of the first blank page he wrote in his long, looping hand: Journal for Elizabeth, kept on HMB Endeavour, August 1768. He left the ink to dry, then took a sheet of notepaper from a drawer in the desk, the lockable drawer. He thought for a moment, then began to write. When he had finished, he blotted the ink, folded the sheet and placed it in an envelope. After sealing it, he wrote across the front of the envelope: For Elizabeth Cook, to be opened in the event of my death. Then he placed the envelope in the drawer, locked it and placed the key in the small box on the bookshelf with the others.

  Meetings, meetings, meetings. Through the weeks of July, James grew increasingly impatient. Although the principal refit of Endeavour was completed on time, the finalizing of the crew was at times problematic. There was, for instance, the curious case of the ship’s cook. The one appointed by the Naval Board and who turned up at Deptford on 14 July looked like a beggar — haggard and unshaven, with palsied hands and limbs like pea-sticks. James immediately sent him packing. Well aware of the importance of the man who would command the galley, he requested a replacement. Two days later, one arrived. James was again dismayed. John Thompson had only one hand. In place of the other was a steel hook. Again James complained, but the Naval Board official was adamant: Thompson would man Endeavour’s galley.

  The overly zealous official told James wryly, ‘It’s his left hand he lost, and he’s right-handed.’

  ‘Can he fillet a fish with one hand? Or peel an onion?’ James demanded.

  ‘Be assured that he can,’ the official shot back. Then he added sarcastically, ‘And perhaps, given your family name, you could assist him.’

  Cursing under his breath, James signed the muster roll.

  All the while, at the back of his mind was the concern about the civilian retinue, underwritten and led by Joseph Banks Esq, who would join the ship in Plymouth. How would this lubberly farrago of scientists and draughtsmen cope with shipboard life during a voyage around the world?

  He made better progress with his insistence that the crew have adequate clothing. Aware from his years in Canada that the high southern latitudes would be bitterly cold, even in the southern hemisphere summer, James insisted that the Naval Board provide thick woollen Magellan jackets, along with fearnought canvas waterproofs, for all his men. Conscious, too, of the need for fresh air and personal hygiene below decks, he asked that ventilation scuttles be cut into Endeavour’s lower decks. To his surprise, the Naval Board agreed to these requests without demurring.

  On 30 July he was summoned to the Admiralty headquarters. There, wearing his new dress uniform with its navy blue full dress coat, cream cuffs and matching buttoned waistcoat, he was greeted by Secretary Philip Stephens. He was shown into the hall, where several of the lords, including Lord Hawke, awaited him. The Earl of Morton and two other members of the Royal Society, Dr Bevis and the Astronomer Royal, Nevil Maskelyne, were also in attendance. James had seldom been in such esteemed company, and he concentrated on trying to remember the names of the notables as each shook his hand. There was an air of tense expectation in the room, of a suppressed but building momentum.

  They all took seats at the long oak table. After James gave them a positive report on the refit of Endeavour, coffee and cake were brought in. Stephens left the room and returned with two rectangular, sealed envelopes on a silver tray. He handed them to Lord Hawke.

  ‘Your instructions, Lieutenant Cook,’ Hawke announced gravely. ‘The first to be opened now, and to take effect immediately, the second to be opened only after the first instructions have been executed.’

  He handed them to James, who placed the second envelope on the table and opened the other. He read the instructions, which were written in a confident, clear hand — Stephens’, James presumed. They instructed that he should depart Gallions Reach for Plymouth, where Endeavour’s complement should assemble and final provisioning of the vessel would be carried out. The crew would receive their clothing and two months’ wages in advance. Following embarkation and the reading by the commander of the Navy’s Articles of War, the vessel should put to sea. It should proceed to Madeira and there take on fresh victuals and wine, and thence proceed to Rio de Janeiro, around Cape Horn and on to Port Royal Harbour on King George’s Island, to arrive there by May 1769. The party should then prepare for the scientific observation of the transit of Venus across the face of the sun, on 3 June. Following the observation, he was to open and follow the Admiralty’s second set of instructions.

  Although there was nothing in the first instructions which surprised him, James still felt a surge of anticipation as he read them. And the contents of the second envelope intrigued him. Although he made some mental speculations about the nature of the second set, he was sworn to honour their secrecy until the following year’s astronomical observations had been successfully carried out. Stephens handed him the inked quill, and he signed and dated two copies of the instructions. He handed one copy to the secretary and placed the other in his leather case. Then he stood and bowed towards the assembled lords, and declared: ‘Thank you, my lords. Be assured I will do my utmost to serve our king and country to the very best of my ability. I am confident that the expedition I am about to lead will bring honour and distinction to England.’

  There were spontaneous murmurs of approbation at this short speech. Lords Townshend and Brett clapped. Then the stooped, craggy figure of the Earl of Morton got to his feet. His cheeks were sunken, his skin sallow. He began to speak, wheezing like a bellows as he did so. ‘My lords, the Royal Society also has instructions for Lieutenant Cook.’

  The lords all looked at him sharply. Clearly this development had not been expected. Was the Society going to be obstructive in some way? The relationship between the Admiralty and the Royal Society, although necessarily symbiotic for the forthcoming expedition, remained uneasy following the Halley fiasco and the Dalrymple controversy.

  Morton extracted a sheet of notepaper from the inside pocket of his topcoat, placed wire-rimmed spectacles on his nose, cleared his throat noisily, then began to read. ‘Instructions offered to the consideration of Lieutenant Cook, Mr Banks, Dr Solander, and the other Gentlemen who go upon the Expedition on Board the Endeavour, prepared by the Earl of Morton, President of the Royal Society.’

  Lord Morton’s paper reminded the men concerned to ‘exercise the utmost patience and forbearance with respect to the Natives of the several Lands where the ship was to touch.’ To ‘check the petulance of the sailors, and restrain the wanton use of Firearms. To have it still in the view that shedding the blood of these people is a crime of the highest nature as they are the natural, and in the strictest sense of the word, the legal possessors of the several Regions they inhabit …’

  Morton read on, ignoring the fact that the frown lines on the foreheads of the Lords of the Admiralty were deepening. ‘Every effort should be made to avoid violence … the Natives should be treated with distinguished humanity … No European nation has a right to occupy any part of their country, or settle among them without their voluntary consent …’

  As James listened to Morton’s reading, he thought that these unusual instructions must surely have been precipitated by the Dolphin expedition’s shooting of the natives on King George’s Island the previous year. As such, he concurred with most of Morton’s suggestions. Cannon fire against stones was a shamefully unequal duel, and it seemed to him that the Society’s instructions were both enlightened and compassionate. When Morton had finished the reading, he handed the sheet of paper to James.

  But around the table there were audible mutterings of discontent and expressions of consternation. Glaring at the earl, Lord Hawke said, ‘Am I to understand that your instructions mean, Morton, that the marines and crew of Endeavour shall not defe
nd themselves against attack by hostile natives they might encounter?’

  Removing his spectacles, Morton returned Hawke’s accusatory glare with a hooded look of his own. He brought a big open hand down on the table, emphatically. ‘Defence, most certainly, Hawke. But attacks should be avoided. Unlike the natives of the uncivilized world, we are a people blessed with civilization and humaneness. As an enlightened nation we must do our utmost to spread and share our advantaged way of life with those who lack our civilized way of life.’ Still glowering, he sat down.

  At this point James felt the need to intercede. The last thing he needed was ongoing enmity between the Admiralty and the Society. He stood up. ‘My lords, both the Admiralty’s instructions and the Society’s suggestions I will follow to the utmost of my ability. The expedition has manifold ambitions and intentions, and will necessarily demand a great many judgments to be made as it progresses. Those judgments will be mine, and mine alone to make.’ He glanced at Morton. ‘I can assure the Society, my lord, that every effort will be made to avoid bloodshed, including the blood of my crew. I can also assure you that the customs and interests of the natives will at all times be considered and respected.’ He paused, his eyes panning the assembly sternly. ‘In that, as in all other matters pertaining to the expedition, I give you my word.’

  Around the table, there were murmurs of approval. Lord Hawke was nodding; Lord Morton also gave James a short but deferential nod.

  Out on the street, Philip Stephens shook his hand. ‘Thank you, Cook, for your diplomacy.’

  ‘Thank you, Stephens. Captain Palliser has told me how instrumental you were in my appointment. Please accept my gratitude.’

  ‘Your appointment was due entirely to your own abilities.’ He gripped James’s shoulder. ‘It’s immensely satisfying to see you in officer’s uniform. It has been long overdue. Good luck, and safe passage.’