Cook

by Rob Mundle

  Eagle departed from Plymouth in early August, and for the next four months played a role in blockades and the pursuit of French ships. With winter approaching and crewmen again falling ill, she returned to Plymouth in early November and remained there for a month before resuming normal duties.

  Cook’s first direct involvement in battlefront action came six months later when, on 31 May 1757, Eagle, in company with the similar-sized HMS Medway, pursued and engaged the 1500-ton 64-gun French East Indiaman Duc d’Aquitaine. The action took place in the Atlantic Ocean, about 180 nautical miles south-west of Ushant, the island that today marks the north-westernmost point of metropolitan France.

  The pursuit commenced at one o’clock in the morning in driving rain, with Eagle leading the way under a press of sail. In his own words, Palliser ‘let out the Reef, & set Studding Sails & Cleared Ship for Action’ to ensure maximum speed.

  This would prove to be an abrupt introduction to the brutality of maritime warfare for Cook, as the French defended their ship with every ounce of force available to them. Palliser’s log entry after the engagement provided a summary:

  At ¼ before 4 Came alongside & Engaged at about Two Ships lengths from her the Fire was very brisk on both Sides for near an hour, she then Struck to us, She proved to be the Duc d’Aquitaine last from Lisbon, mounting 50 Guns all 18 Pounders, 493 Men … Our Sails & Rigging cut almost all to Pieces. Soon after She Struck her Main & Mizzen Masts went by the Board. Employed the Boats fetching the Prisoners & carrying [our] Men on board the Prize. Our Cutter was lost alongside the Prize by the going away of her Main Mast …

  Eagle had three men killed during the action, and another two died within forty-eight hours. Eighty others were wounded either on deck or when cannonballs fired from the French ship smashed into her topsides and tore her innards apart. The French paid a much higher price in defeat: of Duc d’Aquitaine’s crew, fifty were killed and thirty wounded.

  Although not terminally damaged, Eagle was badly smashed. Palliser’s report to the Admiralty detailed the condition of his ship: ‘Twenty shot holes through her sides. Three lower deck ports shot away … The bowsprit much wounded. The foremast, a shot through the middle of it … Two anchor-stocks shot away … almost all the running rigging shot away. Sails rent almost to rags …’ In short, there was hardly anything aloft that wasn’t damaged – masts, spars and yards, sails and rigging all reflected the intensity of the close-quarters encounter.

  Consequently, it would have been Cook, as bosun, who led the way when it came to Eagle’s crew doing everything possible to secure the ship and repair essential rigging just so the few undamaged sails they had left could be set and sheeted home. Once that was achieved, Eagle was turned to the north-east, and began an arduous and slow passage back to the Devonshire coast, 300 nautical miles away.

  Medway had remained on the fringe of the battle and, apart from an accidental explosion of gunpowder on board that injured ten crewmen, was unscathed. She took the wreck of Duc d’Aquitaine in tow and headed for Plymouth in company with Eagle.

  Even though Duc d’Aquitaine was in ruins – Eagle had made the topsides look like Swiss cheese by blasting ninety-seven holes in her – naval officers in Plymouth believed that the French ship could be a valuable prize, a theory that was soon confirmed by naval surveyors, who advised that she could be repaired. It was good news for the Lords of the Admiralty, who saw an opportunity to rub salt into the enemy’s wounds. They wanted her sailing as HMS Duc d’Aquitaine under the Union flag and defending England as quickly as possible. The French East Indiaman was immediately placed into dry dock for a rebuild.

  The Admiralty took time to congratulate Palliser on his efforts, declaring: ‘Captain Palliser should be informed that their Lordships were highly pleased with his success and gallant conduct on this occasion …’

  The pressure of war also made repairs to Eagle a high priority. Within a month of arriving back in port, she had been re-rigged and the hull repaired – an impressive effort. On 12 July 1757, she sailed out into the Atlantic, bound for Halifax, Nova Scotia, again with Palliser as captain, but the bosun, James Cook, was not on board.

  Cook’s absence was due to the intervention of two of his mentors, Palliser and John Walker. The latter had been following Cook’s naval career with interest, and believed most firmly that a mariner of his ability should be higher up the ranks. Walker duly contacted his local parliamentarian, the member for Scarborough, William Osbaldestone, with a request that he do what he could to see Cook become a commissioned officer. Osbaldestone subsequently wrote to Palliser regarding the issue.

  It was a difficult situation for Palliser. Like Walker, he was impressed by Cook and in no doubt that, had he joined the navy as a teenager, this 28-year-old man would now have been well advanced in the service. However, there was little he could do, especially in light of a recent edict reminding officers that no midshipman or mate could sit for his lieutenant’s examination unless he had six years’ naval service. Cook had been in the RN only two years.

  Palliser’s reply to Osbaldestone explained the strict limitations, but he also suggested that there was an opportunity for promotion via a ‘master’s warrant … by which he would be raised to a station that he was well qualified to discharge with ability and credit’.

  So, through Walker’s encouragement and Palliser’s suggestion, Bosun James Cook attended Trinity House, at Deptford Wharf in south London, on 29 June that year. There, he sat for, and passed, an examination qualifying him to ‘take charge as Master of any of His Majesty’s Ships from the Downs thro’ the Channel to the Westward and to Lisbon’. As if that wasn’t pleasing enough, he was discharged from Eagle the following day and immediately appointed master aboard HMS Solebay – a three-masted 24-gun single-deck frigate used primarily for convoy escort and patrols. The captain was Robert Craig.

  Cook was well aware of the considerable responsibilities that came with being a ship’s master, having turned down such a position aboard one of the Walkers’ colliers. But the difference between being a master on a ‘cat’ and his duties aboard Solebay was enormous: the frigate was around four times the displacement, had a crew of 200-plus compared with the collier’s twenty-five, while her rig and general equipment were inordinately more complex. As master, he was essentially the manager of the ship. He answered directly to the captain, was at all times responsible for the navigation, and, through the bosun, was responsible for all repairs and maintenance of the standing and running rigging, plus the sails, masts, yards and spars.

  In short, if anything went wrong with the general operation of the ship, the master was answerable directly to the captain.

  Cook did not join Solebay for a full month after his discharge from Eagle. It is easy to speculate that during this time he probably visited his family in Yorkshire, as well as the Walkers, having possibly spent some time in London before then. When he finally went aboard on 30 July, Solebay was at anchor in Leith Road on the Firth of Forth, a huge bay on the east coast of Scotland. She was based there because, being a frigate, she had the speed needed to pursue and intercept vessels that were smuggling goods between this region and France.

  Yet this new posting proved to be short-lived – lasting little more than a month. Five weeks after discharge from Craig’s vessel on 7 September, Cook was appointed master of the newly launched fourth-rate ship-of-the-line HMS Pembroke.

  Cook travelled south to Portsmouth to join the new ship, and went aboard as master on 27 October, his twenty-ninth birthday. As a 64-gunner, Pembroke carried almost three times the firepower of Solebay, so Cook’s latest appointment represented an important step forward in the Royal Navy. As before, it is distinctly possible that he was nominated for the position from within. His predecessor on Pembroke was none other than Thomas Bisset, who, as master aboard Eagle, had supported Cook’s promotion to master’s mate.

  Under the command of the much-admired Captain John Simcoe, Pembroke was in Portsmouth Harbour being provisio
ned for a patrol off the coast of France when Cook stepped onto her heavy timber deck and presented himself to the captain. Once ready for sea, she was moved out 6 nautical miles to the anchorage off St Helens on the Isle of Wight, where she underwent final preparations.

  Two weeks later, on 8 December, she and the other ships in the patrol were signalled to unfurl their sails, weigh anchor and head into the Channel, their eventual destination Cape Finistère, on the northern coast of the Bay of Biscay. It was the start of winter, a bleak time to be on these waters, but the seasons are of no consequence when there’s a war to be fought. For the next two months, the fleet carried out their orders to arrest or harass any French ships they might intercept, and any other vessels thought to be loyal to Louis XV.

  While the English Channel was the primary battleground between the British and the French at this stage of the Seven Years War, there was an equally acrimonious confrontation developing on the opposite side of the Atlantic between the same two adversaries. And both Pembroke and James Cook were soon to play important roles there.

  A few months prior to the ship’s completion of the winter patrol mission and her arrival in Plymouth in February 1758, the British Cabinet had decided to accelerate its attempts to overrun French colonies in North America. After all, the French were leaving no doubt about their intention to take all of Britain’s holdings in that part of the world, starting with ‘New Scotland’ – Nova Scotia. The two key French strongholds in the colony of New France (now the eastern portion of Canada) were Québec and Louisbourg, the latter being the fortress town that controlled the entrance to both the world’s largest estuary, the Gulf of St Lawrence, and the St Lawrence River, which duly gave important access to Québec and therefore the interior. Initial plans for a British land assault on Louisbourg were abandoned due to the prevailing weather, and this decision led to Britain’s new prime minister, William Pitt, ordering that Louisbourg, followed by Québec, be taken via a combined naval and army attack. It was a plan of immense proportions, so much so that every available British ship would be needed on that side of the Atlantic to carry the flag.

  Just twelve days after Pembroke returned home and dropped anchor, she was fully reprovisioned and heading across the Atlantic Ocean as part of a fleet comprising eight line-of-battle ships, three frigates, two transports and two fire-ships. This was an immensely proud moment for Ship’s Master James Cook. He fully expected to be put to the test on what was his first crossing of the Atlantic. The experiences that lay ahead, however, might even have excelled the wildest dreams of that young farm boy from the fields of Marton-in-Cleveland.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Taking of Québec

  Within two days of departing from Plymouth on 22 February 1758, the Royal Navy taskforce had cleared The Lizard and was sailing south into the vast wilderness of the Atlantic. Ahead lay a challenging 4700-nautical-mile passage via Teneriffe and Bermuda to the British-held port of Halifax, Nova Scotia. This circuitous route was chosen so that the fleet had the best chance of sailing in favourable following winds for the majority of the voyage. Even so, it was quite possible that they would experience a widely varying weather pattern that only a salty seafarer’s experienced eye could decipher. Being late winter, an icy blast out of the north was not improbable.

  A careful lookout was also being kept for any sign of billowing sails on the horizon. The French were forever lurking on these waters, hunting for any British prize, and this flotilla would be a valuable one.

  Because of this threat, it was important for the British ships to get as deep into the Atlantic, and south towards Teneriffe, as quickly as possible. Yet with it being essential that the lighter displacement and efficiently rigged frigates remain in visual contact with – and thereby serve as armed escorts to – the valuable but more vulnerable transports, the crews aboard the frigates were constantly furling and unfurling sails to control the speed of their ships. This was all done at the behest of the fleet commander, the battle-hardened Admiral Edward Boscawen, known affectionately as ‘Old Dreadnought’, but often referred to as ‘Wry-Necked-Dick’, because of the way he canted his head to one side.

  It was obvious to both warring nations that the key to holding control of New France was to keep both Louisbourg, on the southeast corner of Cape Breton Island, and Québec under the same flag. Atlantic-facing Louisbourg was the more important of the two places, being the gateway to the region. By controlling that town, it was not difficult to defend the Gulf of St Lawrence and therefore protect Québec, located upstream at the St Lawrence River narrows and one of the oldest towns in North America, having been founded in 1608.

  Not surprisingly, since gaining control of Louisbourg in 1745, the French had spent considerable manpower and money turning the settlement into one massive fortress. For the British, their recently founded capital of Nova Scotia, Halifax, 200 nautical miles south-west of Louisbourg, was the ideal place from which to mount an assault on the French territories. Halifax’s long, narrow and deep harbour extended 13 nautical miles directly inland, making it a safe anchorage for a large fleet of ships, and, most importantly, it did not become icebound in winter.

  The crossing of the Atlantic by the British fleet took just over ten weeks, and while it was a relatively uneventful passage, there was considerable concern aboard Pembroke when she arrived. Twenty-six crewmen had died en route, most of them falling victim to scurvy, and many more had to be hospitalised. As with the suffering he’d witnessed aboard Eagle, this was a situation that would have a profound influence on Cook’s later life as an expedition commander. In addition to these losses, another five of Pembroke’s crew decided to steal the small yawl and desert. They were never seen again.

  Following the aborted first attempt to take the fortress town, Prime Minister Pitt left no doubt that he wanted both Louisbourg and Québec in British hands. To achieve this, Admiral Boscawen had assembled a fleet of mammoth proportions; the recently arrived taskforce combined to form a veritable armada totalling 157 warships manned by some 40,000 crew and carrying 14,000 soldiers, led by General James Wolfe of the British Army. On 28 May 1758, the fleet departed from Halifax and began closing on Louisbourg. Pembroke was not part of the initial wave, however, having been forced to stay in port because too many of her crew were still immobilised. It was not until 7 June that she sailed in convoy with three transports, two schooners and a cattle sloop.

  When Pembroke anchored off Louisbourg five days later, word came that Wolfe had led a large army of men ashore on 8 June and forced the French to retreat inside the giant fortress. It wasn’t without incident, thanks to the surge of the sea breaking on the beach and rocky shore in Kennington Cove (located on the north side of Gabarus Bay), plus the initial French resistance. The casualty list recorded more than sixty men killed and 146 wounded – and at least 100 of the small boats ferrying soldiers ashore were wrecked in the surf. Even so, Wolfe would later describe the landing as ‘next to miraculous’.

  From the time Pembroke arrived at the cove, Cook, as master, coordinated the transport of troops, weapons and supplies to shore whenever conditions allowed. Once the men were on the beach, they faced a trek of about 4 miles north, first over rough terrain then marshland, before reaching a point where they could position themselves for an effective assault on the French stronghold, which was located on the southern side of the large bay. The fortress was initially designed by the French to defend Louisbourg from attacks by the British from the sea, so it was poorly prepared for a land-based attack such as this. The British soldiers were therefore able to locate their guns on the marshland and nearby hills with virtually no challenge from the French.

  While these preparations were underway, Wolfe received an intelligence report that reinforced his belief that his men would be able to take the fort. The report confirmed that the number of French defenders was considerably fewer than expected – 7000 soldiers, sailors and marines. Ironically, this shortage of manpower stemmed from Britain’s abandoned attemp
t to take Louisbourg the previous year. When the French fleet returned home across the Atlantic in October 1757, many of their soldiers and crewmen were struck down by ‘ship fever’, or typhus. More than 2000 died while at sea, and another 10,000 after the fleet had arrived in Brest. The resulting shortage of available fighting men, plus a misguided belief that the British were planning to sail across the Channel in 1758 and mount major attacks on the French coast, led to most of King Louis’ ships remaining in home waters when they would otherwise have been in Louisbourg for this latest confrontation. That year, a support squadron did depart from Toulon, in the south of France, bound for Louisbourg, but it was intercepted by the British off Cartagena, Spain, and blasted to the point of surrender.

  During the Siege of Louisbourg, the weather played into French hands at least – albeit briefly. In the middle of June, a powerful Atlantic gale, with near hurricane-force winds, hit the British fleet hard and fast. It was so strong that every RN ship anchored off the coast could easily have been driven ashore and wrecked. The only option was to retreat to sea, but the wind was so powerful that the men manning the windlass on each vessel were not able to raise the anchor: the force of the wind on the hull and rig was too great. Instead, masters of almost every vessel, including Cook on Pembroke, had to get the bower cable – made of some 1000 strands of triple-laid tarred hemp – hacked through as quickly as possible so that the ship could escape. Meanwhile, other crew-members were frantically going about the task of hoisting a minimum number of heavy-weather fore-and-aft sails to ensure that the vessel had the speed and manoeuvrability needed to sail away from the shore and get the necessary sea-room. For the French, this break in hostilities presented the opportunity for them to sink four of their own ships at the harbour entrance, to the east of the fortress town, in the hope that they could blockade the port. It was to no avail.