by Rob Mundle
Having been made aware, unofficially, that he was to go to Newfoundland, Cook and his wife were, like Graves, anxiously awaiting confirmation of his appointment, and details of his departure. It was not until the middle of April that the desired communication from the Secretary of the Admiralty was received:
Sir,
My Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, having directed Captain Graves, of His Majesty’s Ship, the Antelope, at Portsmouth, to receive you on board and carry you to Newfoundland in order to your taking a Survey of Part of the Coast and Harbours of that Island. I am commanded by their Lordships to acquaint you therewith: that you must repair immediately on board the said ship, she being under sailing orders, that you are to follow such orders as you shall receive from Cap T Graves relative to the said service and that you will be allowed Ten shillings a day during the time you are employed therein …
Graves’ frustration with the Admiralty continued – this time because of the tardy despatch detailing his orders to sail. The document finally arrived on 19 April. With the orders in hand and his impatience suitably extinguished, Graves would have hoped for Antelope to be underway in a matter of days, sailing west out of the English Channel and into the North Atlantic. Unfortunately, more delays plagued his plans.
First, he had to cut short a visit to London and rush back to the ship, which was then anchored at Spithead, after news reached him that some of the crew were on the verge of mutiny – a reflection of a tide of discontent among the men of the lower deck that was spreading across the Royal Navy fleet at the time. Fortunately, his prompt response to the problem, the promise of reforms, and the dismissal of the principal troublemakers among Antelope’s crew steadied the situation. From that moment, his men continued to work as expected towards preparing to go to sea.
Then, there was a problem relating to Cook. Despite receiving his orders on 19 April to travel to the port and go aboard the ship, he did not present himself to Graves for another fifteen days. This was due, in part, to Cook deciding to visit the Tower of London and meet with the military’s surveying and mapping experts in the Ordnance Office. He wanted to discuss with them the task to which he had been assigned, and the fact that he needed an assistant – someone with knowledge of the very latest surveying techniques and equipment, including the use of a theodolite. No doubt Cook’s experiences with his scholarly associates Holland and DesBarres caused him to make this approach.
As if that delay was not enough to contend with, Graves then learned that a muster of the ship’s men revealed that fifty-five had ‘ran’ – deserted – even though Antelope was at anchor offshore. To make matters even worse, there was also one noted absentee among the names on the ship’s manifest: William Test, the draughtsman whom the Ordnance Office had directed to travel with Cook and assist him with his work. He simply failed to show up.
Captain Graves was then obliged to advise the Admiralty of his dilemmas via another letter, which read in part: ‘Mr Cook arrived here yesterday but without an Assistant, which defect I will endeavour to replace here if possible, under an expectation of the same encouragement their Lordships were to give Mr Test …’ By ‘encouragement’, Graves was no doubt referring to the 6 shillings per day that the Admiralty had granted Test ‘in addition to what he receives from the Board of Ordnance’. It was soon learned that William Test had an understandable reason not to join the ship: the Ordnance Office had agreed to give him leave so that he could join Cook, but without pay!
After some considerable effort over the following days, Graves found a suitably qualified replacement in Edward Smart, a resident of Lambeth, in South London, who was an ordnance draughtsman. Unfortunately, there was too little time for him to be aboard Antelope before her departure. Instead, he sailed aboard HMS Spy a short time later and joined Cook in Newfoundland.
Early on 15 May 1763, Graves strode along the deck of his ship, cast a weather eye towards the heavens, noted the direction of the wind and the state of the tide, and then declared it was time to sail. With that, the master ordered the crew into action. What followed was the time-honoured and complicated procedure for an eighteenth century square-rigged ship to get underway – one that needed to be orchestrated perfectly from start to finish.
It began while Antelope lay at anchor head-to-wind. On the call from the bosun, the hands manning the windlass began hauling away on the bars they used for leverage, bringing in the bower cable and raising the anchor. At the same time, some crew-members were called on to hoist the jib, while others were on stand-by to set and trim the sails as required. Those men took to their tasks after the shrill of the bosun’s whistle confirmed ‘anchor’s aweigh’ – the bower was clear of the bottom.
Meantime, there was action at the starboard side of the vessel amidships: men were working on bringing aboard the brig, which had been launched to assist with the raising of the bower and the recovery of the anchor buoy. Once most of the crew aboard the small boat had clambered up the side of Antelope and onto the deck, the brig was then hoisted from the water and onto the main deck using a block-and-tackle system set from the outboard end of the yardarms.
The majority of the responsibility then went to the men tending the sails. At the desired moment, they were ordered to ease out the buntlines on the sails that needed to be set so that they unfurled; then the sheets and tacks of those sails were hauled on. With that done, there came the critical move whereby the fore and main courses (the lower square sails set on the foremast and mainmast, respectively) were back-winded – set so they blew inside out (back against the masts) – in order that the ship’s bow would be blown away from the direction of the wind, that is, downwind.
For the next few minutes, Antelope continued to make no headway; instead, her bow was driven off to leeward by the powerful force that came from the sails being back-winded. She was held this way until she lay six points – almost beam on (side on) – to the direction of the wind. Once that point was reached, Antelope was in a position whereby the sails could be set properly and forward progress achieved: the leeward braces on the yards, and the rope sheets attached to the sails, were trimmed accordingly, and very soon the hiss of a bow wave was being heard by the men on the foredeck. Antelope was safely underway.
In its entirety, this was a time-consuming operation. From the moment that the bosun confirmed ‘anchor’s aweigh’ to when the ship was on course and making headway, the process could span thirty minutes or more.
For Cook, everything about this particular departure was a new experience. Never in his career as a seafarer had he not been actively engaged in some way in the manoeuvring and sailing of the vessel, especially when it was time to weigh anchor. This time, though, he was not ‘Master Cook’, but ‘Surveyor Cook’. His role was passenger and interested observer on a voyage of more than 2000 nautical miles across the North Atlantic.
Newfoundland is an island sufficiently large to be conspicuous on world maps. It sits like a bastion guarding the Gulf of St Lawrence from the Atlantic, and while roughly triangular in shape, is so irregular in its form that it could be said to resemble a large blotch sitting off mainland Canada’s north-east coast.
For Cook, the rugged nature of the coastline was symbolic of the complexity and extent of the work he would undertake. While the distance between the island’s extremities is around 300 miles, it lays claim to 6000 miles of coastline because of its natural features: long peninsulas and myriad harbours, inlets, bays and coves. The climate is perennially cold and foggy, and the rain falls like frozen bullets. The wicked Arctic storms that blast in from the north are legendary, and for the wrong reasons. This fact was all too evident in September 1775 when an almost inconceivable 4000-plus men, primarily British sailors, perished as a consequence of ‘Independence Hurricane’ hammering Newfoundland’s east coast.
In addition, there are the icebergs that drift south from Greenland year-round and contribute to a very long winter. These challenges combined to give Cook just five months – between early
June and late October – to carry out his surveys. And it was already the middle of June when Antelope reached Newfoundland.
Captain Graves directed that the ship anchor in Trepassey Harbour, on the south-east corner of the island, 70 miles to the south of St John’s on Avalon Peninsula. Once there, five additional ships came under his command for the purpose of covering as much of the region as possible that summer. Not surprisingly, Cook was assigned the most difficult of the surveys to be carried out: to chart and detail the sometimes inhospitable, rugged and barren (yet spectacular) shoreline from Cape Race, near where they were anchored, to Cape Ray, on the island’s south-west corner. It was a distance of 250 nautical miles in a direct line, but probably twice that for Cook should his ship trace its every cranny. For this, he was directed to board the 25-gun HMS Tweed, which was under the captaincy of Charles Douglas.
Prior to being transferred, Cook handed Captain Douglas the orders that Graves had drafted for the captain’s benefit, relating to the survey work. For Cook, there came a surprise at the outset, concerning a goodwill provision under the Treaty of Paris. The relevant part of Douglas’ orders gave a hint of what was to come:
… you are to proceed without a moment’s loss of time … to the Island of St Peter where you are to afford him [Cook] all the assistance in your power by boats or otherways in taking an accurate survey of the Island[s] of St Peter and Miquelon with all the Expedition possible, that no Delay be thereby given to the Delivering [of] these Islands up to the French …
Britain had ceded control of St Pierre and Miquelon to allow the French access to the fishing grounds they would otherwise struggle to work had the British laid claim to every particle of New France. The dilemma for Cook was that the two islands – 12 miles off Newfoundland’s southern coast, and 100 miles to the west of Trepassey Bay – were to be officially handed over on 10 June, yet it was not until three days later that he stepped aboard Tweed. And he still had an entire survey of the 93-square-mile islands to complete before the transfer could take place.
When Tweed finally sailed into the harbour at St Pierre, a French frigate was already there in anticipation of the handover. A matter of hours later, the governor-designate, François-Gabriel d’Angeac, supported by fifty soldiers, arrived aboard the French ship Garonne to take formal possession. Also on board were the first French residents for the islands: 150 men, women and children, the men being either fishermen or merchants.
D’Angeac was indignant when he realised that the islands were not ready for occupation, and that the British residents – who, under the terms of the agreement, would go aboard Tweed and depart the islands – were still there. Cook all but ignored the presence of the governor-designate and immediately commenced surveying the shorelines of the mountainous and desolate islands. It was Douglas’ job to deal with d’Angeac. In his report on the handover, Douglas wrote that the Frenchman ‘was (you may believe with some difficulty) persuaded to remain on board with his troops, until the fourth day of July when (the survey of St Peter’s being completed) that Island was delivered to him in form: and our Surveyor began with the other [Miquelon] …’
This was a diplomatically sensitive time for Douglas – who became a master of procrastination when dealing with d’Angeac – and a difficult survey for Cook. Nonetheless, Graves’ orders were completed by the end of July, at which point the French took full control. Cook and the British residents of the islands then sailed back to St John’s, where he was disappointed to learn that Spy, carrying his assistant, Edward Smart, had not yet arrived. More to his liking was Graves’ advice that he had purchased a 68-ton gaff-rigged schooner named Sally for Cook to use as a full-time survey vessel.
After being renamed HMS Grenville, apparently in honour of Britain’s new prime minister, her first assignment saw her depart St John’s, turn to port, and sail a course towards the north-western tip of Newfoundland. From there, she sailed south, in close proximity to the western coast, where Cook surveyed, mapped and detailed as many of the major harbours and islands as possible. It is probable that Cook completed an entire circumnavigation of Newfoundland on this particular expedition.
When he returned to St John’s, he was pleased to see Spy in port: Smart had arrived. In a matter of days the two men were aboard Grenville and heading to sea, this time to survey the coastal regions around St John’s. They did this for almost two months – right up until the first signs of the bleak Newfoundland winter appeared, in the form of falling temperatures and biting winds. There was nothing more they could do until the following year, so on 5 November, Cook and Smart were aboard Tweed and sailing to the east: homeward bound towards England.
Tweed averaged 5 knots – around 100 miles a day – for the crossing of the Atlantic, and was at anchor at Spithead, on the Solent, on 29 November. Understandably, Cook made haste for London and a much-desired reunion with Elizabeth. Within minutes of arriving home, he was proudly cradling in his arms his first-born child: a son named James, who had been born seven weeks earlier, on 13 October 1763.
Cook spent the next five months in London. Much of that time was assigned to expanding all the information he had gathered in Newfoundland into a more presentable and readable form, with Smart’s assistance. He also decided to purchase a new family home, a place where Elizabeth could enjoy more green space; a residence where a growing family would be more comfortable. The move was only a mile to the north of where they were then living in Shadwell – to the small village of Mile End Old Town – but the difference in lifestyle was considerable. The new Cook family residence was a small terrace: number 7, Assembly Row, on Mile End Road.
Cook’s reputation within the Royal Navy, and with the Admiralty, continued to be bolstered by what was seen as his dedication to duty, attention to detail and ability as a mariner. He was increasingly recognised as a man of considerable value to the service, someone they could not afford to lose – and they didn’t. Cook would spend all the northern hemisphere summers through to 1767 on the waters around Newfoundland continuing his surveying activities. Meanwhile, on a personal front, there were two developments that made this demanding task more pleasurable.
In early 1764, Captain Hugh Palliser, a man he much admired, was appointed successor to Captain Graves as Governor of Newfoundland. Then, on 18 April, the Navy Board, acting on the advice of the Admiralty, formally appointed Cook master of Grenville, which was at the time still lying in St John’s Harbour. Additionally, he was to sail the vessel back to England at the end of the summer that year.
There was sad news also during this period. Apart from having to find a crew for his latest commission, he needed to appoint another assistant: Edward Smart died just eight weeks before he was due to join Cook aboard HMS Lark. The ship duly departed from Portsmouth on 7 May.
Over the following four, all-too-often foggy and cool summer seasons in Newfoundland, Cook’s remarkable work as a maritime surveyor was unmatched within the Royal Navy, but while his endeavours also brought considerable personal satisfaction, the desired results did not always come without incident. The first of these unfortunate moments – and potentially the most lethal – happened on 6 August 1764, just three weeks after Lark arrived in St John’s. Grenville had sailed to the northernmost point of Newfoundland and was anchored near Cape Norman, so that Cook and some of his men could board the cutter, go to the shore and set up the theodolite for survey purposes. To those who had remained on Grenville, the first indication of anything untoward was the sight of the cutter being rowed back towards the ship at a rapid rate, amid anxious shouts from the men in it. Grenville’s log broadly detailed the incident: ‘2pm – Came on board the Cutter with the Master who unfortunately had a Large Powder Horn blown up & Burst in his hand which shattered it in a Terrible manner, and one of the people that stood hard by suffered greatly by the same accident …’
How the horn-shaped container came to explode is not known – it could have happened while Cook was filling it with gunpowder. There was considerable
concern for the injured Cook and the crewman, as no one aboard Grenville had any medical expertise. Some members of the crew recalled seeing a large French ship anchored in nearby Noddy Harbour, less than 10 miles away – she was more than likely, surely, to have a doctor on board. Consequently, there was an immediate response from the crew: the anchor was weighed, all possible sail was crammed on, and Grenville headed for Noddy Harbour as fast as she could sail.
Fortunately, the French ship was still there, and her complement did indeed include a doctor, so both Cook and the injured crewman received treatment. Cook had a gaping wound between his thumb and forefinger, and another deep wound on his wrist. Although he would have been tended to in the best possible way, any painkiller could only have come in the form of a large and swift swig of spirits, while to stop any major bleeding, the wounds would have been either heavily bandaged or covered with boiling pitch.
Grenville stayed in Noddy Harbour for almost three weeks, until 25 August, to allow Cook and the other injured man to recuperate. While some crew continued survey work from there, others took the opportunity to push the boundaries of discipline aboard the ship: they brewed spruce beer and consumed it in copious quantities, which led to many of the tars becoming extremely drunk. When he became aware of this, Cook made sure that discipline was restored as quickly as it had departed. Several of the crew, including his senior hand, Peter Flower, were ‘Confined to the Deck for Drunkness and Mutiny’, while the instigator was also forced to ‘run the Gantlope [gauntlet]’ – a physical punishment in which an offender was forced to run between two rows of crewmen who were ordered to repeatedly beat him.
Cook resumed his survey activities as soon as he was well enough, and stayed with them until the end of October, when he returned to St John’s. He was there for only a few days, because on 1 November Grenville was back at sea, heading for England. Captain Palliser forwarded a letter to the Lords of the Admiralty, advising them of the incident in which Cook had been injured. The contents of Palliser’s letter led to them writing to the First Lord, Lord Halifax, on 14 November: