Cook

by Rob Mundle

  I was now well able to give them and so much in her favour that I had not one fault to allege against her … It is owing to the perseverance of these two persons that the expedition is in so much forwardness, had they given way to the general Clamour and not steadily adhered to their own better judgement, the Voyage in all probability would have been laid aside …

  The captain’s satisfaction with his newly refitted ship also led to him writing to Stephens immediately after arriving in Plymouth to confirm that his vessel offered everything he expected of her.

  While Resolution and Adventure lay at anchor in close proximity in Plymouth Sound, and final preparations for the voyage were made, Cook received a package from the Admiralty in London containing his instructions for the expedition. Dated 25 June 1772, they held no surprises for the captain, primarily because he had been party to the initial draft. He also knew that should he execute these directions to the full, he would become the first maritime explorer to circumnavigate the world twice, and in opposing directions.

  In short, the first part of his orders stated that after reaching the Cape of Good Hope, he was to fall as far south as possible in search of Cape Circumcision, the position of which had been approximated when sighted by French explorer Jean-Baptiste Bouvet on 1 January 1739 – the day of the Feast of the Circumcision. The odds were stacked against Cook in this endeavour: the actual existence of the cape remained questionable, and the latitude and longitude that Bouvet recorded were, more than likely, quite inaccurate. Should Cook locate the cape, he was then to explore what he could of that coastline, ‘Prosecuting your discoveries as near to the South Pole as possible’ and ‘keeping in as high a latitude as you can’. However, if Cape Circumcision proved to be little more than a feature on a small island, he should move on and continue sailing on an east-about circumnavigation in search of the still-mythical Great South Land.

  Bouvet’s writings regarding what he had seen gave rise to a general belief that it could be part of a significant find. He described the area around the cape as being desolate and covered by glaciers, and suggested that all the signs of a considerable landmass were evident – ice, seaweed, seals and penguins included. On the other hand, his pilot believed that what they had seen was nothing more than a small island. There was only one certainty for Cook and his expedition: it was going to be a bitterly cold, storm- and blizzard-ravaged mission to a region where few men had dared to venture.

  Of all the tasks to be completed before departure, Cook’s most important one was to set the highly valued timepieces – the chronometers – to the most accurate time possible, thereby ensuring there was every chance that their calculation of longitude during this passage around the world was as near to correct as possible. This undertaking proved to be a delicate but successful operation.

  It was a cloud-shrouded sunrise on the morning of 13 July, but the wind was most favourable. At 6 am, the captain called for all required hands to be on deck aboard Resolution, and signalled for the same action aboard Adventure. From that moment, the shrill of the bosuns’ whistles could be heard while commands were shouted from the quarterdeck for all to hear, each one aimed at getting the ships underway.

  Only Cook knew the contents of his orders from the Admiralty, so everyone else on board could only speculate about where exactly they were heading. Nor could they say how long they would be absent from home waters. This was reflected to some degree in a simple note that Richard Pickersgill, now Lieutenant Pickersgill following a recommendation from Cook, wrote in his journal that day: ‘Farewell old England’. There is little doubt that, at some stage during the departure, every man would have looked aft over the taffrail with a degree of emotion, watching the coastline become increasingly faint. Not even the stoic captain was spared this experience, as he would later reveal in a letter to John Walker in Whitby:

  I should hardly have troubled you with a letter was it not customary for men to take leave of their friends before they go out of the world, for I can hardly think myself in it so long as I am deprived from having any connections with the civilised part of it, and this will soon be my case for two years at least. When I think of the inhospitable parts I am going to, I think the voyage dangerous. I however enter upon it with great cheerfulness, providence has been very kind to me on many occasions, and I trust in the continuation of the divine protection; I have two good ships well provided and well manned.

  It was an easy passage over more than 1000 nautical miles to Madeira, during which the men had every opportunity to adjust to life at sea. Once anchored at their destination, the desired provisions were taken aboard: wine, in particular. The captain was determined to implement the same pioneering dietary and hygiene regimen for his crew as he had applied so successfully aboard Endeavour. This was evident to the men of Resolution and Adventure when he bought hundreds of bunches of onions for the crew, explaining that it was ‘a Custom I observed last Voyage and had reason to think that they received great benefit therefrom’.

  The stopover in Madeira was also the last opportunity Cook would have for some time to write to the Admiralty on various matters including his assessment of the performance of the ship at sea:

  … Resolution answers in every respect as well, nay even better than we could expect. She steers, works, sails well, and is remarkably stiff and seems to promise to be a dry and very easy ship in the sea. In our passage from Plymouth we were once under our courses but it was not wind that obliged the Resolution to take in her topsails, though it blowed hard, but because the Adventure could not carry hers. In point of sailing the two sloops are well matched; what difference there is is in favour of the Resolution.

  While in Madeira, there came an unexpected moment of mirth for Cook and his crew – many of whom still had Banks’ buffoonery during the preparations for this voyage fresh in their minds. While ashore in the town of Funchal, they learned that three months earlier – which was when Resolution had originally been due to depart from Plymouth – a ‘gentleman’ named Burnett had arrived from England, saying that he was there to join Banks’ ship when she reached port. It is believed that Banks, having abandoned this mission, wrote to Burnett in Funchal, advising him that he would not be arriving on Resolution. With that, this so-called gentleman took the next available ship back to Europe, although not before the locals had realised that Burnett was not a man, but a woman dressed in men’s garb. In fact, ‘Mr Burnett’ was Banks’ mistress, whom he was planning to smuggle aboard for the voyage. Cook found it amusing to think that Banks obviously believed that he could deceive the captain and all on board. He would later remark: ‘every part of Mr Burnett’s behaviour and every action tended to prove that he was a woman. I have not met with a person that entertains a doubt of a contrary nature.’

  From Madeira, the next stage of the voyage – to the Cape Verde Islands, then on to Cape Town – was relatively uneventful. More stock and poultry went aboard at the islands, and a number of crew bought monkeys to keep as pets. However, after heading back to sea, Cook realised that these primates were the source of offensive excrement on the deck, so he ordered that the animals be thrown overboard: he would have nothing on his ship that might threaten the health of his men. ‘The captain paid more attention to the health of his people than to the lives of a few monkeys,’ wrote Resolution’s astronomer, William Wales. This was also evident in Cook’s demands that the men should bathe themselves and wash all linen regularly, and that the ship be ‘cleaned and smoked betwixt decks in order to clear and air the sloop’. Bedding was also aired, and the bilges sluiced with salt water on a regular basis.

  With the two ships sailing south in company, every opportunity was taken to ensure that they were of comparable speed in a wide range of conditions – something that would make it easier for them to stay in visual contact during the more difficult stages of the voyage. Initially Resolution, due to her greater size and spread of sail, was the faster vessel, but before long, Adventure could match her. On 20 August, a carpenter’s m
ate, Henry Smock, who had been working over the side of Resolution replacing a scuttle (a hatch), slipped and fell into the ocean and was not recovered. The Equator was crossed on 9 September, and that occasioned the usual induction ceremony for any first-timers: a complete dunking in the sea, or fines in the form of alcohol for those who chose to avoid the experience. The celebration continued well into the night.

  By the end of October, Resolution and Adventure were riding snugly at anchor in the shadow of Cape Town’s imposing Table Mountain. Cook noted with pride that ‘at this time we have not one man on the Sick list, the People in general have enjoyed a good state of health ever since we left England’. Captain Furneaux had lost two midshipmen to a mystery illness, apparently contracted while they were in the Cape Verde Islands, but otherwise his men, too, were in good health. Cook’s strict dietary regimen was vindicated further when two Dutch ships arrived in Cape Town while outward bound from Europe to the East Indies. Their officers reported that they had lost almost 200 men to scurvy since departing from their home port.

  While in Cape Town, the two astronomers on the mission, Wales and William Bayley, spent considerable time checking the accuracy of the chronometers against celestial observations. Subsequently they reported that the Kendall timepiece was exceeding expectations, but the same could not be said of Adventure’s Arnold versions of the same watch, which had proved unreliable for accurate navigation.

  The stopover in Cape Town also provided Cook with a final opportunity to send numerous letters back to England – to the Admiralty, family and friends. The most noteworthy was to Joseph Banks. It was the first step in a reconciliation that would come about after his return from this voyage:

  Dear Sir,

  Some Cross circumstances which happened at the latter part of the equipment of the Resolution created, I have reason to think, a coolness betwixt you and I, but I can by no means think it was sufficient to me to break off all correspondence with a Man I am under many obligations to …

  On the afternoon of 23 November, little more than three weeks after arriving at Cape Town, Resolution and Adventure were again sailing in company and heading for the open sea. As they left Table Bay, the captain called for a fifteen-gun salute to recognise the local garrison. Then, having cleared the land, he entered a simple note in his journal: ‘I directed my course for Cape Circumcision.’

  Just one day later, the near 200 men making up the complement of the two ships were getting a not-so-subtle taste of what lay ahead. Barely south of the Cape of Good Hope, Resolution and Adventure were riding ‘strong gales with hard Squalls, rain & hail’ and rolling heavily in a building Southern Ocean swell. Biting cold, snow and ice would soon be bringing another testing dimension to this voyage, so in preparation, the commander called for each man to be issued with ‘a Fearnought Jacket and a pair of Trowsers, which were allowed by the Admiralty’. Both items were made from a heavy woollen fabric, but the jackets did not have long sleeves.

  Beyond that issue, it was up to the crewmen to do what they could to counter the cold, but their protection was minimal: vests, woollen sweaters, lightweight caps or hats, thin leather shoes and stockings. Some compensation would come three weeks later when Cook, feeling considerable compassion for his men in the freezing conditions, ‘Set all the Tailors to work to lengthen the sleeves of the Seamen’s jackets and to make Caps to shelter them from the severity of the Weather, having ordered a quality of Red Baize to be converted to that purpose.’ Besides the clothing, Cook had another measure to help his men cope with the cold: ‘an additional glass of Brandy every morning enables them to bear the Cold without Flinching.’

  A week after departing from Cape Town, Resolution spent twenty-four hours lying-to at the mercy of ‘very hard gales with rain and hail … the sea running very high’. Regardless of the ferocious nature of the conditions and the biting cold, men were required to go aloft, while ‘waisters’ – the crewmen working the waist deck area – acted in support of them, the task being to lower to the deck the topgallant yards. This action was undertaken during gales to reduce windage aloft, thus making the ship more stable.

  Around this time, the first moment of drama occurred. Approaching midnight, a scuttle in the topsides that gave access to the bosun’s storeroom burst open through the force of a wave and water began flooding into the hull. By the time the crew discovered the problem, 2½ feet of water was cascading through the bilge. Men rushed to secure the hatch while others manned the pumps and cleared the ship of the water.

  Despite the conditions throughout that night, the two ships remained in contact, aided by position indicators known as ‘false fires’ – combustible material set alight in containers placed high in the rig. Unfortunately, though, the cold and the lumbering motion of the ship saw the livestock and poultry aboard Resolution suffer, her captain recording: ‘the Weather … makes great destruction among our Hogs, Sheep and Poultry, not a night passes without some dying, with us, however they are not wholly lost for we eat them notwithstanding.’

  On 11 December, Resolution and Adventure had plunged to a point 1100 nautical miles south of the Cape of Good Hope, and there a fearsome initiation into sailing in high latitudes really began for every member of the mission. On what started out as a foggy day, a gale howled in from the north-west bringing with it snow and sleet. At 1 pm, the men on watch, who were huddled behind whatever protection they could find, heard a call from the lookout at the masthead. A dreaded new danger was in their midst: the first iceberg to be sighted was off the bow, and it was twice as high as the mainmast. The next day the captain’s note in his journal read: ‘Sleet and snow … Thermometer was one degree below the Freezing point. Passed six Islands of Ice this 24 hours, some of which were near two miles in circuit and about 200ft high.’

  There was plenty more to come in this icy wilderness – a daunting frontier for everyone on board. They found themselves surrounded by mountains of ice ‘farther than the eye could reach’. Cook wrote: ‘the day being so foggy at times that we could not see a Ship’s length. Betwixt 12 at night and 7 in the Morn, 4 Inches thick of Snow fell on the Decks … the Thermometer most of the time five degrees below the Freezing point so that our Rigging and sails were all decorated with Icicles.’

  Every man on deck faced an extreme test of endurance in such horrendous weather, a challenge that is barely imaginable. They were constantly caked in snow, fighting the relentlessly savage bite of a howling wind and, while tending the sails, having to get their hands around sheets, halyards and lines that were virtually frozen stiff. Added hell came in the form of large rolling seas, and foaming white water cascading across the decks.

  The icebergs were so large that they created a lee of sheltered water on their downwind side, so Cook took the first available opportunity to guide Resolution into one of those lees and have Adventure follow. He then signalled for Furneaux to join him aboard Resolution, and there advised him of the destination the two ships would head for in the event of them becoming separated, and what date they should rendezvous there. It was to be Queen Charlotte Sound in New Zealand. Both captains were pleased with the stoicism of their crew and the performance of their ships. In comparing the two vessels, Third Lieutenant Clerke wrote: ‘Adventure we find to be the most weatherly Ship in a Gale tho’ this [Resolution] is as good a Sea Boat as can possibly swim.’

  Having traversed the latitudes of the Roaring Forties, the ships were now in what would become known as the Furious Fifties, and destined for the Screaming Sixties – all in a quest to fill in the features of the Earth’s surface that remained a mystery. At this stage, the only certainty for the mission was that Resolution and Adventure were once more destined to be exposed to heinous, ice-laden storms over the ensuing weeks while the search for Cape Circumcision – or any part of what might be an undiscovered continent – continued. One mighty storm, one gargantuan breaking wave of 50 feet or more in height, or a collision with an unseen iceberg in the middle of the night – any of these and other
terrifying possibilities could send the ships into oblivion. Still they pressed on.

  Every man, from the commander to the lowliest cabin boy, was new to sailing in this situation. So it was a case of ‘learn as you proceed’, as Cook was quick to observe: ‘Dangerous as it is sailing amongst the floating Rocks in a thick Fog and unknown Sea, yet it is preferable to being entangled with Field Ice under the same circumstances. The danger to be apprehended from this Ice is the getting fast in it where, beside the damage a ship might receive, might be detained some time …’

  One week later it was 25 December, and every man had earned the right to some good cheer. ‘At Noon seeing that the People were inclinable to celebrate Christmas Day in their own way,’ their commander wrote, ‘I brought the Sloops under a very snug sail [in case I] should be surprised with a gale [of] wind with a drunken crew, this action was however unnecessary for the wind continued to blow in a gentle gale …’

  The men had been hoarding their liquor in anticipation of the day, so there was little wonder that mirth and good humour reigned throughout the ship. A similar celebration took place aboard Adventure, which came alongside Resolution in the early evening so that the crews could salute each other with three rousing cheers.

  If the men wanted a snowman as part of the festivities, they needed only to look aloft, towards where the ever-alert lookout was perched on the highest trestletrees on the mainmast. With every snowfall, the poor soul assigned to this task would soon be covered in white.

  The following day, the lead ship and her consort were back under sail, on course for the coordinates that Bouvet had provided for his sighting of land. As they went, Pickersgill wrote of the eager anticipation confronting the men: ‘We being Now across M. Bouvet’s track to ye Eastward of Cape Circumcision, expect to find land hourly, though sailing here is rendered very Dangerous.’ He told how the threats from ice and storms had every man on deck on high alert, and how orders and responses had to be shouted at the highest volume, just to be heard over the howl of the wind and the roar of the bursting seas. These were ‘rigorous circumstances’.