Cook

by Rob Mundle

  Resolution was then moved to the anchorage at The Nore, at the entrance to the Thames, while Cook returned to London to farewell his family, and, no doubt, make a final visit to the Admiralty. His journal entry for 24 June read: ‘At 6 o’clock in the Morning I set out from London in company with Omai, we got to Chatham between 10 & 11 and after dining with Commissioner Proby he very obligingly ordered his yacht to convey us to Sheerness where my boat was waiting to carry us on board …’

  Suitable weather conditions prevailed on 25 June, so Resolution’s anchor was weighed soon after midday and the sails set. After a brief stop off the coast at Deal, where two special small boats had been built for the ship, the voyage continued on to Devon. On 30 June, Cook wrote: ‘At 3 PM Anchored in Plymouth Sound where the Discovery had arrived three days before.’

  After a wait of almost two weeks, Resolution put to sea on 12 July 1776. It was a grey, cool summer morning when the call came from young Bligh to release the clew lines and buntlines so that the sails could fall freely from the solid timber yards and be set to suit the light breeze. At the same time, the men at the windlass weighed anchor, raising the bower to the point where it was supported at the cathead, then lashed securely into place against the topsides forward. With that done, the swishing sound of the bow wave confirmed for all that another history-making odyssey was underway for Captain James Cook. While the ship slowly gained speed, those on deck watched the coast of England fade into the mist. Despite the inevitable dangers they would face, who among them could have contemplated that this was to be the last time that their captain would see home shores?

  The departure date was two months later than planned, but as Resolution sailed away, her consort was still riding at anchor. There Discovery would remain until Captain Clerke had successfully negotiated his freedom in London to be able to undertake the voyage. This came on 29 July, and he immediately headed to Plymouth to board his ship and put to sea as quickly as possible.

  Cook was pleased to realise the value that came with having Bligh as his sailing master. As well as being a very capable presence on deck, the young Cornishman’s talents were such that he would provide considerable assistance to the captain when it came to navigation, cartography and the surveying of some of their destinations. He wrote of Bligh: ‘under my direction [he] could be easily employed in constructing charts, in taking views of the coasts and headlands near which we would pass, and in drawing plans of the bays and harbours in which we should anchor.’ This, Cook said, was ‘wholly requisite if we should render our discoveries profitable for future navigators’.

  After making a slow exit from the Channel, Resolution soon harnessed a weather system that brought strong northerlies, and from that moment she began a charge to the south towards her first stop, the island of Tenerife. However, while the winds provided ideal sailing conditions, the large seas that accompanied this front meant that she was already taking an exceptionally large volume of water below through the poorly caulked decks and topsides, all the way from the waterline to the deck.

  At Tenerife, when Cook manoeuvred Resolution into a position where she could be safely anchored, he noticed that all ships in the anchorage ‘had four anchors out … and their Cables buoyed up with Casks’. This was done in order to suspend their thick hemp bower cables off the rocky ocean floor, so that they would not chafe and come apart. With Resolution’s anchors already set, Cook decided not to follow suit, but when they were raised, he was concerned to note the level of abrasion on the cables.

  Continuing south from Tenerife, Resolution sailed towards the Cape Verde Islands, 800 nautical miles away. At this stage, the circumnavigation was only a month old, but it came horribly close to meeting an abrupt end in the middle of one pitch-dark night. The ship’s surgeon, William Anderson, who happened to be on deck at the time, explained how the incident started when he saw waves breaking on a reef at a frighteningly close distance to leeward. Initially, he thought his eyes might be deceiving him, so he didn’t raise the alarm.

  Fortunately, at this instant the Captain came over to the same place and just as I was going to mention my suspicions he observed something of the same sort and ordered them to starboard the helm. In less than a minute the cry of hard-a-starboard became general & we could now see a range of breakers at a very small distance: upon which we were steering a direct course. Orders were given to brace the yards sharp up; but I who could only be an idle spectator in this scene of confusion went abaft and had a clear prospect of our impending danger. For the space of ten minutes I thought it utterly impossible we should avoid striking on the rocks: but the manoeuvre with the sails being pretty quick I had the pleasure to see the ship lie parallel to them.

  It was a remarkably narrow escape. Not for the first time, disaster had been averted only through the prompt response by the captain, and the ability of the men on watch to appreciate the magnitude of the danger and respond accordingly, by manning the braces and sheets.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Islands, Ice and the Captain’s Ire

  As Resolution closed on the Equator, the water torture for those men below worsened with the caulking continuing to fail. Cook wrote in his journal:

  We had … the Mortification to find the Ship exceeding leaky in all her upper works, the hot and dry weather we had just passed through had opened up her Seams, which had been badly Caulked at first, so wide that they admitted the rain Water through as it fell and there was hardly a Man that could lie dry in his bed; the officers in the gun room were all driven out of their cabins by the Water that came through the sides.

  On 18 October, Resolution was anchored in Cape Town’s Table Bay after a passage of more than fifty days from Plymouth. Three weeks later, during a period when Cook had his crew busy replacing the ship’s caulking and carrying out general maintenance, he was pleased to see Discovery come into view on the distant horizon, then enter port.

  The constant thump of caulking hammers was heard day after day aboard Resolution as a team of men worked relentlessly in the hope of making the ship watertight. Some plugged the gaps in the deck planks while others were suspended on ropes over the bulwarks so they could tend the topsides. When the job was complete, Cook sent his men across to Discovery to assist with the same task there.

  By the end of November, it was time to sail. The animals that had been put ashore to graze were back aboard, and Cook remarked that under his orders the men had taken on a substantial supply of provisions, ‘[enough] for two years and upwards and every other necessary thing we could think of for such a Voyage, neither knowing when nor where we should come to a place where we could supply ourselves so well’. During these preparations, Cook also gave Clerke instructions regarding rendezvousing in New Zealand, should the two ships become separated while sailing through the Southern Ocean.

  Everyone and everything was aboard by the morning of 30 November, and that afternoon, when a slight breeze developed out of the south-east, the sails were set and anchors weighed. Before long, Resolution and her support ship were clear of the confines of the bay and sailing close-hauled towards the Cape of Good Hope, 30 nautical miles south of Cape Town, the promontory that defines the boundary between the Atlantic and Indian oceans. From there it was another 80 nautical miles to the southernmost tip of the African continent, Cape Agulhas, the point from which Cook intended to sail to the south-east in the hope of finding the Kerguelen Islands.

  Discovered by Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen de Trémarec in 1772, when the French explorer was conducting his own search for the great southern continent, this cluster of more than 300 small islets and one large island was believed to be around 2400 nautical miles from Cape Agulhas, at about 49 degrees south latitude. Apart from doing whatever survey work was possible in the time available, Cook wanted to place their position on the world map with greater accuracy. To find the islands, he sailed to a point where both ships could run directly downwind towards their position as shown on the chart. Then, when in close proximity to that poi
nt, a zigzag approach was adopted, with Resolution and Discovery sailing from horizon to horizon so that the chance of missing each other was minimised. It was a successful procedure; the target appeared through the fog at six o’clock in the morning on 24 December. Cook noted:

  … as we were steering to the Eastward, the fog clearing away a little, we saw land, bearing South South East, which upon nearer approach we found to be an island of considerable height … Soon after, we saw another of the same magnitude, one league to the Eastward; and between them, in the direction of South East, some smaller ones … A third high island was seen … a high round rock, which was named Bligh’s Cap. Perhaps it is the same that Monsieur de Kerguelen called the Isle of Rendezvous; but I know nothing that can rendezvous at it, but fowls of the air; for it is certainly inaccessible to every other animal.

  Come Christmas Day, both Resolution and Discovery were anchored in a well-protected inlet on the eastern side of the main island’s northern tip. The boats were hoisted out and the captain taken to the shore, which he soon found to be ‘in a manner covered with Penguins and other birds and Seals, but these were not numerous, but so fearless that we killed as ma[n]y as we chose for the sake of their fat or blubber to make Oil for our lamps and other uses’.

  Two days later, the men were allowed a day of rest to belatedly celebrate Christmas, which led to some going ashore. One crewman returned to the ship with a sealed bottle he had found that had obviously been placed purposely on the shore. It contained a note written in Latin, recording the visit there of French expeditions in 1772 and 1774. Cook decided to leave his own message on the reverse side of the parchment, before inserting it in the bottle along with a silver twopenny coin. He then went ashore, placed the bottle atop a stone cairn built by his men, called for the Union flag to be raised, and named the inlet Christmas Harbour. Over the next few days, he had this inlet surveyed by Bligh while other exploration activities were conducted. Following these activities, and taking into consideration the inhospitable, remote and desolate nature of this main island, he chose to name it Island of Desolation.

  On New Year’s Eve, Cook decided to continue their voyage to the east. By now, the expedition was lagging well behind its original schedule, so the captain insisted that the maximum amount of sail be carried at all times in the hope that some lost days could be recovered. This proved to be a costly call, as he recorded in his journal almost three weeks later: ‘[Nothing] worthy of note till 4 oclock in the Morning of the 19th when in a sudden squall of wind the Fore Topmast went by the board and carried the Main Topgallant mast with it …’

  The squall had arrived with such suddenness and violence that it caught the crew unawares. There was not even time to ease the sheets or furl the sails to take the enormous pressure off the rig. Instead, they could only watch in horror as the two mast sections literally exploded overhead. In a flash, crewmen were confronted by a scene of utter destruction: spars, sails and rigging were thrashing through the air as the ship rolled heavily in the large Southern Ocean swells, and the wind continued to howl.

  To contain the problem, they needed to lower everything to the deck – an action that called for masterly work from all hands. But still, it was an entire day before the vessel was able to get underway again with a new fore topmast in place. Unfortunately, the main topgallant could not be replaced, as there was no spare on board and not enough timber for the carpenters to make one.

  During the twenty-four hours it took to jury-rig Resolution, the captain had the time to reconsider his immediate plans for the voyage, mainly because the ship would now be sailing at a slower rate of knots due to a reduced sail area. Also, many of the animals on board were dying because of the sub-Antarctic cold and a lack of fresh fodder. Then there was a need for wood for the ship’s fireplaces. Only one solution could be adopted: to set a course for Van Diemen’s Land.

  It was 3 am on 24 January 1777 when the southern coast was sighted, and two days later, Resolution and Discovery were lying lazily at anchor in Adventure Bay, the haven that Tobias Furneaux had discovered and named during the previous voyage. Parties from both ships were now sent ashore to collect wood, water and feed, accompanied by marines for purposes of protection. However, it turned out that the marines from Discovery took stolen liquor with them and proceeded to stage what was possibly Australia’s first-ever beach party. Discovery’s master, Thomas Edgar, noted that the revellers ‘made themselves so Beastly Drunk that they were put motionless in the Boat, and when brought on board were obliged to be hoisted into the Ship’.

  There was a surprisingly cordial level of contact with the natives during this stop – until the visitors put on a display of the power and accuracy of their weaponry. The sound of musket-fire and the sight of a ball hitting a distant target frightened the locals so much that they ran as fast as they could, disappearing into the forest.

  The stay here was brief, but Cook still ensured that Bligh and others surveyed the surrounds as much as time would allow. By 30 January the boats were back aboard and secured, and everything was ready for the 2000-nautical-mile passage across the wilderness of what is now known as the Tasman Sea, to Queen Charlotte Sound in New Zealand. Before departing, Cook diarised his theory on Van Diemen’s Land and its likely relationship to New Holland: ‘I hardly need say it is the Southern point of New Holland, which if not a Continent, is one of the largest islands in the World …’ It would be another twenty-one years before Matthew Flinders and George Bass circumnavigated Van Diemen’s Land aboard HMS Norfolk, thus proving that it was an island.

  Even with the assistance of what the commander described as a ‘perfect storm’ on the first day at sea, the two ships averaged only 4 knots for the eleven-day crossing to New Zealand. The only drama during the passage came aboard Discovery on the night of 6 February, when a marine fell overboard and was not recovered.

  Resolution and Discovery anchored in Ship Cove on the morning of 12 February, and a few hours later several canoes laden with Maoris made a tentative approach to the visitors. ‘It appeared to me that they were apprehensive we were come to revenge the death of Captain Furneaux’s people,’ wrote Cook, adding that while he wanted to extend friendship towards them, he also needed for them to know he was ‘no longer a stranger to that unhappy affair’. Friendship or not, the captain still treated every Maori with extreme caution, and each time he sent his men to shore by boat to collect wood and water, every one of them was armed, each team supported by a complement of ten marines.

  The two ships sheltered in the cove for fourteen days. During that time, worn rigging and any suspect spars were replaced, a move designed to minimise the risk of equipment failure during what was sure to be a torrid test while sailing towards the region of the Northwest Passage. When the time came to put to sea, Cook gave some of his livestock to the natives and set two pairs of rabbits free in the bushland.

  The commander’s initial plan was to reach Otaheite as soon as possible, benefiting from the anticipated fresh south-easterly trade wind for much of the time. He also hoped he might discover some unknown islands en route. Frustratingly though, his strategy was soon ruined by external forces: ‘we were persecuted with a Wind in our teeth which every way we directed our course, and the farther Mortification to find here those very winds we had reason to expect … farther South.’ On the positive side, islands were discovered in the region of the Cook Islands, but he had to accept that his intention to explore the Northwest Passage as scheduled was no longer viable, with ‘the summer of the northern Hemisphere already too far advanced for me to do anything there this year’. He would therefore ‘persecute the Discoveries in the higher northern latitudes the ensuing summer’.

  This decision was also influenced by the dire need, once again, for fodder for the cattle. Cook opted to change course, arcing back towards the Friendly Islands, as he had christened the Tongan archipelago, a destination that held happy memories for him from the visit there in 1773. There was an additional problem emerging, with
water running low on board, so he ordered for the still to be set up in the galley – an apparatus that could supply up to 16 gallons of fresh water in ten hours. Supplies were further replenished on 10 April, when thunder squalls resulted in 5 puncheons of water, equivalent to 350 gallons, being collected via a catchment canopy set above the deck.

  After their arrival at the Friendly Islands, Cook went ashore and revelled in the hospitality shown by the islanders, so much so that the ships spent an entire month at Tongatapu, the main island in the group. It was here that senior members of Resolution’s crew became concerned about an apparent change in their captain’s persona: despite the affability of their surroundings, the officer recognised for his consideration towards his men was at times becoming agitated and angry. When those who had stolen some of the ship’s food refused to identify themselves, Cook halved the meat ration for all on board in the hope that the culprits would be flushed out. Instead, the majority of men reacted by refusing to take any meat. It was a showdown, and Cook’s temper erupted. He declared their actions to be in breach of the Articles of War. He dealt out floggings where the cat-o’-nine-tails was used to an unprecedented degree: men received twice or three times the number of lashes that would otherwise have been expected.

  This alarming development in his character was evident again when natives who were aboard Resolution tried to steal everything possible. Cook’s frustration with the thieving quickly turned to desperation, then near brutality when the guilty were presented to him. He called for one islander to be dealt an unheard-of sixty lashes; at other times he called for levels of punishment that were similarly almost beyond belief.