Cook

by Rob Mundle

  Among Cook’s officers, though, there was a degree of confusion regarding his decision to sail more than 2000 nautical miles back to the Sandwich Islands. To them, it made more sense to pass the winter on the west coast of North America, and that way be able to recommence the search at an earlier date in the new season. But it was the captain’s choice. And it would prove to be a fatal one.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  A Brutal End

  It had been a month since Resolution and Discovery had parted company with the coast of North America, and by Cook’s calculations, through sun sights and dead-reckoning, they would soon be entering the region in which he had discovered the Sandwich Islands almost a year earlier. To ensure that he and Clerke had every chance of finding the islands this time around, he signalled for Discovery to move to a point barely visible from his ship, thereby establishing the widest possible scope of vision. The first call of a sighting came at sunrise on 26 November 1778, when the 10,000-foot-high profile of a volcano, on the previously undiscovered island of Maui, was clearly evident in the distance, off Resolution’s bow. It would prove to be one of the southern islands in the group.

  The voyage south had not been without incident. On 27 October – Cook’s fiftieth birthday – an icy Arctic storm hammered the two ships with howling winds, snow and grotesque seas. Resolution and Discovery were battered mercilessly by the maelstrom, in what was possibly the worst storm encountered on the entire voyage. The motion aboard the vessels was so violent that men were being injured as they were dispersed across the decks like scattering ninepins. The worst incidents took place aboard Discovery. The coxswain there, Heinrich Zimmermann, came within feet of being hurled overboard when an unexpected squall tossed the ship onto her beam-ends, but less fortunate was Clerke’s servant, John Mackintosh, who died instantly after being thrown down the main companionway.

  Now they were in much calmer waters, crossing a glistening cobalt-blue tropical sea and feeling the excitement that every explorer experiences when something new comes into view. No suitable anchorage could be found upon reaching the island, but fortunately the natives came out to the ship in canoes laden with a wide variety of foodstuffs, including hogs. Four days later, while holding station on the southern side of this new find, crewmen noticed another large island some 8 leagues to the south. Cook then made the decision to head there in the hope of coming upon a sheltered bay where they could stop, make repairs to the ships and source more fresh provisions. This latter pursuit was always important to Cook, who wrote with pride that through the application of a good diet he had ‘always kept my people generally speaking free from that dreadful distemper the Scurvy’.

  It was an arduous, tedious passage upwind to the second island, where Cook began a slow cruise along the shore. This island, they were told, was the largest in the group and, for an unknown reason, took the same name as the group – O’why’he. To everyone’s great surprise, its highest peaks were blanketed in deep snow – something not expected here in the tropics.

  Initially, there was no safe haven to be found, so the trade in supplies continued to come via locals in canoes. Cook viewed this trading as beneficial to his situation, as the two crews were always receiving fresh foods rather than drawing on the provisions they had on board; in addition, it took just four or five hours to barter with the islanders and purchase supplies that would last for several days. With a regular source of food, therefore, and no shortage of fresh water as yet, Cook declared that there would be no rush to go ashore. This decision led to considerable disappointment among the crew, as noted by a marine, John Ledyard:

  [The men] very naturally supposed, that Cook’s first object now would be to find a harbour, where our weather beaten ships might be repaired, and our fatigued crews receive the rewards due to their perseverance and toil through so great a piece of navigation as we had performed the last nine or ten months, but it was not so, and we continued laying off and on the north side of Maui, and particularly Owyhee until the 7th of December without any other supplies than what was brought off to us by the natives in their canoes some leagues from the shore. This conduct of the commander in chief was highly reprobated and at last remonstrated against by the people on board both ships, as it appeared very manifest that Cook’s conduct was wholly influenced by motives of interest, to which he was evidently sacrificing not only the ships, but the healths and happiness of the brave men …

  The situation was inflamed when Cook did not, as he had promised in Otaheite, release grog provisions to the men. Instead, the captain insisted that they consume ‘a very palatable beer’ that he’d brewed on board using sugar cane. The crew rebelled, refusing to consume any of the beer, because they saw it as being detrimental to their health, and complained to the captain via a letter about this and the ‘scanty Allowance of Provisions served them’. Cook deemed this to be a ‘mutinous’ act. Midshipman John Watts wrote that the captain then ‘ordered the Hands aft, & told them it was the first time He had heard anything relative to ye shortness of ye Allowance … & that had He known it sooner, it should have been rectified’. Cook would not release the grog, since he viewed it as being a necessity for the planned second venture into the icy wastelands of the north. With this explanation, the men were satisfied and the matter was put to rest.

  While the ships remained in the lee of this 4000-square-mile island, the crew were always on full alert for the sudden squalls that all too often descended unannounced from the high hills. They were a potent force, capable of blowing sails apart and damaging the masts and spars. On 19 December, Cook logged that the cover of darkness had concealed a very dangerous situation for Resolution as she plied along the coast: ‘At day-break the coast was seen … a dreadful surf broke upon the shore which was not more than half a league distant, it was evident we had been in the most imminent danger, nor were we yet out of danger; the wind veering more easterly so that for some time we did but just keep our distance from the coast.’

  The New Year of 1779 was ushered in with what Cook described as ‘very hard rain’. At the time, Resolution and Discovery were trying to round the easternmost point of the island of O’why’he.

  When Cook finally decided it was time to continue the search for an anchorage, he had the two ships sail closer to the coast, and then directed Bligh to lead a party comprising a boat from each vessel and go in search of a bay where they could gain refuge. At the same time, the captain and his men were amazed at the number of natives who had come from the shore to see them. Some of these, the females, had a specific intention in mind, one that would be in breach of a rule that Cook had already laid down for his men: no island women were allowed aboard the ships. This made for a tormenting time for the women, who had deliberately come offshore with the intention of pleasing the visitors, and the crewmen, who hadn’t seen such beauty for over a year. Discovery’s surgeon, David Samwell, described the situation: ‘Many young Women came along side & wanted much to come on board, making many lascivious Motions & Gestures, but as we lay under the forementioned restrictions in respect to our intercourse with them we could not as yet conveniently admit them into the Ships, for which they scolded us very smartly.’ Eventually the captain relented, as he later admitted in his journal: ‘It was not possible to keep the [women] out of the Ship and no women I ever met with were more ready to bestow their favours, indeed it appeared to me that they came with no other view.’

  The captain then described the amazing welcome they received when Resolution and Discovery cruised slowly along the coast, while waiting for Bligh to return:

  Canoes now began to come off all parts, so that before 10 o’clock there were not less than a thousand about the two Ships, most crowded with people, hogs and other productions of the Island. Not a man had with him a Weapon of any sort, Trade and curiosity alone brought them off. Among such numbers as we had at times on board, it is no wonder that some betrayed a thievish disposition, one man took out of the Ship a boats rudder, he was discovered, but too lat
e to recover it. I thought this a good opportunity to show them the use of firearms, two or three muskets and as many four-pound shot were fired over the Canoe which carried off the rudder. As it was not intended that any of the Shot should take effect, the Indians seemed rather more surprised than frightened.

  When Cook sat at his desk in the great cabin to update the ship’s log, these words for Sunday, 17 January, would be among his last. Sadly for history, anything that he may have written between this date and his death has disappeared. The last known entry in his journal was on Wednesday, 6 January. He recorded that Bligh had brought good news the previous evening: ‘Mr Bligh returned [to the ship] and reported that he had found a bay in which was good anchorage and fresh water tolerable easy to come at, into this bay I resolved to go to refit the ships and take in water …’

  When describing the reception afforded by the islanders after Resolution and Discovery had anchored in the bay, he wrote: ‘The ships very much crowded with Indians and surrounded by a multitude of canoes. I have nowhere in this sea seen such a number of people assembled at one place, besides those in the canoes all the shore of the bay was covered with people and hundreds were swimming about the ships like shoals of fish.’

  The name the natives used for the anchorage that Bligh had found was Kealakekua. Today, it is recognised as the best place for vessels to shelter on the western side of the island of Hawaii. Incredibly for the men on Cook’s mission, it had taken seven long weeks, from the time land was first seen to when they anchored here and could go ashore.

  Cook was welcomed in a most formal manner aboard his ship. ‘Among our numerous visitors was a man named Tou-ah-ah,’ he recorded, ‘who we soon found belonged to the local Church, he introduced himself with much ceremony.’ They then proceeded to the shore, where the commander and his officers were lauded by the islanders.

  Back aboard the ships, crewmen were preparing to take ashore all the equipment that needed to be repaired, including spars and sails. The work took three weeks to complete, and during that period, Cook was treated as a god each time he went ashore. According to Samwell, ‘a Herald walked before him repeating some Words & the Indians cleared the way & prostrated themselves on their Faces before Captain Cook.’ James Burney, another of Clerke’s lieutenants, added: ‘All the people, except those of the Priesthood, laying prostrate or rather on their Hands and Knees with their Heads bowed down to the Ground …’

  The captain eventually met the island’s high priest, Koa, who presented him with a piglet and two coconuts before draping a red cloak over his shoulders. There was a level of puzzlement for the visitors as the word ‘Lono’ was continually uttered any time the islanders were in Cook’s presence. The crew came to realise that Captain Cook was seen as the god Lono – the god of abundant seasons – who had now returned, just as legend had foretold. The natives believed that Lono would one day appear off their shores in an extremely large canoe. Incredibly, the arrival of Resolution and Discovery coincided with the time of the year when Lono was celebrated, and for the islanders, this further reinforced the belief that their god was in their midst. Of equal significance to them was the fact that Lono had arrived in a bay whose name meant ‘the path of the gods’.

  The coincidences were overwhelming for the islanders: Cook could be none other than their god. They even saw the ships’ navigational equipment, including telescopes and quadrants, as being indicative of the presence of a holy man.

  Meanwhile, the crew, when not working on the maintenance of the ships, took time to enjoy being on land and observing the casual lifestyle of the islanders. During one such excursion, Samwell and his crewmates from Discovery became the first Europeans to see a Hawaiian pastime that, more than a century later, would become an international recreational activity – surf board riding.

  … two or three of us were walking along shore today we saw a number of boys & young Girls playing in the Surf, which broke very high on the Beach as there was a great swell rolling into the Bay. In the first place they provide themselves with a thin board about six or seven foot long & about 2 broad, on these they swim off shore to meet the Surf, as soon as they see one coming they get themselves in readiness & turn their sides to it, they suffer themselves to be involved in it … laying hold of the fore part of the board … & by that means keeps before the wave which drives it along with an incredible Swiftness to the shore.

  Samwell also recorded that the islanders’ hospitality was reciprocated by Cook: ‘These People pay their greatest attention to Captain Cook, having a very high opinion of his Station & Quality, which he everywhere maintains by his happy method of managing Indians which never fails of obtaining their Friendship and Esteem.’

  As the repair work on the ships was completed by early February, Cook called for a departure so that he could continue to explore this archipelago. In the preceding days, the natives had overwhelmed the visitors with supplies of fresh food and other gifts in the hope that Lono would continue to bless them with seasons of abundant crops.

  With considerable reluctance, after their nineteen-day stay, the captains and crew of both ships farewelled Kealakekua and its wonderfully hospitable inhabitants. A small armada of canoes was on the water to escort them towards the open sea where, once Resolution and Discovery were experiencing fair winds, the ships turned north. On 8 February, however, when they were almost abeam of the northernmost tip of O’why’he, the vessels were confronted by a powerful storm, which they could not avoid. It arrived with such force that it was impossible for the crew of Resolution to ease the pressure the fore sails exerted on the foremast and, consequently, the mast suffered severe damage to the point where it almost broke. Cook knew there was only one solution: to return to Kealakekua and make repairs in an environment they knew to be friendly and welcoming.

  Yet once they had arrived there, and Resolution’s best bower had hit the bottom of the bay and taken hold, the crew immediately noticed a difference in the islanders’ reception compared to before. It was cool, to say the least, and the visitors could not understand why. Samwell wrote in his journal: ‘We had but few Canoes about us in Comparison to the great number we had about us on our first coming into this Bay …’ There was some good news at least, for him and others, since ‘Most of our old sweethearts came to see us’.

  The theories on this change of attitude vary widely across a range of authoritative publications. It appears that the islanders believed that the return of Lono could only mean that they were now destined for crop failures and a further drain on their limited food resources, much of which they had already given to the ships, to please their god. They might also have thought that Lono was not the god they had believed him to be.

  Two days after their return on 11 February, despite the tense atmosphere, Cook had his crew take the damaged mast ashore along with other equipment, so that repairs could be made. The ill feeling was heightened when, during the day, an islander who had stolen the armourer’s tongs was captured, taken aboard Discovery and dealt forty lashes while tied to the main shrouds – the stays supporting the mainmast. He was released once the tongs were recovered.

  The situation between the two sides continued to deteriorate throughout that day. George Gilbert wrote of a confrontation involving the master and midshipman of Discovery and an island chief whose canoe the two sailors, for some unknown reason, wanted to confiscate:

  The Chief laid hold of them and gave them a severe beating with his hands, which the two men, who remained in the Jolly boat perceiving, they rowed off to a little distance and got clear. Our pinnace, that was lying not far off waiting for Capt Cook with only the crew in her … went without any orders to their assistance; but as soon as they came near the shore the Natives lay hold of the Boat and hauled her up high and dry upon the beach, and broke some of the oars, which obliged the crew to take to the water and swim to the Jolly boat, the Indians at the same time pelting them with stones.

  That night, in what could have been seen as an act of ret
ribution, Discovery’s cutter was stolen. At the time, it was attached to the bower buoy off the bow and flooded with water so that the hull planks would not open up in the heat of the day. Cook was made aware of the theft soon after daybreak on 14 February, and in response, as Coxswain Zimmermann later reported, the commander proposed that the remaining boats from both ships, under the command of Resolution’s master, should blockade the bay until the stolen craft was recovered. Bligh’s first direction to those under his authority was, as a precaution against whatever situation might develop, to load their muskets with ball and not shot.

  As these boats took up their position, it was clear to Bligh that a showdown was imminent: an increasing number of agitated islanders were gathering onshore and canoes were being launched. His immediate reaction was to try to intercept the canoes, and when some of them did not respond to his directions, he had no option but to have his men fire upon the occupants, killing some.

  While this was happening, Cook had gone to the island to visit the king, Terre’oboo, to register his anger at the hostility being shown towards his crewmen. An accurate account of the sequence of events that took place as a consequence of this visit does not exist, but it is known that confusion and misunderstanding contributed to what followed. On realising that any effort to discuss the deteriorating situation with the king at his residence would be futile, since they were surrounded by potentially aggressive islanders, Cook apparently suggested that he and Terre’oboo retire to Resolution, so that matters could be discussed in a calmer environment. For this reason, it seems, the two men proceeded towards the beach, where Cook’s pinnace, with crew and marines stationed on board, was waiting in the shallows.