James Cook's New World

by Lay, Graeme

  Banks presented his hand, the ring uppermost. ‘Well spotted, sir. The stone is indeed from New Zealand. I exchanged it for a handkerchief with that chief at Ship Cove. A bargain indeed. What was the old fellow’s name?’

  ‘To-pa-a.’

  ‘Yes. Quite a character, that old fellow. I had the piece of jade cut and set into the ring by a jeweller in Regent Street.’ He waved his hand. ‘It’s rather splendid, don’t you think?’

  James peered at it. The stone was pale, almost translucent, its setting silver. ‘Yes, it’s a very fine piece. Poe-namu, the New Zealanders call their jade. Remember?’

  ‘Oh yes. And the larger island they call Tovy-poenamu. I cannot wait to return there.’ He was obviously in a state of excitement, his face flushed, his eyes darting about like a peacock’s in a park. Although, James noted, the eyes were pink-rimmed. That, and the stubble, suggested that he had been carousing.

  Banks drank, sighed with satisfaction, then set his tankard down on the table. ‘Excellent. Just the thing.’ He chuckled. ‘A late-night session of the Hellfire Club. I imbibed rather too much port.’

  James arched his eyebrows. ‘And how goes your cataloguing?’

  Banks shrugged. ‘I’ve given most of the work over to Solander. And the King suggested to me that the living plants from my collection be sent to the Royal Gardens at Kew, which will greatly enhance them.’ He drank some more and sighed with satisfaction. ‘I’m having my portrait painted.’

  James thought: more vanity. But he said, ‘By whom?’

  ‘Benjamin West. I’ve had several sittings in his Piccadilly studio.’

  ‘Head and shoulders?’

  ‘Oh no, full length. Standing.’ He grinned. ‘You should see the set-up, Cook, it’s all very South Seas. I put my dogskin cloak around my shoulders—you remember, the one I obtained at Uawa—knotted at the top across my chest, and I hold in my right hand a length of Otaheitian bark cloth. Like this.’ He arranged the hand carefully in front of him. ‘And all around me are more objects from my South Sea collection: a feathered Maori stave, a hewing adze from Raiatea, a canoe paddle from Huahine.’ He licked his lips. ‘I must say, it makes a fine tableau. West thinks the portrait will be finished in another two weeks. I will own the painting, naturally, but there will be copies made, of that I’m sure. There has been such interest in my accounts of the voyage, following my addresses to the Royal Society.’

  James sighed. A reticent man himself, he always found Banks’s open displays of pride and vanity tiresome.

  As if sensing James’s coolness, Banks said airily, ‘Your wife and family, Cook, are they well?’

  ‘They are.’ He paused. ‘Elizabeth was delighted to meet the King.’ But not your lascivious friend Sandwich, he thought.

  Banks nodded. ‘It was I who suggested to Sandwich that the King present you with your commander’s warrant. And both were in agreement with my suggestion.’

  ‘Oh, indeed?’ Since Banks’s remark so obviously invited an expression of gratitude, James was disinclined to provide one. Instead he said, ‘What of your betrothed? Miss Blosset? Have you set a date for your nuptials?’

  Banks’s expression became hooded. ‘The nuptials are abrogated. I have written to the lady, explaining that I now realise my temperament is quite unsuited to marriage.’ He made a transparently insincere face. ‘It would not be fair on her.’

  ‘You wrote to her with this news? You did not visit her to inform her?’

  James’s tone was so reproving that Banks replied with a sharp look. ‘There was little that needed to be said. So I wrote it.’ He looked away. ‘And I have paid her 5000 pounds, in return for her patience during my absence.’

  James winced. Five thousand. The price of rejection. Again he felt, with a jolt, the gulf that lay between Banks and himself. Of class, of upbringing, of means. The man was privilege personified.

  But now the naturalist was again cheery. Eyes gleaming, he said, ‘I cannot wait to return to the South Seas, Cook. Those women in Otaheite. For taste and texture, English cunnies cannot compare.’

  James looked away, abashed. Was this incurable ruttishness something the next expedition would have to constantly contend with?

  Banks continued, ‘Did you read that Solander and myself are to be honoured by Oxford University?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It was in the newspapers. We are each to receive an honorary doctorate of civil law in recognition of our work on Endeavour. Thirty thousand plant specimens we returned with, most never before seen in the west. There has been nothing like it before. Even the great Swedish botanist, Linnaeus, has written to me, referring to me as “the immortal Banks”.’

  ‘Yes, a remarkable record.’ James had had enough of this boasting. Draining his pint, he said, ‘But my concern is with the next voyage, Banks. There is much preparatory work to carry out.’

  Looking only slightly put out, Banks replied, ‘Yes, of course. I will be meeting with Solander shortly, to discuss our plans.’ He pushed out his bottom lip. ‘We will miss poor Sporing, naturally.’

  James nodded. Herman Sporing was one of the casualties of the ghastly voyage from Batavia to Cape Town earlier in the year, during which 22 men had died, mainly from malaria.

  Setting down his tankard, Banks said: ‘What do you know of the vessels the Naval Board is purchasing for our next voyage?’

  ‘At this stage, only that they are colliers, from the Fishburn yard in Whitby. Where Endeavour was built. Naturally, they will need to be refitted for the voyage. At Deptford dock, I assume.’

  ‘Yes. And the refit will have to be overseen by myself, since I am paying for most of it.’

  James looked him straight in the eye. ‘And since I am to command the ships, I will be consulting with the Naval Board with regard to the specifications required.’

  Banks replied coolly, ‘And when the vessels arrive, I will need to consider the modifications. I intend to commission a substantial retinue, so there will be a need for ample space.’ Lifting his head he sniffed the air like a rabbit. ‘Something smells good. Shall we order pies? I can recommend the venison.’

  They ate heartily, but James declined another ale, since during the afternoon he needed to visit the workshop in Vaughan Way where his maps were being engraved.

  They chatted for another half-hour, mainly reminiscing about the highlights of Endeavour’s voyage. Then Banks wiped his mouth on a napkin and got to his feet. ‘I must be off now. My portrait sitting resumes at three o’clock, and I need to first go home and shave.’ He held out his hand. ‘A great pleasure to see you again, Cook. I look forward to meeting you at the Deptford yard after my vessels arrive there.’

  James stood and nodded, curtly. ‘Goodbye for now, Banks.’

  As he walked through the city streets to the engraver’s, he thought: with his presumptions and insouciance, the man has become close to insufferable. Obviously he already considered himself the de facto commander-in-chief of the next voyage. But at the same time James was not overly worried about this presumed usurpation. Banks’s guts had never learned to cope with the sickness of the sea. Some men’s just couldn’t. A few Atlantic and Pacific Ocean gales would help put him in his place.

  However, in confirmation of James’s opinion of the naturalist’s presumptions, it was only a week later that he read in the press of a legal dispute that had broken out between Banks and Stanfield Parkinson, the older brother of Sydney, the Endeavour’s much-loved and gifted young draughtsman. Aged just 25, Sydney was one of those who had succumbed to malaria in the Indian Ocean. In London, Banks and Stanfield contested the ownership of Sydney’s voyage journal, his drawings and paintings, and his collection of artefacts. Banks insisted they were his; as Sydney’s closest living relative, Stanfield claimed his brother’s estate.

  The dispute was protracted and acrimonious, and reading of it, James was deeply saddened. The case had been foreshadowed by his own dispute with Banks on Endeavour immediately following Sydney’s deat
h. Banks had attempted to seize the young man’s personal journal, only hours after his body had been committed to the sea. Consequently, James’s sympathies lay with Stanfield, and he was gratified when he read that Banks had handed over Sydney’s painting equipment and most of his artefacts to him. And the journal, but only on loan, Banks insisting that Sydney’s writings were his intellectual property because he—Banks—had commissioned the artist for the voyage. When a few weeks later Stanfield had the loaned journal copied and promptly published, it included an introduction excoriating Banks for his improper behaviour, a fact which afforded James wry satisfaction. On Endeavour he had come to regard Sydney almost as another son, and he considered Banks’s seizure of the journal to be both crass and unprincipled. But although he had deliberately not become involved in the regrettable Banks–Parkinson affair, he considered that it did not augur well for the forthcoming voyage. Banks’s public fame was turning him into a rogue lion, and such a rampant creature, James felt certain, could be a liability at sea.

  In the meantime, there were other more pressing matters for him to deal with.

  28 NOVEMBER 1771

  I received a commission to command His Majesty’s sloop Drake at this time in the dock at Deptford, burdthen 462 tons to be manned with 110 men including officers & to carry twelve guns: at the same time Captain Tobias Furneaux was appointed to the command of the Raleigh at Woolwich, burdthen, 336 tons, 80 men and ten guns. These two sloops were both built at Whitby by Mr Fishburn, the same as built the Endeavour Bark, the former about fourteen and the latter eighteen months ago, and had just been purchased into the Navy from Captain William Hammond of Hull in order to be sent on discoveries to the South Sea under my directions. The Admiralty gave orders that they should be fitted in the best manner possible, the Earl of Sandwich at this time first Lord interested himself very much in the equipment and he was well seconded by Mr Palliser and Sir Juno Williams, the one Comptroller and the other Surveyor of the Navy. The Victualling Board was also very attentive in procuring the very best of every kind of provisions, in short every department seemed to vie with each other in equipping these two sloops: every standing rule and order in the Navy was dispensed with, every alteration, every necessary and useful article was granted as soon as asked for.

  But changes had to be made. The two sloops, originally called the Marquis of Granby and the Marquis of Rockingham, were renamed by the Admiralty in honour of the past English naval heroes, Drake and Raleigh. They were then renamed again, after Philip Stephens pointed out diplomatically to Lord Sandwich that to name the vessels after two Englishmen who had specialised in laying waste to Spanish settlements in the New World would almost certainly cause offence to Spain, with whom the forthcoming expedition may have to cooperate along the way. Sandwich and the other Sea Lords concurred, albeit reluctantly. The ships were now named, hopefully and thematically, and with James’s approbation, Resolution and Adventure.

  Like their now-famous forebear HMB Endeavour, both had the Whitby colliers’ design characteristics: flat bottom, broad floor to their holds, squared-off stern, bluff bow and pronounced tumblehome. Ideal for the stowage of provisions for extended voyages, for sailing into estuaries or for settling upright on the bottom in coastal waters when repairs were required.

  Sailed south from their home port, Resolution was delivered to the dock at Deptford on the south bank of the Thames, and Adventure to nearby Woolwich. There their refits began.

  Four

  ALTHOUGH JAMES HAD CIRCUMNAVIGATED THE WORLD by sea, the coach journey from London to Great Ayton was the longest land excursion he had ever made. And as Elizabeth had never been further north than Shoreditch, she had never before seen true English countryside. Young James and Nathaniel were to stay with Elizabeth’s mother and stepfather while their parents were away, so after saying their goodbyes to the boys and passing over their presents (‘Don’t open them ’til Christmas morning, mind’), James and Elizabeth boarded a north-bound coach at Charing Cross.

  It was late morning at the end of the first week of December. The day was overcast and a wintry heaviness sagged over the city. The little pond in the back garden at Assembly Row had frozen over and the boys’ quartet of tiny frogs were hibernating on the grass island that their father had placed in the water. As soon as she settled into the coach seat, Elizabeth wrapped her thickest shawl about her shoulders and put one of the two blankets she had brought over her legs. James had paid extra to have the coach for just the two of them, to ensure their privacy on the long journey north.

  The coachman, Harold Hardiman, was a hunched, lugubrious man in his thirties, with a hacking cough. Wrapped in a heavy oilskin cape and wearing a wide-brimmed hat, a grubby scarf lagging his neck, he helped James heft the trunks onto the rack at the rear of the coach and buckle them into place. Then James got in opposite Elizabeth, Hardiman climbed up onto his seat, flicked the reins and the coach and four clattered off in the direction of Highgate.

  Although slushy, the road was straight and solid. After the city was left behind Elizabeth could not suppress her excitement, peering out the window at the fields and spinneys of Hertfordshire. When the coach climbed to the crest of a hill there was a panorama of ploughed fields and gaunt, leafless trees, their branches pointing skyward, as if already imploring spring to return. Just visible behind a blanket of cloud, the sun was surrounded by a glowing nimbus, low on the horizon above the Chilterns.

  ‘The countryside is so lovely,’ Elizabeth exclaimed. James nodded, gratified to see her so enthused. If she loved it now, in winter, what delights she would take in the landscape in spring! Peering out the window, he saw that the land was devoid of any movement, animal or human, and the fields were striped with shadows and a lemony light. It was as though, like the frogs at Assembly Row, the yeomen of England had gone into hibernation. Soon it would be the winter solstice, he realised, after which the sun would begin its slow return journey, bringing a brighter light for his next voyage. A thought which he kept to himself.

  When Hardiman stopped at Luton to water the horses, James and Elizabeth got out, stretched their legs and chatted to the coachman. ‘We’ll make Bedford before nightfall, I’d say, Cap’n,’ he told James, with a shrug of his slumped shoulders. James was surprised at the state of the roads, which were so well maintained that the horses were covering the ground at a steady clip. The turnpike tolls, Hardiman informed him, were used to keep the roads in good order. ‘People bellyache at payin’,’ he sniffed, ‘but a turnpike road’s a good road.’

  From the nearby inn, James had the tin mugs they had brought filled with sugared tea, which he and Elizabeth sipped as the journey resumed. Whitewashed milestones appeared regularly on the roadside, standing out on the verges like the faces of pallid, abandoned children. The hedgerows behind the milestones were bejewelled with holly berries.

  At dusk they stopped at a coaching inn of Hardiman’s preference and spent the night there, Harold feeding and watering the horses, then dossing down in the inn’s stables next to them. James and Elizabeth took their supper in front of a fire, then carried mugs of hot milk up the stairs to their room.

  After rising at daybreak to wash, then taking a hearty breakfast, they drove on through the low-lying shires and forded the icy rivers of Bedford, Northampton and Nottingham. The clouds of the day before had lifted, revealing a weak winter sun that shed a soft light over the fields and copses.

  But by the third day Elizabeth was finding the journey wearying, and in the morning when James woke her she groaned, kept her eyes firmly closed, and reluctantly exchanged the warmth of the inn for the cool and discomfort of the coach.

  At the end of the third day they reached York. There they spent the night in the Golden Fleece, an inn in the shadow of York Minster’s soaring twin-block frontage. ‘It’s like a castle,’ Elizabeth said, staring upward in awe. ‘A golden castle.’

  Next morning they farewelled Hardiman, who was returning to London with four new passengers. James tipped h
im a shilling and, coughing still, the coachman raised his hat and mumbled his gratitude.

  The next coach, driven by a burly Yorkshireman called Liggins, bore north-east towards Ripon, James on the outside seat beside him while Elizabeth slept below. Talking to the coachman, James found himself lapsing instinctively into his Cleveland dialect and felt oddly comforted by their folksy dialogue. In London, at the Admiralty in particular, he was always self-conscious about his north-country accent and sometimes caught himself thinking he should moderate it. At such times he would reproach himself, thinking he had no reason to be ashamed of the way he spoke. To his way of thinking it was the Londoners who had the strange accent. And wherever you came from, it was all English, after all.

  They had now left the turnpike roads behind, and the difference was brutally evident. The roads of the North Riding—which first followed the valley of the Ouse, then skirted the bleak western edge of the North Yorkshire moors—were rutted and rough. Progress was slow, with the coach lurching and bumping from one pothole to the next. Welcome back to Yorkshire, James thought wryly, listening to Liggins’s curses as he urged the horses up the narrow, rising road which shadowed the moorland.

  Another bend, another listing of the coach. As the horses struggled on upwards, there came an anguished call from below. ‘James, please. Tell the driver to stop.’ He did so, Liggins jerked on the reins and the coach stopped, abruptly.

  His arm around her, James kept the blanket over Elizabeth’s shoulders as she cascaded her breakfast into the ditch. Her stomach emptied, she began to retch, over and over. Feeling her still convulsing, he drew her closer to him. The morning air, driven down the valley by the north-east wind, was bitterly cold. Poor soul, he thought, this is no treat for her. Even he, who had never been ill at sea, had been rendered nauseous by the jerking, bumping motions of the coach. He stooped to speak into her ear. ‘Are you a little better now?’