james cook dernier voyage

What Happened When Captain Cook Went Crazy

In “The Wide Wide Sea,” Hampton Sides offers a fuller picture of the British explorer’s final voyage to the Pacific islands.

The English explorer James Cook, circa 1765. Credit... Stock Montage/Getty Images

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By Doug Bock Clark

Doug Bock Clark is the author of “The Last Whalers: Three Years in the Far Pacific with a Courageous Tribe and a Vanishing Way of Life.”

• Published April 9, 2024 Updated April 12, 2024, 11:36 a.m. ET

THE WIDE WIDE SEA: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook, by Hampton Sides

In January 1779, when the British explorer James Cook sailed into a volcanic bay known by Hawaiians as “the Pathway of the Gods,” he beheld thousands of people seemingly waiting for him on shore. Once he came on land, people prostrated themselves and chanted “Lono,” the name of a Hawaiian deity. Cook was bewildered.

It was as though the European mariner “had stepped into an ancient script for a cosmic pageant he knew nothing about,” Hampton Sides writes in “The Wide Wide Sea,” his propulsive and vivid history of Cook’s third and final voyage across the globe .

As Sides describes the encounter, Cook happened to arrive during a festival honoring Lono, sailing around the island in the same clockwise fashion favored by the god, possibly causing him to be mistaken as the divinity.

Sides, the author of several books on war and exploration, makes a symbolic pageant of his own of Cook’s last voyage, finding in it “a morally complicated tale that has left a lot for modern sensibilities to unravel and critique,” including the “historical seeds” of debates about “Eurocentrism,” “toxic masculinity” and “cultural appropriation.”

Cook’s two earlier global expeditions focused on scientific goals — first to observe the transit of Venus from the Pacific Ocean and then to make sure there was no extra continent in the middle of it. His final voyage, however, was inextricably bound up in colonialism: During the explorer’s second expedition, a young Polynesian man named Mai had persuaded the captain of one of Cook’s ships to bring him to London in the hope of acquiring guns to kill his Pacific islander enemies.

A few years later, George III commissioned Cook to return Mai to Polynesia on the way to searching for an Arctic passage to connect the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Mai brought along a menagerie of plants and livestock given to him by the king, who hoped that Mai would convert his native islands into simulacra of the English countryside.

“The Wide Wide Sea” is not so much a story of “first contact” as one of Cook reckoning with the fallout of what he and others had wrought in expanding the map of Europe’s power. Retracing parts of his previous voyages while chauffeuring Mai, Cook is forced to confront the fact that his influence on groups he helped “discover” has not been universally positive. Sexually transmitted diseases introduced by his sailors on earlier expeditions have spread. Some Indigenous groups that once welcomed him have become hard bargainers, seeming primarily interested in the Europeans for their iron and trinkets.

Sides writes that Cook “saw himself as an explorer-scientist,” who “tried to follow an ethic of impartial observation born of the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution” and whose “descriptions of Indigenous peoples were tolerant and often quite sympathetic” by “the standards of his time.”

In Hawaii, he had been circling the island in a vain attempt to keep his crew from disembarking, finding lovers and spreading more gonorrhea. And despite the fact that he was ferrying Mai and his guns back to the Pacific, Cook also thought it generally better to avoid “political squabbles” among the civilizations he encountered.

But Cook’s actions on this final journey raised questions about his adherence to impartial observation. He responded to the theft of a single goat by sending his mariners on a multiday rampage to burn whole villages to force its return. His men worried that their captain’s “judgment — and his legendary equanimity — had begun to falter,” Sides writes. As the voyage progressed, Cook became startlingly free with the disciplinary whip on his crew.

“The Wide Wide Sea” presents Cook’s moral collapse as an enigma. Sides cites other historians’ arguments that lingering physical ailments — one suggests he picked up a parasite from some bad fish — might have darkened Cook’s mood. But his journals and ship logs, which dedicate hundreds of thousands of words to oceanic data, offer little to resolve the mystery. “In all those pages we rarely get a glimpse of Cook’s emotional world,” Sides notes, describing the explorer as “a technician, a cyborg, a navigational machine.”

The gaps in Cook’s interior journey stand out because of the incredible job Sides does in bringing to life Cook’s physical journey. New Zealand, Tahiti, Kamchatka, Hawaii and London come alive with you-are-there descriptions of gales, crushing ice packs and gun smoke, the set pieces of exploration and endurance that made these tales so hypnotizing when they first appeared. The earliest major account of Cook’s first Pacific expedition was one of the most popular publications of the 18th century.

But Sides isn’t just interested in retelling an adventure tale. He also wants to present it from a 21st-century point of view. “The Wide Wide Sea” fits neatly into a growing genre that includes David Grann’s “ The Wager ” and Candice Millard’s “ River of the Gods ,” in which famous expeditions, once told as swashbuckling stories of adventure, are recast within the tragic history of colonialism . Sides weaves in oral histories to show how Hawaiians and other Indigenous groups perceived Cook, and strives to bring to life ancient Polynesian cultures just as much as imperial England.

And yet, such modern retellings also force us to ask how different they really are from their predecessors, especially if much of their appeal lies in exactly the same derring-do that enthralled prior audiences. Parts of “The Wide Wide Sea” inevitably echo the storytelling of previous yarns, even if Sides self-consciously critiques them. Just as Cook, in retracing his earlier voyages, became enmeshed in the dubious consequences of his previous expeditions, so, too, does this newest retracing of his story becomes tangled in the historical ironies it seeks to transcend.

In the end, Mai got his guns home and shot his enemies, and the Hawaiians eventually realized that Cook was not a god. After straining their resources to outfit his ships, Cook tried to kidnap the king of Hawaii to force the return of a stolen boat. A confrontation ensued and the explorer was clubbed and stabbed to death, perhaps with a dagger made of a swordfish bill.

The British massacred many Hawaiians with firearms, put heads on poles and burned homes. Once accounts of these exploits reached England, they were multiplied by printing presses and spread across their world-spanning empire. The Hawaiians committed their losses to memory. And though the newest version of Cook’s story includes theirs, it’s still Cook’s story that we are retelling with each new age.

THE WIDE WIDE SEA : Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook, | By Hampton Sides | Doubleday | 408 pp. | $35

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Book Review: Hampton Sides revisits Captain James Cook, a divisive figure in the South Pacific

This book cover image released by Doubleday shows “The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook” by Hampton Sides. (Doubleday via AP)

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Captain James Cook’s voyages in the South Pacific in the late 1700s exemplify the law of unintended consequences. He set out to find a westward ocean passage from Europe to Asia but instead, with the maps he created and his reports, Cook revealed the Pacific islands and their people to the world.

In recent decades, Cook has been vilified by some scholars and cultural revisionists for bringing European diseases, guns and colonization. But Hampton Sides’ new book, “The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook,” details that Polynesian island life and cultures were not always idyllic.

Priests sometimes made human sacrifices. Warriors mutilated enemy corpses. People defeated in battle sometimes were enslaved. King Kamehameha, a revered figure in Hawaii, unified the Hawaiian Islands in 1810 at a cost of thousands of warriors’ lives.

Sides’ book is sure to rile some Indigenous groups in Hawaii and elsewhere in the Pacific Islands, who contend Cook ushered in the destruction of Pacific Island cultures.

An obelisk in Hawaii marking where Cook was killed in 1779 had been doused with red paint when Sides visited as part of his research for this book. Over Cook’s name was written “You are on native land.”

But Cook, Sides argues, didn’t come to conquer.

Sides draws deeply from Cook’s and other crew members’ diaries and supplements that with his own reporting in the South Pacific.

Cook emerges from the book as an excellent mariner and decent human being, inspiring the crew to want to sail with him. However, on the voyage of the late 1770s, crew members noted that Cook seemed agitated, not his usual self.

What may have ailed Cook on that final voyage we probably never will know, but we do know that his voyages opened the Pacific islands to the world, and as new arrivals always do, life is changed forever.

Was Cook a villain for his explorations?

Sides make a persuasive case in 387 pages of diligent, riveting reporting that Cook came as a navigator and mapmaker and in dramatically opening what was known about our world, made us all richer in knowledge.

When his journals and maps reached England after his death, it was electrifying news. No, an ocean passage across North America to the Pacific did not exist, but Europeans now knew that islands in the Pacific were populated by myriad cultures; Sides’ reporting is clear that Cook treated them all with respect.

He and his fellow British mariners, though, did lack one skill that would seem vital for sailors and would have better connected the British sailors to the peoples of the Pacific, whose cultures and livelihoods were closely connected to the ocean: Neither Cook nor any of his fellow officers could swim.

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Book Review

The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook

By Hampton Sides Doubleday: 432 pages, $35 If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org , whose fees support independent bookstores.

The story of Capt. James Cook’s third voyage has all the elements of a Greek tragedy — hubris, good intentions gone awry, fatal error. The English sea captain, an old man by 18th century standards, had already made two worldwide voyages of discovery when he was coaxed by his admirers into one more journey. Though his expedition touched down in some of the world’s most pristine, magical places, it set in motion their decay by introducing lethal diseases and invasive species. And finally and fatally, Cook, a brilliant leader with the mind of a strategist and the sensibilities of an anthropologist, made a huge strategic misstep that led to his gruesome death on the Big Island of Hawaii in 1779.

Since his death, countless writers and scholars have minutely examined the improbable life of Cook, who for better or worse opened the lands of the Pacific Ocean to the Western world. As the perspective on Cook’s record has shifted, evaluations have turned from eulogies to reassessments to sharp critiques of his role as advance man for the all-consuming English empire.

Now Hampton Sides, an acclaimed master of the nonfiction narrative, has taken on Cook’s story and retells it for the 21st century. In his new book, “The Wide Wide Sea,” Sides examines every aspect of Cook’s superhuman accomplishments, re-creates the largely untouched world he witnessed and weighs the strengths and frailties of both Cook and his all-too-human crew.

Sides, author of “Ghost Soldiers,” “Hellhound on His Trail” and “On Desperate Ground,” tapped a vast amount of source material, including the journals of Cook, his officers and his crew, and did some epic travel of his own. The result is a work that will enthrall Cook’s admirers, inform his critics and entertain everyone in between.

The purpose of Cook’s final trip — to find a sea passage through North America that would link England to the riches of Asia — was considered critical to English ambitions for empire, and on July 12, 1776, Cook, 47, set sail, just as England was becoming embroiled in war with its American colonies. His two ships, the Resolution and the Discovery, did not just maneuver around storms and shoals — they evaded Spanish and French ships determined to stop them. With Cook was Mai, a Tahitian whom Cook had picked up on a previous trip and transported to England. After several years in England as a guest of the king and object of curiosity, Mai wanted to go home.

The voyage had a rocky beginning. Shoddy repairs caused the boat to leak, the many farm animals the king had sent along as gifts to the Tahitians had to be tended to, and a disorienting fog enveloped the ships for weeks on end. But there was something more. From the beginning, Cook’s crew sensed that something was amiss about their leader. “He seemed restless and preoccupied,” Sides writes. “There was a peremptory tone, a raw edge in some of his dealings. Perhaps he had started to believe his own celebrity. Or perhaps, showing his age and the long toll of so many rough miles at sea, he had become less tolerant of the hardships and drudgeries of transoceanic sailing.”

The ships managed to get around the Cape of Good Hope to New Zealand, where Cook took on the role of homicide detective, investigating an incident during a previous voyage in which English crew members who clashed with the Maoris were killed and eaten. Cook’s dispassionate response — that the Maoris were following their own traditions of ingesting their enemies after battle — provoked a restive response in his own crew after Cook decided against any retribution.

The expedition proceeded to Tahiti, where the crew received a relatively warm welcome, witnessed impressive displays of expert seamanship by the Tahitians and reveled in their paradisiacal surroundings. But the sailors passed sexually transmitted infections to the population, and rats jumped ship and set about decimating many of the islands’ native species. Ominously, Cook’s skills as a diplomat seemed to desert him. After Tahitians on the island of Mo‘orea stole a goat, Cook grossly overreacted, looting their food and razing their villages to the ground. The crew was aghast. Sides speculates that some unnamed physical ailment was wearing Cook down.

By the time Cook’s crew left, the Tahitians were glad to see them go. With supplies restored and ships repaired, the English left Mai on an island with a country-style cottage, a few animals and a trove of useless artifacts. Then the expedition headed northwest into more uncharted territory, mapping the west coast of North America as it searched for a western entry to the Northwest Passage.

Sailing close to the top of the world, the crew basked in the summer Arctic sun and kept company with whales, seals and dolphins. “We all feel this morning as though we were risen in a new world,” wrote one officer. But they finally confronted an unnavigable Arctic ice shelf, and Cook, swallowing the bitterest of pills, knew he had failed. He turned his ships west to eastern Russia, then sailed south to Hawaii’s Big Island, where an argument over the theft of one of the expedition’s longboats escalated into Cook’s decision to take the local king hostage. It was there that Cook’s life ended and arguments over his place in history began.

Captain Cook’s story is the apotheosis of the adventure stories Sides tells so well. Humans will never lose their yearning for exploration, and Cook was the master. From the perspective of his crews, they were sailing into a void of space and time, completely cut off from the world they knew, and Cook led them successfully through the direst conditions. He was a ruthless strategist who did not hesitate to use violence to achieve his aims, and he embodied an age of colonization that eventually brought uncountable horrors. Sides has retold a story worthy of an ancient hero, that of a man of awesome power undone by his own ambitions. We know his fate, but we cannot look away.

Mary Ann Gwinn, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who lives in Seattle, writes about books and authors.

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The truth about Captain Cook’s final voyage – and the cannibals

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A few weeks ago, the library of Cambridge’s Trinity College (home of the recently defaced Lord Balfour portrait) exhibited four ­Australian fishing spears. They are all that remain from a collection of 40-50 stolen by James Cook and the crew of HMB Endeavour in 1770 – during the first landing by Europeans at Botany Bay. Cook’s arrival wasn’t a peaceful affair: two members of the indigenous Gweagal people resisted the British landing, and one was shot as a result. Now, 254 years after their departure from Australia, the four spears are about to be returned to the Gweagal.

This all coincides with the release of Hampton Sides’s The Wide Wide Sea, which tackles the third voyage (and inglorious end) of one of ­Britain’s most renowned explorers. It reconsiders a figure who has long enjoyed a reputation for “humane leadership, dedication to science and respect for ­indigenous ­societies” that has come under recent scrutiny as a part of the wider reckoning with Britain’s past. Sides brings in the ­commentary of ­anthropologists and historians at the right times, but is mainly focused on telling a lively, accurate story that skips deftly over moral oubliettes. It makes for a rollicking good read, with a tone that reminds me of David Grann’s recent tale of the 1741 Wager shipwreck .

Accompanying Cook as far as his Polynesian homeland was Mai, the first Pacific Islander to set foot on English shores (immortalised in Joshua Reynolds’s portrait). Mai’s efforts to reintegrate into ­Polynesian society make up the bulk of the narrative, as he had been wholly changed by his encounters with the English – ­having mixed with London’s beau monde, from Samuel Johnson to George III, during his two years in the country. Cook attempts to ­support him, providing him with goods and security, but this comes with drastic consequences for the islanders (who had, until then, not worried about European notions of wealth or private property).

There’s also a detective story en route, as Cook searches for the truth about a grisly episode ­concerning his second voyage’s sister-ship, the Adventure, where 10 crew members were killed and eaten in New ­Zealand. This was seemingly part of a “whāngai hau” ceremony – where Māori absorbed their enemies’ souls and those of their ancestors. Later in Tahiti we bear witness to another piece of ritualised human sacrifice, here in order to gain the favour of the gods before a military excursion against a neighbouring island. Cook offends the chieftain, To’ofa, by explaining (with Mai’s help) that the ceremony would be illegal in ­England. Both parties ­collapse into bafflement, the ­English leaving the Tahitians with “as great a contempt for our ­customs as we could possibly have of theirs”. Ship’s surgeon ­William Anderson had a less patient view of all this, writing of the ­“horrid” ­ceremony that reflected “the ­grossest ignorance and ­superstition”.

By this final voyage, something seemed to have changed about Cook. His fastidious demand for cleanliness would send him into rages, and he was suffering from intensifying bouts of sciatica and ill health. Nevertheless he weathered the trans-Pacific voyage, dropping off Mai and turning towards the secret mission given to him by the crown before his departure: the discovery of the Northwest Passage, the fabled sea route over the top of the Americas. The final chapters see Cook moving up past Nootka Sound, and through the Bering Strait, before turning back to winter in the warmer waters of Hawaii.

Interactions with the Hawaiians were immediately tense. When Cook’s ships had stopped the ­previous year, his sailors had left behind a cocktail of venereal ­diseases, now ravaging the islands. He resupplied and left as quickly as possible, but was forced to turn back by a split foremast. Here, Cook met his end – stabbed while attempting to take the Hawaiian king hostage in order to secure the return of some stolen small-boats. Sides barely goes into detail about the remainder of the expedition, which made some small effort to head northwards again but quickly turned back after the death of new commander Charles Clerke. A quote from Goethe rings out over Cook’s wild ambition and ­seemingly inevitable fall: “A man who is ­deified cannot live longer, and must not live longer, for his own and for other people’s sake.”

The Wide Wide Sea is published by Michael Joseph at £25. To order your copy for £19.99, call 0808 196 6794 or visit Telegraph Books

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The Ages of Exploration

Quick Facts:

British navigator and explorer who explored the Pacific Ocean and several islands in this region. He is credited as the first European to discover the Hawaiian Islands.

Name : James Cook [jeymz] [koo k]

Birth/Death : October 27, 1728 - February 14, 1779

Nationality : English

Birthplace : England

Captain James Cook

Print of James Cook, famous circumnavigator who explored and mapped the Pacific Ocean. The Mariners' Museum 1938.0345.000001

Introduction Captain James Cook is known for his extensive voyages that took him throughout the Pacific. He mapped several island groups in the Pacific that had been previously discovered by other explorers. But he was the first European we know of to encounter the Hawaiian Islands. While on these voyages, Cook discovered that New Zealand was an island. He would go on to discover and chart coastlines from the Arctic to the Antarctic, east coast of Australia to the west coast of North America plus the hundreds of islands in between.

Biography Early Life James Cook was born on October 27, 1728 in the village Marton-in-Cleveland in Yorkshire, England. He was the second son of James Senior and Grace Cook. His father worked as a farm laborer. Young James attended school where he showed a gift for math. 1 But despite having a decent education, James also wound up working as a farm laborer, like his father. At 16, Cook became an apprentice of William Sanderson, a shopkeeper in the small coastal town Staithes. James worked here for almost 2 years before leaving to seek other ventures. He then became a seaman apprentice for John Walker, a shipowner and mariner, in the port of Whitby. Here, Cook developed his navigational skills and continued his studies. Cook worked for Walker’s coal shipping business and worked his way up in rank. He completed his three-year apprenticeship in April 1750, then went on to volunteer for the Royal Navy. He would soon have the opportunity to explore and learn more about seafaring. He was assigned to serve on the HMS Eagle where he was quickly promoted to the position of captain’s mate due to his experience and skills. In 1757, he was transferred to the Pembroke and sent to Nova Scotia, Canada to fight in the Seven Years’ War.

Cook continued to expand his maritime knowledge and skills by learning chart-making. He helped to chart and survey the St. Lawrence River and surrounding areas while in Canada. His charts were published in England while he was abroad. After the war, between 1763 and 1767, Cook commanded the HMS Grenville , and mapped Newfoundland and Labrador’s coastlines. These maps were considered the most detailed and accurate maps of the area in the 18th century. After spending 4 years mapping coastlines in northeast North America, Cook was called back to London by the Royal Society. The Royal Society sent Cook to observe an event known as the transit of Venus. During a transit of Venus, Venus passes between the Earth and the Sun and appears to be a small black circle traveling in front of the Sun. By observing this event, they believed they could calculate the Earth’s distance from the Sun. In May 1768, Cook was chosen by the Society and promoted to lieutenant to lead an expedition to Tahiti, then known as King George’s Island, to observe the transit of Venus. 2 This begin the first of several voyages that would earn James Cook great fame and recognition.

Voyages Principal Voyage James Cook sailed from Deptford, England on July 30, 1768 on his ship Endeavour with a crew of 84 men. 3 The crew included several scientists and artists to record their observations and discoveries during the journey. They made many small stops at different locations along the way. In January 1769, they rounded the tip of South America, and finally reached Tahiti in April 1769. They established a base for their research that they named Fort Venus. On June 3, 1769, Cook and his men successfully observed the transit of Venus. While on the island, they collected samples of the native plants and animals. They also interacted with some native people, learning more about their customs and traditions. Cook sailed to some of the neighboring islands, including modern day Bora Bora, mapping along the way. After completing the observation of Venus’ transit, Cook was given new orders to sail south, search for the Southern Continent – known today as Australia. On August 9, 1769, the Endeavour departed from Tahiti in search of the Southern Continent. After sailing for several weeks with no sign of land, Cook decided to sail west. On October 6th, land was sighted, and Cook and his men made landfall in modern day New Zealand.

Cook named the place Poverty Bay. They were met by unfriendly natives, so Cook decided to sail south along the coast of this new land. He named several islands and bays along the way, such as Bare Island and Cape Turnagain. At Cape Turnagain, the Endeavour turned around and sailed north along the coastline again and rounded the northernmost tip of the island. They sailed down along the western coast Cook and his men crossed a strait to return to Cape Turnagain, thus completing a circumnavigation of the northern island. This trip proved that New Zealand was made up of two separate islands. The expedition then sailed south along the eastern coastline of the southern island. They stopped at Admiralty Bay on the northern coast to resupply before sailing west into open ocean. In April of 1770, Cook first spotted the northeastern coastline of modern day Australia. He landed in Botany Bay near modern day Sydney. 4 He explored some of the area and coastline including places such as Port Jackson and Cape Byron.  The Endeavour then sailed around the northernmost tip of the continent before setting sail east back to England. They soon landed in Batavia, now known as Jakarta, in Indonesia. In Batavia, several of the crew, including James Cook became ill, many dying from diseases. 5 The expedition eventually sailed onward, and reached London on July 13, 1771.

Subsequent Voyages In 1772, Cook was promoted to captain. He was given command of the two ships, the Resolution and Adventure , to look for the Southern Continent. On July 13, 1772, the expedition left England, stopping at the Cape of Good Hope to resupply before sailing south. May 26, 1773, Cook and his crew reached Dusky Bay, New Zealand . They spent the winter anchored in Ship Cove, exploring inland and interacting with the Maori natives. When they departed from New Zealand in October of 1773, the two ships became separated and never reunited. 6 The Adventure returned to England. Cook and the Resolution continued onward exploring various islands throughout the Pacific. While sailing in the Pacific, the Resolution crossed into the Antarctic Circle several times sailing farther south than any other explorer at the time. Several times they got stuck in sea ice. So Cook decided to suspend the search for the Southern Continent. But they did not return to England just yet. They sailed to Easter Island and stayed there for seven months, exploring and mapping the nearby Society Islands and the Friendly Islands. November 10, 1774, the Resolution began its return journey to England.They traveled around the tip of South America and stopped briefly on the Sandwich Islands to claim them for England. Cook finally returned to England on July 30, 1775 and reported that there was no Southern Continent to be found.

Just one year later, Cook was given the Resolution and Discovery to lead yet an expedition to search for the Northwest Passage. The ships left England on July 12, 1776. A storm forced them to stop at Adventure Cove in Tasmania before continuing on to Ship Cove. In December of 1777 the men landed at Christmas Island, now known as Kiritimati. Several weeks later, they made a significant discovery when they came upon the islands of Hawaii. They landed at modern day Kauai and were fascinated by the environment and friendly natives. But Cook still wanted to discover the Northwest Passage so they left two weeks laters. They finally landed at modern day Vancouver Island where they interacted and traded with the native people. Cook continued his search for the Northwest Passage and commanded the expedition to sail northwest along the coastline of what is now Alaska, and throughout Prince William Sound. On August 9th, they reached the westernmost point of Alaska, which Cook named Cape Prince of Wales. From here, Cook sailed farther into the Arctic Circle until he was stopped by a thick wall of ice. Cook named this point Icy Cape. Cook and his men sailed back down the coast of Alaska and back south until they reached the Hawaiian Islands again.

Later Years and Death When first landing in Kealakekua Bay, they were met with angry natives. Cook soon met with the Hawaiian ruler, King Kalei’opu’u. It was a friendly meeting, was given large amounts of food and resources.They left Kealakekua Bay on February 4, 1779 but were forced to return a few days later after the Resolution was damaged in a storm. Once more, they were not greeted with joy by the natives. While the Resolution was being repaired, the crew noticed that the natives were stealing their supplies and tools. On February 14th, Cook attempted to stop the thievery by taking Chief Kalei’opu’u hostage. 7 However, fighting between the crew and native people had already started. When Cook attempted to return to his ship, he was attacked on the shoreline. He was beaten with stones and clubs and stabbed in the back of the neck. Cook died on the shore and his body was left behind as the other men returned to the ship. After making peace with the natives a few days later, pieces of Cook’s body were recovered and buried on February 22, 1779. The next day, the remaining crew left Hawaii to return to England. The ships arrived in England on October 4, 1780 after attempting to search for the Northwest Passage one more time.

Legacy Captain James Cook is known for his incredible voyages that took him farther south than any other explorer of his time. He was not able to prove that a southern continent existed, but he had many other achievements. He was the first to map the coastlines of New Zealand, the eastern coastline of what would become Australia, and several small islands in the Pacific. Cook was also one of the first Europeans to encounter the Hawaiian Islands. His reports on Botany Bay were part of the reason Britain established a penal colony there in 1787. 8 He is still recognized today for creating some of the most accurate maps of the Pacific islands during his time. James Cook helped the south seas go from being a vast and dangerous unknown area to a charted and inviting ocean.

• Charles J. Shields, James Cook and the Exploration of the Pacific (Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2002), 16.
• Richard Hough, Captain James Cook (New York: WW Norton & Co., 1997) 38-39.
• James Cook, The Voyages of Captain Cook, ed. Ernest Rhys (Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions Limited, 1999), 11
• Captain James Cook and Robert Welsch, Voyages of Discovery (Chicago: Academy Chicago Publishers, 1993), v.
• Cook and Welsch, Voyages of Discovery , 102-106.
• Cook, The Voyages of Captain Cook , xiv.
• Charles J. Shields, James Cook and the Exploration of the Pacific , 56.
• Cook and Welsch, Voyages of Discovery , v.

Bibliography

Shields, Charles J. James Cook and the Exploration of the Pacific . Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2002.

Hough, Richard. Captain James Cook . New York: WW Norton & Co., 1997.

Cook, James. The Voyages of Captain Cook , edited by Ernest Rhys. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions Limited, 1999.

Cook, Captain James, and Robert Welsch. Voyages of Discovery. Chicago: Academy Chicago Publishers, 1993.

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How Captain James Cook Got Away with Murder

By Elizabeth Kolbert

On Valentine’s Day, 1779, Captain James Cook invited Hawaii’s King Kalani‘ōpu‘u to visit his ship, the Resolution. Cook and the King were on friendly terms, but, on this particular day, Cook planned to take Kalani‘ōpu‘u hostage. Some of the King’s subjects had stolen a small boat from Cook’s fleet, and the captain intended to hold Kalani‘ōpu‘u until it was returned. The plan quickly went awry, however, and Cook ended up face down in a tidal pool.

At the time of his death, Cook was Britain’s most celebrated explorer. In the course of three epic voyages—the last one, admittedly, unfinished—he had mapped the east coast of Australia, circumnavigated New Zealand, made the first documented crossing of the Antarctic Circle, “discovered” the Hawaiian Islands, paid the first known visit to South Georgia Island, and attached names to places as varied as New Caledonia and Bristol Bay. Wherever Cook went, he claimed land for the Crown. When King George III learned of Cook’s demise, he reportedly wept. An obituary that ran in the London Gazette mourned an “irreparable Loss to the Public.” A popular poet named Anna Seward published an elegy in which the Muses, apprised of Cook’s passing, shed “drops of Pity’s holy dew.” (The work sold briskly and was often reprinted without the poet’s permission.)

“While on each wind of heav’n his fame shall rise, / In endless incense to the smiling skies,” Seward wrote. Artists competed to depict Cook’s final moments; in their paintings and engravings, they, too, tended to represent the captain Heaven-bound. An account of Cook’s life which ran in a London magazine declared that he had “discovered more countries in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans than all the other navigators together.” The anonymous author of this account opined that, among mariners, none would be “more entitled to the admiration and gratitude of posterity.”

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Posterity, of course, has a mind of its own. In 2019, the two-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of Cook’s landing in New Zealand, a replica of the ship he’d sailed made an official tour around the country. According to New Zealand’s government, the tour was intended as an opportunity to reflect on the nation’s complex history. Some Māori groups banned the boat from their docks, on the ground that they’d already reflected enough.

Cook “was a barbarian,” the then chief executive of the Ngāti Kahu iwi told a reporter. Two years ago, an obelisk erected in 1874 to mark the spot where Cook was killed, on Kealakekua Bay, was vandalized. “You are on native land,” someone painted on the monument. In January, on the eve of Australia Day, an antipodean version of the Fourth of July, a bronze statue of Cook that had stood in Melbourne for more than a century was sawed off at the ankles. When a member of the community council proposed that area residents be consulted on whether to restore the statue, a furor erupted. At a meeting delayed by protest, the council narrowly voted against consultation and in favor of repair. A council member on the losing side expressed shock at the way the debate had played out, saying it had devolved into an “absolutely crazy mess.”

Into these roiling waters wades “ The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook ” (Doubleday), a new biography by Hampton Sides. Sides, a journalist whose previous books include the best-selling “ Ghost Soldiers ,” about a 1945 mission to rescue Allied prisoners of war, acknowledges the hazards of the enterprise. “Eurocentrism, patriarchy, entitlement, toxic masculinity,” and “cultural appropriation” are, he writes, just a few of the charged issues raised by Cook’s legacy. It’s precisely the risks, Sides adds, that drew him to the subject.

Cook, the second of eight children, was born in 1728 in Yorkshire. His father was a farm laborer, and Cook would likely have followed the same path had he not shown early promise in school. His parents apprenticed him to a merchant, but Cook was bored by dry goods. In 1747, he joined the crew of the Freelove, a boat that, despite its name, was designed for the distinctly unerotic task of ferrying coal to London.

After working his way up in the Merchant Navy, Cook jumped ship, as it were. At the age of twenty-six, he enlisted in the Royal Navy, and one of his commanders, recognizing Cook’s talents, encouraged him to take up surveying. A chart that Cook helped draft of the St. Lawrence River proved crucial to the British victory in the French and Indian War.

In 1768, Cook was given command of his own ship, H.M.S. Endeavour, a boxy, square-sterned boat that, like the Freelove, had been built for hauling coal. The Navy was sending the Endeavour to the South Pacific, ostensibly for scientific purposes. A transit of Venus was approaching, and it was believed that careful observation of the event could be used to determine the distance between the Earth and the sun. Cook and his men were supposed to watch the transit from Tahiti, which the British had recently claimed. Then, and only then, was the captain to open a set of sealed orders from the Admiralty which would provide further instructions.

The Endeavour departed from Plymouth, made its way to Rio, and from there sailed around the tip of South America. Arriving in Tahiti, where British and French sailors had already infected many of the women with syphilis, Cook drew up rules to govern his crew’s dealings with the island’s inhabitants. The men were not to trade items from the boat “in exchange for any thing but provisions.” (That rule appears to have been flagrantly flouted.)

The day of the transit—June 3, 1769—dawned clear, or, as Cook put it, “as favourable to our purposes as we could wish.” But the observers’ measurements differed so much that it was evident—or should have been—that something had gone wrong. (The whole plan, it later became clear, was fundamentally flawed.) Whether Cook had indeed waited until this point to open his secret instructions is unknown; in any event, they pointed to the true purpose of the trip. From Tahiti, the Endeavour was to seek out a great continent—Terra Australis Incognita—theorized to lie somewhere to the south. If Cook located this continent, he was to track its coast, and “with the Consent of the Natives to take possession of Convenient Situations in the Country in the Name of the King of Great Britain.” If he didn’t locate it, he was to head to New Zealand, which the British knew of only vaguely, from the Dutch.

The Endeavour spent several weeks searching for the continent. Nothing much happened during this period except that a crew member drank himself to death. As per the Admiralty’s instructions, Cook next headed west. The ship landed on the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island on October 8, 1769. Within the first day, Cook’s men had killed at least four Māori and wounded several others.

A ship like the Endeavour was its own floating world, its commander an absolute ruler. A Royal Navy captain was described as a “King at Sea” and could mete out punishment—typically flogging—as he saw fit. At the same time, in the vastness of the ocean, a ship’s captain had no one to turn to for help. He had to be ever mindful that he was outnumbered.

Cook was known as a stickler for order. A crew member recorded that Cook once performed an inspection of his men’s hands; those with dirty fingers forfeited the day’s allowance of grog. He seemed to have a sixth sense for the approach of land; another crew member claimed that Cook could intuit it even in the dead of night. Although in the seventeen-seventies no one knew what caused scurvy, Cook insisted that his men eat fresh fruit whenever possible and that they consume sauerkraut, a good source of Vitamin C.

Of Cook’s inner life, few traces remain. When he set off for Tahiti, he had a wife and three children. Before she died, Elizabeth Cook burned her personal papers, including her correspondence with her husband. Letters from Cook that have been preserved mostly read like this one, to the Navy Board: “Please to order his Majesty’s Bark the Endeavour to be supply’d with eight Tonns of Iron Ballast.” Cook left behind voluminous logs and journals; the entries in these, too, are generally bloodless.

“Punished Richard Hutchins, seaman, with 12 lashes for disobeying commands,” he wrote, on April 16, 1769, when the Endeavour was anchored off Tahiti. “Most part of these 24 hours Cloudy, with frequent Showers of Rain,” he observed, from the same spot, on May 25th. The captain, as one of his biographers has put it, had “no natural gift for rhapsody.” Sides writes, “It could be said that he lived during a romantic age of exploration, but he was decidedly not a romantic.”

Still, feelings and opinions do sometimes creep into Cook’s writing. He is by turns charmed and appalled by the novel customs he encounters. A group of Tahitians cook a dog for him; he finds it very tasty and resolves “for the future never to dispise Dog’s flesh.” He sees some islanders eat the lice that they have picked out of their hair and declares this highly “disagreeable.”

Many of the Indigenous people Cook met had never before seen a European. Cook recognized it was in his interest to convince them that he came in friendship; he also saw that, in case persuasion failed, the main advantage he possessed was guns.

In a journal entry devoted to the Endeavour’s first landing in New Zealand, near present-day Gisborne, Cook treats the killing of the Māori as regrettable but justified. The British had attempted to take some Māori men on board their ship to demonstrate that their intentions were peaceful. But this gesture was—understandably—misinterpreted. The Māori hurled their canoe paddles at the British, who responded by firing at them. Cook acknowledges “that most Humane men” will condemn the killings. But, he declares, “I was not to stand still and suffer either myself or those that were with me to be knocked on the head.”

After mapping both New Zealand’s North and South Islands, Cook headed to Australia, then known as New Holland. The Endeavour worked its way to the country’s northernmost point, which Cook named York Cape (and which is now called Cape York). The inhabitants of the coast made it clear that they wanted nothing to do with the British. Cook left gifts onshore, but they remained untouched.

Cook’s response to the Aboriginal Australians is one of the most often cited passages from his journals. In it, he seems to foresee—and regret—the destruction of Indigenous cultures which his own expeditions will facilitate. “From what I have said of the Natives of New Holland they may appear to some to be the most wretched People upon Earth; but in reality they are far more happier than we Europeans,” he writes.

The earth and Sea of their own accord furnishes them with all things necessary for Life. They covet not Magnificient Houses, Household-stuff, etc.; they live in a Warm and fine Climate, and enjoy every wholesome Air. . . . They seem’d to set no Value upon anything we gave them, nor would they ever part with anything of their own for any one Article we could offer them. This, in my opinion, Argues that they think themselves provided with all the necessarys of Life, and that they have no Superfluities.

If Cook’s first voyage failed to turn up the missing continent or to calculate the Earth’s distance from the sun, imperially speaking it was a resounding success: the captain had claimed both New Zealand and the east coast of Australia for Britain. (In neither case had Cook sought or secured the “Consent of the Natives,” but this lapse doesn’t seem to have troubled the Admiralty.) The very next year, Cook was dispatched again, this time in command of two ships, the Resolution and the Adventure. Navy brass continued to insist that Terra Australis Incognita was out there somewhere—presumably farther south than the Endeavour had ventured—and on his second voyage Cook was supposed to keep sailing until he found it. He crossed and recrossed the Antarctic Circle, at one point getting as far as seventy-one degrees south. Conditions on the Southern Ocean were generally terrible—frigid and foggy. Still, there was no sign of a continent. Cook ventured that if there were any land nearer to the pole it would be so hemmed in by ice that it would “never be explored.” (Antarctica would not be sighted for almost fifty years.)

Once more, Cook hadn’t found what he was seeking, but upon his return he was again hailed as a hero. Britain’s leading scientific institution, the Royal Society, granted him its highest honor, the Copley Medal, and the Navy rewarded him with a cushy desk job. The expectation was that he would settle down, enjoy his sinecure, and finally spend some time with his family. Instead, he set out on yet another expedition.

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“The Wide Wide Sea” focusses almost exclusively on Cook’s third—and for him fatal—voyage. Sides portrays Cook’s decision to undertake it as an act of hubris; the captain, he writes, “could scarcely imagine failure.” The journey got off to an inauspicious start. Cook’s second-in-command, Charles Clerke, was to captain a ship called the Discovery, while Cook, once again, sailed on the Resolution. When both vessels were scheduled to depart, in July, 1776, Clerke was nowhere to be found. (Thanks to the improvidence of a brother, he’d been tossed in debtors’ prison.) Cook set off without him. A few weeks later, the Resolution nearly crashed into one of the Cape Verde Islands, a mishap that Sides sees as a portent. The ship, it turned out, also leaked terribly—another bad sign.

The plan for the third voyage was more or less the inverse of the second’s. Cook’s instructions were to head north and to look not for land but for its absence. The Admiralty wanted him to find a seaway around Canada—the fabled Northwest Passage. Generations of sailors had sought the passage from the Atlantic and been blocked by ice. Cook was to probe from the opposite direction.

The expedition also had a secondary aim involving a Polynesian named Mai. Mai came from the Society Islands, and in 1773 he had talked his way on board the Adventure. Arriving in London the following year, he entranced the British aristocracy. He sat in on sessions of Parliament, learned to hunt grouse, met the King, and, according to Sides, became “something of a card sharp.” But, after two years of entertaining toffs, Mai wanted to go home. It fell to Cook to take him, along with a barnyard’s worth of livestock that King George III was sending as a gift.

Clerke, on the Discovery, finally caught up to Cook in Cape Town, where the Resolution was docked for provisioning and repairs. Together, the two ships sailed away from Africa and stopped off in Tasmania. In February, 1777, they pulled into Queen Charlotte Sound, a long, narrow inlet in the northeast corner of New Zealand’s South Island. There, more trouble awaited.

Cook had visited Queen Charlotte Sound (which he had named) four times before. During his second voyage, it had been the site of a singularly gruesome disaster. Ten of Cook’s men—sailors on the Adventure—had gone ashore to gather provisions. The Māori had slain and, it was said, eaten them.

Cook wasn’t in New Zealand when the slaughter took place; the Adventure and the Resolution had been separated in a fog. But, on his way back to England, he heard rumblings about it from the crew of a Dutch vessel that the Resolution encountered at sea. Cook was reluctant to credit the rumors. He wrote that he would withhold judgment on the “Melancholy affair” until he had learned more. “I must however observe in favour of the New Zealanders that I have allways found them of a Brave, Noble, Open and benevolent disposition,” he added.

By the time of the third voyage, Cook knew the stories he’d heard were, broadly speaking, accurate. Why, then, did he return to the scene of the carnage? Sides argues that Cook was still searching for answers. The captain, he writes, thought the massacre “demanded an inquiry and a reckoning, however long overdue.”

In his investigation, Cook was aided by Mai, whose native language was similar to Māori. The sequence of events that Mai helped piece together began with the theft of some bread. The leader of the British crew had reacted to this petty crime by shooting not only the thief but also a second Māori man. In retaliation, the Māori had killed all ten British sailors and chopped up their bodies. Eventually, Cook learned who had led the retaliatory raid—a pugnacious local chief named Kahura. One day, Mai pointed him out to Cook. The following day, the captain invited Kahura on board the Resolution and ushered him down into his private cabin. Instead of shooting Kahura, Cook had his draftsman draw a portrait of him.

Mai found Cook’s conduct unfathomable. “Why do you not kill him?” he cried. Cook’s men, too, were infuriated. They made fun of his forbearance by staging a mock trial. One of the sailors had adopted a Polynesian dog known as a kurī. (The breed is now extinct.) The men accused the dog of cannibalism, found it guilty as charged, then killed and ate it.

Sides doesn’t think that Cook knew about the cannibal burlesque, but the captain, he says, sensed his crew’s disaffection. And this, Sides argues, caused something in Cook to snap. For Cook, he writes, the “visit to Queen Charlotte Sound became a sharp turning point.” It would be the last time that the captain would be accused of leniency.

As evidence of Cook’s changed outlook, Sides relates an incident that occurred eight months after the trial of the dog, this one featuring a pregnant goat. The Resolution had anchored off Moorea, one of the Society Islands, and animals from the ship’s travelling menagerie had been left to graze onshore. One day, a goat went missing. Cook was told that the animal had been taken to a village on the opposite end of the island. With three dozen men, he marched to the village and torched it. (Most of the villagers had fled before he arrived.) The next day, the goat still had not been returned, and the British continued their rampage. Such was the level of destruction, one of Cook’s men noted in his journal, that it “could scarcely be repaired in a century.” Another crew member expressed shock at the captain’s “precipitate proceeding,” which, he said, violated “any principle one can form of justice.”

Having wrecked much of Moorea, Cook couldn’t leave Mai there, so he installed him and his livestock on the nearby island of Huahine. A few years later, Mai died, apparently from a virus introduced by yet another boatload of European sailors.

Cook spent several months searching fruitlessly along the coast of Alaska for the Northwest Passage. But, on the journey north from Huahine, he had stumbled upon something arguably better—the Hawaiian Islands. In January, 1778, the Resolution and the Discovery stopped in Kauai. The following January, they landed at Kealakekua Bay, on the Big Island.

What the Hawaiians thought of the strange men who appeared on strange ships has been much debated in academic circles. (Two prominent anthropologists, Marshall Sahlins, of the University of Chicago, and Gananath Obeyesekere, of Princeton, engaged in a high-profile feud on the subject which spanned decades.) Cook and his men happened to have landed on the Big Island at the height of an important festival. The captain was greeted by thousands of people invoking Lono, a god associated with peace and fertility. According to some scholars, the Hawaiians gathered for the festival saw Cook as the embodiment of Lono. According to others, they saw him as someone playacting Lono, and, according to still others, the whole Cook-as-Lono story is a myth created by Europeans. What Cook himself thought is unknown, because no logs or journal entries from the last few weeks of his life survive. It is possible that he just let his record-keeping slide, and it is also possible that the entries contained compromising information and were destroyed by the Admiralty.

After Cook had been on the Big Island for several days, King Kalani‘ōpu‘u appeared with a fleet of war canoes. (He had, it seems, been off fighting on another island.) At first, Kalani‘ōpu‘u welcomed the British—he presented Cook with a magnificent cloak made of feathers, and he dined several times on the Resolution—then he indicated that it was time for them to go. It’s unclear whether the King’s impatience reflected the religious calendar—the festival associated with Lono had concluded—or more mundane concerns, such as feeding so many hungry sailors, but Cook got the message. The expedition soon departed, only to suffer another mishap. The foremast of the Resolution snapped. There was no way for it to go forward, so both ships made their way back to Kealakekua Bay.

It was while the British were trying to repair the Resolution that someone made off with the small boat and Cook decided to take the King hostage. The captain had often resorted to this tactic to get—or get back—what he wanted; it had usually worked well for him, but never before had he dealt with someone as powerful as Kalani‘ōpu‘u. Cook was leading the King down to the beach—Kalani‘ōpu‘u seems to have been convinced he was being invited for another friendly meal—when warriors started to emerge from the trees. Sides argues that Cook could have saved himself had he simply turned and run, but, as one of his men put it, “he too wrongly thought that the flash of a musket would disperse the whole island.” In the fighting that ensued, Cook, four of his men, and as many as thirty Hawaiians were killed. As was customary on the island, Cook’s body was burned. Some of his singed bones were returned to the British; those that remained in Hawaii, according to Sides, were later paraded around as part of the festival associated with Lono.

Though Sides says he wants to “reckon anew” with Cook, it’s not exactly clear what this would entail at a time when the captain has already been—figuratively, at least—sawed off at the ankles. “The Wide Wide Sea” portrays Cook as a complicated figure, driven by instincts and motives that often seem to have been opaque even to him. Although it’s no hagiography, the book is also not likely to rattle teacups at the Captain Cook Society, members of which receive a quarterly publication devoted entirely to Cook-related topics.

Like all biographies, “The Wide Wide Sea” emphasizes agency. Cook may be an ambivalent, even self-contradictory figure; still, it’s his actions and decisions that drive the narrative forward. But, as Cook himself seemed to have realized, and on occasion lamented, he was but an instrument in a much, much larger scheme. The whole reason the British sent him off to seek Terra Australis Incognita was that they feared a rival power would reach it first. If Cook hadn’t hoisted what he called the “English Colours” on what’s still known as Possession Island, in northern Queensland, it seems fair to assume that another captain would have claimed Australia for England or for some other European nation. Similarly, if Cook’s men hadn’t brought sexually transmitted diseases to the Hawaiian Islands, then sailors from a different ship would have done so. Colonialism and its attendant ills were destined to reach the many paradisaical places Cook visited and mapped, although, without his undeniable navigational skills, that might have taken a few years more. ♦

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By Adam Gopnik

Captain James Cook - His Third Voyage

His achievements over the past seven years were immense. He had made two tremendous journeys across the Pacific sweeping clear the imaginings of academics, pinned down Antarctica, defeated Cape Horn twice, established sailing routes to Australia and New Zealand, and set up excellent relations with the "noble savages" of the South Seas, the Polynesians. He had accurately mapped the locations of Australia and New Zealand, either achievement would have been a sufficient life's work. He had discovered or rediscovered almost every island group of importance in the South Seas and precisely charted them. He had lead crews of ordinary seamen through shipwreck and hazards in little ships twice around the Earth sailing a total of over 120,000 miles, loosing not one man to scurvy.

James Cook was promoted post Captain, a notable achievement for the ex-mate of a Whitby cat, but long overdue. He was again presented to King George III, and read accounts of his voyages to the Royal Society. For a paper written on the preservation of health for long voyage seamen he was awarded the Society's Copley Gold Medal. Cook and his wife dined with some of England's most prominent citizens. He was recognized across Europe as one of the great discoverers of the age. He had also proven that the Harrison chronometer was the answer to accurately calculating longitude.

A World Map Not Yet Completed

But there remained one great unknown, this time in the North Pacific. Could it be that there were a passage north of or through North America from the Atlantic to the Pacific? A more direct passageway from Europe to China and the East had been sought after from the Atlantic side. No effort had been made to discover such a route starting from the Pacific except by John Byron, who had discovered much of nothing.

In James Cook, however, admiralty saw a man who not only carried out his orders but used his judgment to better them. His ordered goals were to find a Northwest Passage around North America and if this route did not exist, look for a Northeast Passage around Siberia and back to Europe from the Pacific side.

In England at this time, knowledge of the west coast of the Americas started at the southern end of South America and ended at Drake's New Albion, which today was officially recognized by the United States Department of the Interior in October 2012 as Point Reyes, California. But in 1775 nobody quite knew where this was. James Cook would have to find Drake's Bay first, and start from there.

James Cook accepted the assignment from Admiralty. He was 47 years old, had been at sea for most of the past 30 years and deserved a longer leave, if not retirement. But there was no one better suited for the task than him.

It was 1775 and the 462 ton Resolution had been back in England for less than six weeks when Admiralty ordered that she be reconditioned for yet another “voyage to remote parts.” There was great demand on the shipyards as a consequence of war in American. The Resolution received a hasty retrofit even though Cook had returned her in good condition, considering what she had been through. The ship was indifferently caulked and poorly rigged but when the time for departure came she was well manned and stored, Cook made sure of this.

On this voyage Cook was to be his own astronomer and scientist, while William Anderson would serve as botanist and naturalist. The role of Executive Officer was filled by John Gore, a good fit as he had also served aboard the Endeavour for Cook’s first voyage. The crew included six midshipmen, a cook and his assistant, six quartermasters, twenty marines, and forty-five seamen. Another ship named Discovery , a 300 ton Whitby collier, would serve as the expeditions sister ship, commanded by Charles Clerke.

The Resolution was about 111 ft long, 30 ft wide, with a draught of 13 ft . She carried 112 crew including 20 marines along with 24 cannons. The Discovery was a bit smaller, 91 ft long, 27 ft wide, with a draught of 11 ft , and carried a complement of 70 seamen and 8 cannons.

On July 12, 1776, almost 1 year from his return from the second voyage, James Cook took the Resolution out to sea from Plymouth, England. They sailed through a channel filled with ships bound for the American Revolutionary War. Many thought the voyage to seek new discoveries on the west coast of North America was a little odd, since the east coast was battling for independence from those same discoverers.

But no one knew anything about the American west coast as of yet except for a few brave Spanish explorers and maybe an isolated Russian fur trader or two. And the longitude of the area had yet to be determined acurately. Cook's orders were to first sail to the South Indian Ocean to check on certain discoveries made by the French and assess their value as possible naval bases. Then he was to make way to the familiar islands of Tahiti. After that he was to sail into the North Pacific and explore everything north of Drakes Bay (northern California) until he found a sea passage to the North Atlantic.

This would take at least two summers with winter refuge anchored in Kamchatka (Russia) or elsewhere. If he were to find the Northwest Passage he was to sail back to the Atlantic by that means, making detailed surveys along the way. All this added up to the toughest and longest voyage Cook had ever made: Sailing down both Atlantics, rounding the Cape of Good Hope, crossing almost the entire length and breadth of the Pacific from sub Antarctic to Arctic and then back to England.

A Rough Start

As soon as they were off into the Atlantic the Resolution began to leak terribly. The crew could see the chaulker's shoddy work as the ship lifted and plunged through the sea. All the crew's quarters were soaked and the spare sails became sodden and moldy. Water seeped down through ceilings, not seriously but miserable none the less.

The crew aired the sails, reworked the rigging, and set charcoal fires wherever they could inside the ship as she made her way south. This was especially annoying for the crew since they had returned the ship to port in such good condition.

Cook blamed himself for the state of the Resolution . A ship in the dockyard has to be looked after even more carefully than when on voyage. And Cook had tried to enjoy his appointment at Greenwich Hospital as much as he could. With all of his duties it was not easy to get from his home to the dockyard. And Mrs. Cook knew nothing of the voyage until it was nearly time to leave. Its seems James Cook tried to enjoy the year at home to its fullest extent.

The crew did what they could to sustain the ship. There is evidence that Cook was not himself during this voyage. His digestive system was still strained and his iron will not quite as strong as it was. Before they reached the Cape of Good Hope the mizzen topmast was found to be cracked and not able to bear sail. A ship on such a long journey needs all of her masts. At the Cape Cook bought a replacement. Both the Resolution and the Discovery were recaulked at port.

On November 30, 1776, both ships sailed on to almost 50° S. They passed Tasmania and Cook's favorite, Queen Charlotte's Sound in New Zealand. A shift of wind threw the ship and the mizzen mast came down, thankfully clearing the decks. On January 19 near 45° S the fore topmast came down and brought the topgallant mast with it. This was a mess but the crew worked tirelessly to rebuild the ship as she rolled violently through the sea. She was fitted with enough sail for the Roaring Forties.

Cook diverted towards Adventure Bay on the southeast of Tasmania to find trees for new masts and fresh food. This was his only visit to Tasmania, a beautiful island with excellent harbors and some of the best ship building timber in the world. Cook notes that there were very few natives to the island, and that they did not have any kind of sea transport, not even canoes for fishing. He was in a hurry, hoping to reach the northern coasts of North America by summer. The crew caught an abundance of fish, cut a few spars, harvested grass and firewood and sailed on.

It was near the end of February when the ships passed New Zealand. This time Cook made a northeasterly course which brought him to Hervey Islands (now the Cook islands), which offered no anchorages and little refreshments. Cook now accepted that he could not reach North America that summer and made for the nearby Friendly Islands.

Here they received good reception from the locals. There was however the immense problem of thievery. Even the local chiefs were not above bold faced robbery and having caught one Cook fined him one hog and gave him a dozen lashes which he accepted stoically and fairly due. The stealing became so bad that Cook began to shave the heads of those who were caught. They hated to lose their long locks, but they still stole.

In spite of the thievery, their time in the Friendly islands was rather good. A private house was given to Cook. The natives were giving seeds for all types of new vegetables as was customary. The two ships sailed on for Tahiti, where two crewmen from the Discovery deserted. Cook knew that any successful desertion could start an exodus, as a casual life in Tahiti was more appealing than life in Victorian England. Cook seized canoes, houses, and chiefs, demanding the crewmen be returned. Armed searches were performed and the two men were finally found in Bora Bora and returned.

In the meantime Cook made a discovery in another field. He had been suffering badly from rheumatism, especially from his hips to his feet. A friendly chief offered to help and Surgeon Anderson approved. Twelve women, the chief's relatives, were paddled out ceremoniously to the Resolution and descended into the great cabin. Cook was told to lie down on a mattress whereby the women began pummeling, squeezing, and massaging his entire body unmercifully, especially the rheumatic joints. After about 15 minutes Cook stood up and to his astonishment felt much better. Two more treatments cured him. The rheumatism went away and did not return.

North Across the Pacific

Now it was time to leave familiar islands. Cook's plan was to sail north with the southeast trade wind on the starboard beam, make their way through the doldrums as best they could, then pick up the northeast trades and sail north out of them running eastward from there on. It was futile to sail against the trade winds, better to use them for latitude.

On Christmas Eve of 1777, Cook sighted the island named Christmas. They pressed on until they saw three high mountain islands. It was January, 1778. They approached the island and managed to get an anchor down. Canoes were sent out by unarmed natives who spoke Tahitian. The crew wondered how the Tahitians could have sailed over such great distances. Cook and his seamen had encountered these same people over an enormous area, from Bora Bora to New Zealand to Tahiti and now to this island called Atui by to locals. This island is now called Kauai, in the Hawaiian Islands. The site of their landing is near the present day town of Waimea, Kauai, Hawaii. This marks the first contact with ancient Hawaiians by a European.

Islanders brought out pigs, potatoes, sugar cane, and traded them for whatever they were offered. The sight of strange men from Europe and enormous sailing ships was like nothing they had ever seen and could hardly believe. When Cook landed all the natives in sight fell upon their faces "and remained in that very humble posture till, by expressive signs I prevailed upon them to rise," wrote the captain.

A long speech was made, presents exchanged, and friendships pledged. As Cook and his party moved about the island, never far from the beach, the locals "fell prostrate on the ground and remained in that position until we passed." The crew thought the practice was only a way of paying respect. It dawned on none of them that it could be something more than that.

With fresh supplies the two ships set sail once again. On 40° N in February of 1778, the west winds found the ships. A month later the coast of a great continent came in sight, North America. Beautiful distant snowcapped mountains were seen. Cook turned north and made a running survey of the land as they went.

The discovery of a sailing route across what is now Canada and the northern United States was now obviously impossible to Cook, as he could see great mountains blocking the way. It could hardly matter what bays, inlets, or gulfs might be found as these majestic mountains could be seen far inland. He was now well aware of the immense stretch of land in place of where this open water was hoped to be. He had previously surveyed the eastern side of the continent, Newfoundland and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. He now knew the longitude of the west coast as well.

From Cape Race in Newfoundland to the coast of Oregon, 70° of longitude, over 4,000 miles! What a magnificent country! As they trekked north the coast trended westward. And the wind was west, always forcing towards land. There were intense squalls and fogs. The coast of Washington and Oregon were notorious in the sailing ship era and Cape Flattery (named by Cook) was rated then with Hatteras, the Horn, and Good Hope as the four most dangerous headlands in the world.

Cook took the ships into Nootka Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island. The natives traded fish and furs and practiced even more thievery. Sailing on, it was now April of 1778 and the Resolution began to leak badly again. Water could be heard and seen entering the ship but it appeared the gaps were all above the waterline. Water was pumped and bailed overboard as the ship rocked violently through the rough weather.

This was a bad shape for the Resolution to approach the Arctic in. Cook was in desperate need of a good harbor to make repairs. He was now well inside Alaskan waters and had already sailed past the sheltered and beautiful bays of the Puget Sound. He kept well out to sea as this was a north-south passage. The coast was sheltered by offshore islands at the base of picturesque mountains and fed by glaciers. This was a beautiful place in the summer but futile towards any hope of a Northwest Passage.

It is a shame that here Cook missed Valdez off of Prince Williams Sound, as it would make for a good location for repairs and is ice free year round. They were above 60° N now off the coast of British Colombia and northwest Alaska. From here the Alaskan mainland turned south, to Cook's surprise. The hazy weather made finding a suitable harbor difficult. Off of Prince William Sound, not far from Valdez, Cook found a sheltered spot he named Snug Corner Bay, north of Montague Island. Making anchor they found all the oakum gone below the wooden sheathing. This was repaired while Eskimos came out in kayaks and canoes in an attempt to seize the Discovery , armed with knives. Cook demonstrated that they could kill at range and the Eskimos turned away. None were killed, Cook wanted no one murdered.

Observations showed the ships to be over 1,500 miles west of any part of Hudson's Bay. Despite the appearance of many arms leading off from the Sound, the behavior of the tides showed that it was a waste of time to seek a Northwest Passage there. It was now May. Cook must push north somehow. To do this he must first go southwest along the Alaskan coast. The more promising gulfs were inspected by boat, but they were all useless.

The two ships had not gone far to the southwest before coming to a headland that swung around to the north. Could this be the passage they had been looking for? It was at least the best lead Cook had seen so far. Passage or not it was a considerable discovery. Before long it was observed that their newly discovered waterway was fed only by rivers. Its waters became shallow and almost fresh water, abundant signs that they were in a large river. Today it is called Cook Inlet, famous mountain lined broad waters that lead to the city of Anchorage, Alaska.

Sailing on down the Alaskan coast they met with natives to discuss their knowledge of the local geography and to trade iron for salmon. At Unalaska, they met a party of Russian fur traders. They showed the Englishmen their charts of the area between Kamchatka and Alaska, but had no knowledge of a Northwest Passage. The English and Russians got along wonderfully.

Beyond Unalaska and the Aleutian Islands were the Bering Sea and the Bering Strait. Beyond these was the Chuckchee Sea and the impassible ice jam of the Arctic. Cook sailed on, noting the outflow of the Yukon River. They sailed around Alaska and right up to the Arctic ice, huge impregnable fields of it, not far from Point Barrow. If a sea passage reached the Atlantic from here, which it did, it was ice jammed even in the summer and was therefore useless.

Cook reached nearly 71° N and sailed east between the mainland and crushing sea ice to just beyond Point Barrow, Alaska, about 1,000 miles south of the North Pole. The ice could be heard moving and appeared as an endless line of gnashing teeth waiting to wreck the two ships. Cook turns back west towards the Asian continent, looking for a northeast passage instead. But he runs into the same ice wall.

Cook does what he can to chart the northern coasts of North America and Asia. The crew survive on walrus steak, excellent fish, and berries picked from ashore, all washed down with Cook's own spruce "beer." They now pass south, back through the Bering Strait and by October are in Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands. They are now 12,000 miles from home and had been at sea for two years.

Onward Home

The two ships were once again badly in need of major repairs. A good base was needed where the ships could be refitted and the crew refreshed. His loose orders were for him to make for Petropavlovsk on the east coast of Russia and at the end of the Aleutian Islands. This meant the ships would spend another winter in the Arctic, and one could only guess if they would ever see England again after that.

So Cook looked over his charts in search of something better. With a number of his crew suffering from tuberculosis, he decided instead to make for those pleasurable Sandwich Islands where Kauai and Niihau he had visited on their way north. They offered refreshment, pleasurable natives, and sunshine, which they all badly needed.

"I had other reasons for not going to Petropaulowska," wrote Cook. "The first ... was the great dislike I had to lying idle six or seven months which would be the consequence of wintering in any of these northern parts. No place was so conveniently within our reach, where we could expect to have our wants supplied, as the Sandwich Islands." He also held the opinion that these were an important discovery, and he could make better use of the winter by exploring and charting them further.

In hindsight, it is a shame that he did not have a better look at Vancouver Island. Or find the Strait of Juan de Fuca and sail into some lovely bay to refit in the Puget Sound of present day Washington State.

The Hawaiian Islands

Even today the Hawaiian Islands provide not much in the way of good harbor for ships the size of the Resolution and Discovery . After sailing down from the Arctic, Cook sailed for many days from Maui to Hawaii, to Oahu, Molokai, and back against the wind to the big island which he called Owhyee. He found no good harbor. The two ships were kept out at sea for 8 weeks, trading for fruit by means of canoes.

At last, on the western side of the big island, he noted a shallow bay. Two miles wide and a mile deep it was wide open to the southwest storms, but otherwise easy to sail into and simple to leave.

As soon as they made anchor canoes came out by the hundreds. It seems most of the islands population came out, thousands of them. The sight of so many smiling faces with the volcanic Mauna Loa in the background almost made the weary sailors glad they had not found a Northwest Passage across the top of the world and back to England.

It was January 17, 1779. The Hawaiians said their bay was called Kealakakua. All these islands from Kauai to Hawaii were new discoveries. Hogs, greens, coconuts, and fruits were abundandt and fairly traded with the English explorers or brought out as gifts. Sails were patched and rigging was refitted. An observatory was set up ashore.

The supreme chief of the island, Kalaniopu'u was rowed around the ships in ceremony and visited aboard. Cook was presented with magnificent red-feather cloaks and expensive helmets. Now ashore the natives praised Cook wherever he went. He gathered he had been named "Orono," and thought of this as a prestiegeous Hawaiian title. Senior priests went with him wherever he visited.

Exactly what was an Orono ? Or who was the Orono? "Some of these ceremonies," said Lieutenant King, "seem to border on adoration." The Orono was in fact Lono the god, a cheerful earthly Hawaiian of long ago who had been exiled and who was prophecized to return in a large island, with trees, bringing gifts including swine and dogs. Well here were the "islands" (ships) complete with "trees" (masts). Here too was a tall, comanding but friendly reincarnation of Lono in the form of Captain Cook.

The very day before his arrival off of Mauai, chief Kalaniopu'u had been victorious in a battle there, obviously because the great Lono was coming to celebrate his victory. Honaunau, on Kealakua Bay, is a much revered place in old Hawaii. Time and setting were right for the return of a god. The sailors and their "islands" were no ordinary men. The astonished Hawaiians noted them carrying fires burning in their mouths (pipes), when they needed anything they reached into their skins (jackets) and pulled them out, some had heads horned like the moon (officer's felt hats), they could take off the tops of their heads (wigs), and whipe their faces with a cloth of impossible softness (linen handkerchiefs). Where could they have come from but the home of the gods?

Perhaps. The sailors also had some distasteful traits and they consumed an aweful lot of food. The priests and chiefs had to constantly take from the locals to supply these sailors. In time this could become irritating. But the ammount of food and gifts brought to the ships was none of Cook's asking. He had no idea it was forecefully taken from the people by the priests for the god Lono's happiness.

The priests, chiefs, and everyone else were happy when at last the Resolution and Discovery took up their anchors and left those shores. Lono spread his white banners high on his trees and moved out of the bay. It had been a wonderful visit but the island was now significantly depleted of resources.

Cook was happy with his visit to Kealakekua and writing in his journal, delighted "to enrich our voyage with a discovery which, though the last, seemed in many respects to be the most important that had hitherto been made by Europeans throughout the extent of the Pacific Ocean."

It was now kona season, the time of storms. And the Resolution had not sailed far before her topmast began to roll more than it should. Serious damage was quickly done to the rigging. Cook looked upward from the deck and could see the fore lower mast was split again, the tenth time of the voyage. The topmast had been repaired with splints but closer inspection showed damage enough that it could not be repaired at sea.

The ship must be repaired again. But where? They were now down to six sails from the usual twelve. Cook was against returning to Kealakekua, but there was no other known place for anchorage in the Hawaiian Islands.

Back Again in Kealakekua Bay

The sailors received no warm welcome this time. The islanders were in no place to supply more sustinance for the two ships, much less themselves. Lono's first visit had been a tremendous strain. Cook wasted no time floating the mast ashore for repair. How long would he and his 200 followers stay? The priests offered welcome, the citizens threw stones.

Cook tried his best to explain why they were there and how they intened to leave quickly. The people seemed to understand, but there were "incidents." Thieving became bold and serious. Some retaliation was made.

There was increased awareness that whoever Lono Cook might be, these seamen were no gods. When a seaman named William Watman died, he was buried ashore. The natives watched with some shock and now saw that these men were mortal, they could die.

Thieving grew worse. The natives began diving under the two ships and prying out nails from their outer sheathing. This was intollerable. It was difficult to defend the ships when so many of the men were ashore repairing the mast. Cook refused to use the ship's superior firepower against the locals.

One night a large boat, the Discovery 's cutter, was stolen. The cutter was vital and could not be replaced. Cook had a regular drill for such instances, take a local high chief hostage until the item was returned. Armed boats were sent to prevent canoes from leaving the bay until the cutter was returned.

In full uniform Cook rowed ashore, carrying his double barrel shotgun along with an armed guard of nine marines under Lieutenant Phillips. King Kalaniopu'u was ashore and told of the theft, agreed to come as a hostage. He began to walk with Cook very calmly towards the beach.

They were within 25 yards of the boats when a large crowd began to form. A woman stood between the beach and the king, she was his favorite wife. With tears she begged him not to go any farther. Several local chiefs joined the crowd which was now growing closer. Lieutenant Phillips noted some of the crowd gathering stones. Others darted into houses, returning with spears and clubs and fastening breast plates.

Two young chiefs pushed the king down to a sitting position such that he could not walk any further. The marines drew up in line along the beach, at the ready.

The crowd grew angry. Cook left the king, telling Phillips that he and the marines must go back to prevent serious bloodshed. A warrior rushed up to Captain Cook with a stone in one hand and a dagger in the other.

"Put those things down!" ordered the captain. The warrior made ready to fling the stone. Cook fired at once. One barrel of his shotgun was loaded with small shot, which he used. The pellets bounced off of the warrior's breastplate. He laughed and came at Cook with his dagger. This time Cook fired his other barrel, loaded with ball. The warrior dropped to the ground.

A general attack with stones began at once. The marines fired, but the warriors had only noticed the captains first shot and believed the muskets to be nothing more than a brief flash and flame. Warriors were killed but there were too many to resist. The marines were rushed before they could reload and four of them were struck down. Now the seamen came in the boats, opening fire.

For a moment Cook stood there, facing the crowd of blood thirsty Hawaiians. He did not reload. He turned to the boats, raising a hand to command a cease-fire. He had reached the water's edge but his commands could not be heard.

A warrior rushed him from behind, clubbing him violently. He sank to his knees, half in the water. The warrior stabbed again and again. A roar erupted from the crowd and men rushed into the sea, stabbing, clubbing, and holding James Cook under water. Once he raised his head and looked at them. They dragged his body ashore and all began stabbing him in a frenzy. Seizing the dagger from each other's hands as if each one must assure they had a part in the act.

This all took only seconds. The unpremeditated, gastly, unnecessary murder was done. Now no one could stop the sailors and surviving marines. Warriors now saw their breast plates were not armor as many were mowed down by musket fire. The beach cleared at once.

The boats pulled back with their incredible news. When it was told, a great silence filled the ships and a great sorrow filled Kealakekua Bay. It was February 14, 1779, and Captain James Cook R.N., aged 50, had met his end on that Hawaiian beach.

Some of the Hawaiians later took his body back to their village and prepared it with funerary rituals usually reserved for the chiefs and highest elders of their society. He was buried by his crew at Kealakekua Bay. Today, above the bluff, a town has been settled and aptly named: Captain Cook, Hawaii.

Continuing without James Cook

The crew finishes the repairs to the Resolution in harbor. The locals are now not allowed anywhere near the beach or the ships. Lieutenant Clerke takes over as acting captain of the Resolution and the voyage as a whole, but he is slowly dying of tuberculosis.

Lieutenant James King is promoted First Lieutenant of the Discovery and takes the task of completing the narrative portion of Cook's journals. It is here that King devotes two full pages describing surfboard riding as practiced by the locals in Kealakekua Bay. Thus in 1779, Lieutenant James King records in the ship's logs the first written description of Hawaiian surfing by a European.

The repairs are made quickly and the expedition heads for the Arctic for one last shot at finding a Northwest Passage. There is no use. The ice fields of 1779 were larger and farther south than they had been the previous year.

The ships continued to deteriorate. One day some wood floated by, it was part of the Resolution 's own sheathing. The Discovery suffered minor hull damage from ice, but nothing that could not be repaired. Captain Clerke succumbs to his tuberculosis and dies at the age of 38. Lieutenant Gore takes command of the Resolution with Lieutenant King commanding the Discovery .

They were now offshore of Petropavlovsk, Russia. It is now October of 1799 and the two ships decide the expedition’s goals are completed, and begin their trek back home to England. Gore sends a letter overland containing copies of Cook's reports along with his own account of Cook's death. The letters were carried by dog sleds across Siberia, then by horse and finally by coastal shipping across the North Sea to England.

Six months later the letters arrived in London, bringing dismay to the whole nation. Another six months after that, in early October of 1780, the expedition returned at last to England after a voyage of 4 years and 3 months.

Gore made a careful journey back, as they heard tales of one American naval commander named John Paul Jones. He sailed around the west coast of Ireland and down the North Sea before entering the Thames. Now in port, the Resolution would be refitted as an armed transport, sent to the East Indies, and would later disappear from the records.

Mrs. Cook was awarded £200 per year plus £25 a year for each of their three children. She was also awarded half of the profits from books on her husband's voyages. She retired to Clapham, London. She lived there into the steam age and passed in 1835 at the age of 93, surviving her husband by 56 years.

Sir Walter Besant (1836-1901) wrote an account of Mrs. Cook in a biography of her husband. Like many ship captain's wives, she could not sleep on nights of high winds, thinking of her husband out at sea. She read from her husband's Bible daily. On Thursdays she entertained her friends with dinner at her home.

Sadly, she destroyed all private letrers from her husband, as she thought they should remain only between the two. Mrs. Cook is buried in Cambridge at St. Andrews Church. She left money to erect a memorial to her husband in the church.

In 1878 a Memorial to Cook was erected at his place of death in Hawaii. Today the Hawaiian flag has the Union Jack (Flag of England) as the principle emblem. A statue of Cook has also been erected at the site of his landing in Waimea, on the Hawaiian island of Kauai.

The Effects of Cook's Voyages

To the average Englishman, the discoveries and explorations of James Cook were so remote that they almost belonged to another world. Before these discoveries, even Americans knew nothing of the west coast of the continent to which there new country was established.

Three volumes of Cook's voyages are published. They accurately describe with latitude and longitude the locations and coastlines of Australia, New Zealand, the Hawaiian Islands, the west coast of North America as well as the north coast of Alaska, the east and north coasts of Asia, and countless islands in the South Pacific.

We know very little about James Cook the man. He was of Scottish and Yorkshire ancestry. He was raised to work hard, on a Yorkshire farm. He served for years on Whitby colliers. His hard upbringing surely contributed to his qualities of leadership and competence. His seamen and officers knew him well and many came back with him voyage after voyage, some to their death.

Apart from his character, James Cook can be described as a loyal Englishman who became one of Western Civilization's great contributors. The best description of him is left on the map of the globe. The names of his brave ships stand in the history books: Endeavour, Resolution, Discovery, and the Adventure. During his life, he had explored farther north (70°44′ N) and farther south (71°10′ S) in the Pacific Ocean than any previous human being. The farmer's son from Yorkshire who became Captain R.N. and gold medalist of the Royal Society can easily be seen as one of the greatest explorers the world has ever known.

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. Psalm 119:105

Other Classic History articles on the voyages of Captain James Cook include:    Captain James Cook - His First Voyage    Captain James Cook - His Second Voyage

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73 - 209 - Thanks for the detailed story of the Battle of Lepanto… as a dedicated lover-of-Venice, I have seen the paintings in the Doges Palace and knew of its significance. Here are the details. As noted, this ranks w/the defense of Vienna in 1683(?); check,as well, the legendary defense of Malta sometime in the late 1400’s; as deep as it gets.

71 - 187 - Thank you so much for this.

71 - 189 - You're welcome. Thank you for reading.

71 - 204 - Too kind :) Thanks for reading Karen.

71 - 203 - Wonderful precise information, Thanks so much !

69 - 177 - Sorry, but I do wish people who write articles mentioning astrology would go to the trouble of actually learning about astrology. The zodiac has nothing whatsoever to do with constellations, apart from the Greeks giving names to the signs from some of the constellations at that time. The zodiac was designed by ancient Babylonians, based on their calendar of 12 (and occasionally 13) lunar months, with 12 equal signs fixed to the March equinox. It has always been about the signs. The Western Tropical Zodiac will always begin with 0 degrees Aries on the March equinox and the stars have no relevance to this at all. The precession of the equinoxes and the alleged astrological ages are a minor oddity which astrologers generally have very little interest in.

69 - 186 - If the stars have no relevance to astrology, what relevance do the planets have? Are the positions of the planets determined in relation to the “signs” as given by astrology, or are their positions determined in relation to their apparent positions relative to the ecliptic and the stars visible in that celestial band.? If we’re to disregard the apparent positions of the stars, why bother to observe the positions of the planets, either?

69 - 199 - This article is about precession, which is obviously tangential to astrology, but the article never mentions the word. I'm not sure what you're going on about. The subject matter, especially in reference to constellations, is absolutely appropriate, as the ancients clearly were concerned about the positions of stars and planets, to think otherwise is absurd. The Egyptians understood the ages beginning and ending with certain star positions, whoever built the lion sphinx statue aimed it at Leo (the Lion CONSTELLATION), which tells us that it was likely built during that zodiacal age. I'm not sure how you can disregard the obvious tie-ins to key moments in history with what's marked out in the sky via constellations.

66 - 176 - Truly David Livingstone was a greatest missionary and explorer in Africa no one else other than him from Europe has left such a record. He will always be remembered for his great work in Africa.

64 - 128 - Wonderful story. Excellent history. Great Christmas Song too! Especially Luke 6:38

64 - 130 - I enjoyed playing piano recitals of Good King Wenceslas as a child - for the old folks in the nursing homes in our town. Thank you for the history on this beloved King.

64 - 135 - Thank you Teresa for your kindness to the elderly. Nursing homes are filled with lonely souls who sincerely appreciate such acts of generosity.

64 - 210 - I’ve played this for years! even posted a recording on YouTube under “Safe Sax Trio” from December 2020. it has a special connotation as Mi amor,Blanka, is Czech, born and grew up in Prague,Bohemia…St.Wenceslas being the patron Saint of the Czech People.????

61 - 95 - h

60 - 125 - "The Indo-Europeans were a people group originating in the plains of Eastern Europe, north of the Baltic and Caspian Seas in present day Ukraine and southern Russia." Surely you meant the Black sea and not the Baltic....

60 - 126 - Ha, yes I meant the Black Sea. Thanks Pgolay.

56 - 83 - Wild temperature swings throughout the years!

56 - 84 - Indeed! All the more reason to be thankful for the forests we are enjoying today.

55 - 137 - Interesting article! I'm curious, what were the sources about Hippocrates and his communications with Athens and Persia in regard to the plague?

55 - 138 - Thank you! Hippocrates' own writings on this subject have been translated into English. Wesley D. Smith has some good modern English translations: https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0674995260 Artaxerxes sends a letter to Hippocrates begging for help: "the renown of whose techne has reached even to me, as much gold as he wants, and anything else that he lacks in abundance, and send him to me" Hippocrates replies: "Tell the King I have sufficient food, clothing, and shelter, and all the necessities that I require for life, and that I have no wish for Persian wealth or to save foreigners from disease, since they are enemies of the Greeks."

55 - 145 - I really like Athens because it is truly a unique place with a rich history and unique distinctive features. Of course, there are a great deal of reasons to fall in love with this city because it’s a true calling card of Greece. After reading your article, I became more convinced that it is an incredible city in which ancient traditions and modernity harmoniously intertwine with each other into a single whole. It is so cool that you mentioned the Temple of Poseidon because I think that it’s such a wonderful way to delve into the history of Athens and feel the atmosphere of ancient times. I think that Athens is the best city in Greece for wine connoisseurs because it seems to me that you can try delicious and rare Greek wines there, getting unforgettable impressions. Art and culture in Athens are so incredible and multifaceted that it can’t leave you indifferent. It is an indisputable fact that the halls of the Museum of Cycladic Art are impressive in their scope and they have very interesting interactive expositions. It is so cool that there are so many incredible things and I think you will always find something to look at.

43 - 14 - Interesting article. An enjoyable read. Thanks

43 - 15 - Glad you enjoyed it!

40 - 149 - I was wondering where that cross at the top of the page is located? It is quite impressive and I stare at it a great deal! If you can help me I would greatly appreciate it! God bless you!!!

40 - 152 - William, The peak is Punta Selassa in the province of Cuneo, Italy. You can hike to the cross starting from the village of Calcinere on the Po River in the valley below. God bless you too!

39 - 81 - IS IT Possible to buy a hybrid checknut IMMUNE TO THE BLIGHT?

39 - 116 - very good information,we have many of these trees in our neighborhood. they were originally planted in the 1930's when the area was a berry farm and orchard. they have now spread over about a 50 acre residential area growing in just about any vacant space and producing huge amounts of nuts. Gig harbor washington.

39 - 180 - god, I had never heard of this. what a tragic story. Those forests must have been a true sight to see.

39 - 181 - I appreciate that you mentioned that chestnut trees are included in our holiday experience. My aunt mentioned last night that she and my mother planned to have information about hybrid chestnut trees for the farm project development they want. She asked if I had any idea what would be the best option to consider. I love this helpful article, I'll tell her she can consult a trusted hybrid chestnut trees service in town as they can provide information about their trees.

39 - 184 - This is incredibly sad. We have lost so much….thank you…anyone who has protected this wonderful, God given tree.

38 - 65 - Wow! That was quite an ordeal.

38 - 124 - Amazing story! Growing up in the Antelope Valley (Edwards AFB's location), we heard of a great number of accidents as really smart and competent test pilots pushed the limits of technology. My dad knew one "sled driver" who flew sailplanes as a hobby!

37 - 61 - The Frost Fair sounds like fun.

37 - 62 - Interesting article. This is the first I've heard of " Frost Fair ".

37 - 63 - I imagine it would be a lot of fun. Spontaneous community events like this always have a unique feeling to them.

37 - 64 - It was definitely a special phenomenon in the history of England.

36 - 11 - Very informative article. I love watching the lady play the organ at church and have always wondered what's under the hood.

36 - 12 - A very interesting and informative article. I have often wondered what the stops were for. The history and description of operation answered many questions.Thankyou.

36 - 13 - Glad it could help Kim. There is certainly quite a bit going on inside of these beautiful machines.

36 - 79 - Very well thought out article. I ran a small organ shop for 40 years that built some major organs around the world - one in Toyota-shi Concert Hall with about 4000 pipes. I am now retired, but want to write a book to pass my thoughts on to future generations of organ builders. Could I borrow some of the historical information you put together as you have said so much with less words and really good. Thanks!

36 - 80 - Thanks for your kind words John. Yes please use whatever you feel would be useful, just reference this website as a source. The goal of this website is to simply pass on our history to future generations. So if I can help with your book at all please reach out to me. Use any of the images or references in this article if you think they would be useful.

36 - 87 - A most helpful article which has answered many questions The organ is fascinating and invaluable. It hasn’t yet replaced orchestras

36 - 88 - A very interesting article, but who squeezed the bellows? Was it done by boys and how many and would they have been building up the air pressure for a time before the organ was to be played?

36 - 89 - In all my research I found that a volunteer from the church would power the smaller organs. For larger organs someone was paid to pump the bellows. These larger ones would have 3 or more bellows.

36 - 96 - Liked it! Very useful

36 - 140 - The article mentions that Roman and Byzantine organs were made of bronze (copper + tin) pipes, but there's nothing mentioned about modern organs. Are they made of brass (copper + zinc)?

36 - 188 - Thanks for this great article

35 - 58 - Such an incredible voyage.

35 - 59 - you should write an article about cook's third voyage

35 - 60 - Its in the works, check back here in a few months. Glad you enjoyed this one.

34 - 54 - This article is a nice little gift for the upcoming Christmas season.

34 - 55 - The song touches my life day by day and I needed musical copy of the same (notation). Thanx

34 - 56 - thanks NOEL! I pick a theme for Christmas each year and this is it for 2019. Christmas is everyday - as Jesus is with us everyday, renewing us with his love! Noel! Maria

34 - 57 - Great choice! True that Jesus is with us every day, not only around Christmas. Merry Christmas Maria

33 - 52 - Nice article!!!

33 - 53 - Thank you! It was a lot of work but I think it turned out not half bad.

31 - 46 - This makes me curious as to why Christianty succeeded spreading predominately westward from its Roman epicenter, yet failed doing the same eastward. Any ideas?

31 - 47 - How does the basilica and its parts like the nav relate to the Christian ceremony?

31 - 48 - Hi! I'm an architecture student and I would like to know what are other examples of Early Christian Churches and also their parts (name of the rooms, space, etc.); I just wanted them as references for my future subjects :D Thanks a lot

31 - 49 - I would have to do some more research on the later years of Christianity, but I would say that Christianity did spread eastward. This was likely halted by the pushback of Islam in the seventh century. Egypt was as much of a Christian stronghold as Rome until the Muslim conquest in the seventh century.

31 - 50 - The Nave is a space specifically reserved for procession of the choir or acolytes from the entrance towards the front of the church. Church goers sit in pews on the outer sides of the nave. Next is the Transept, which is where a priest or minister gives the sermon. Above that and at the front of the sanctuary is the choir loft.

31 - 51 - I spent quite a bit of time researching the churches in this article and these were the oldest ones I could find. If I find more I will certainly add them to the article. See the comment above for a list of the separate rooms of a church. Thanks for reading and good luck to you in architecture school!

31 - 75 - Are there any other examples of early Christians of this time period translating roman civic buildings into their new society?

31 - 76 - Ben, the churches listed in this article are the earliest ones that I could find that were constructed originally for the specific purpose of housing Christian worship services. Other churches exist from this time period that were simply converted from the worship of Roman gods. The Temple d'Auguste et de Livie in France is one such example. So old Roman temples were converted to churches but there is very little evidence that Roman civic buildings were converted to churches.

31 - 90 - Hello, thank you for an intresting article. Would you recommend any online resources or books one could use to explore Christian Architecture space? I will appreciate your feedback.

31 - 91 - Monuments of the Early Church by Walter Lowrie was my main source for this article. You can read it here . Other than this book, there are very few sources available for architecture of the early church, so I had to look at individual churches and compare them to established architectural norms from the rest of society at the time. There are plenty of resources available for church architecture after 1000 AD, such as Britannica.

31 - 97 - hi,this is malar.thank you for your wonderful and helpfull article. i need an article about egptian civilization like this. did you have any idea about preparing it?

31 - 98 - Glad you enjoyed it Malar. I have not thought of looking into Egyptian architecture. But it would certainly be interesting to see if the architecture made some kind of progression as the centuries went on. I may look into that in the future, thanks for your suggestion!

31 - 101 - Hi, i enjoyed reading your post. I wanted to know in what period does Paleo-Christian architecture took place?

31 - 103 - Thanks! Paleo-Christian describes the time period before the Byzantine Era. This could be before the dedication of Constantinople in 330, or before the Age of Justinian in the 6th century.

31 - 105 - A roof is arguably the most important aspect of every house - it protects your property and those living in it. As time goes by, the structure or appearance of the roof may be damaged, and need repairs or maintenance. Contact our roofing experts today for a free, no-obligation appointment and estimate. https://www.stgeorgeroofing.com.au/

31 - 117 - Hi, thank you for all the historic information here. Please can you throw more light on how the church started under the trees and haw they transcended to church buildings. Thanks.

31 - 200 - One of the most iconic features of early Christian architecture is the basilica plan, characterized by a rectangular nave, side aisles, and an apse.

30 - 112 - Thank you for the story of 3 amazing musicians

30 - 113 - Thanks for reading David!

30 - 133 - beautiful story! i love her work and im so happy her storys getting told more and more

30 - 178 - I was watching the movie song of Love and I wanted to find out some different questions and this website popped up and I was mesmerized. I love this! Thank you for sharing this

30 - 179 - Thank you for reading! I have never seen that movie, thanks for recommending it.

30 - 190 - Wonderful story, on May 7th I am going to Toronto for the concert in memory of Brahms(it his birthday),very excited !

30 - 191 - That sounds amazing! I hope you enjoy the concert, thanks for reading.

30 - 212 - i first learnt it from my piano teacher,but i love this story,so i decided to search it up.Your web was the first to pop up, so i clicked in and discovered a lot more deeper in their relationship.Overall,i love your informational text!

30 - 213 - i first learnt it from my piano teacher,but i love this story,so i decided to search it up.Your web was the first to pop up, so i clicked in and discovered a lot more deeper in their relationship.Overall,i love your informational text!

29 - 44 - What a beautifully written and illustrated article.

29 - 45 - Thanks Paul. Its a lot of fun to put yourself in the shoes of people in the past, and try to see the Universe from their perspective.

29 - 104 - I enjoyed your paper very much. Thank you for writing it.

29 - 201 - Thanks for the wrintings please provide more coz i loved these ones.

28 - 42 - Makes one wonder: without horrific barbarism, would have global civilization expansion been delayed?

28 - 43 - The threat of unexpected attacks probably did motivate people to work together a little more for the purpose of defense. I would say that adversity of any kind betters individuals as well as civilization as a whole.

27 - 40 - Wowzers! I can't wait till the next solar eclipse!!!

27 - 41 - I loved your blog article. Really Cool. dkekkcedkdca

26 - 37 - This website really helped me when doing an assignment on James Cook! Thanks so much for the great information on here

26 - 38 - write an article about his third voyage as well

26 - 39 - Glad it could help Ben! I have an article about Cook's third voyage in the works so check back here in the future. Thanks for reading!

25 - 36 - Thank you Janet! I try to make these articles as short and concise as possible but most of the time they end up being so long because there's just so much to say. Glad to hear I accomplished those goals on this article and I'm glad you enjoyed it!

25 - 35 - Enjoyed your history of personal wealth. Quick, easy to read and understand and interesting! Looking forward to reading the other articles. Thank you for sharing Janet ( In California )

25 - 169 - Very nice… I really like your blog as well as website. Very useful information and worth reading. Thanks.

24 - 71 - Thank you for your summation of the Christmas Truce. I was searching for the hymn, "Dona Nobis", when I came across your article. Now I can share both historical items with my nine-year-old granddaughter who is very interested in what our soldiers have endured and done for us.

24 - 72 - Thank you for reading Susan. I'm happy to hear that younger people are interested in our ancestor's sacrifice for us. Its wonderful that you're taking the time to talk to her about these kinds of things, they are not easy to hear or completely understand. When she is older you could share another article I have regarding The Great War titled Western Civilization prior to World War I .

24 - 93 - I heard about this truce many years ago and just had to try and find the background. I have thought of this for many many years and it pulls at my heart strings every time I hear Silent Night. Nit being directly connected to Military I wonder, “do this truce still happen each year on Christmas Eve?” I sure hope it do. War is such a terrible thing. My wish is for everyone lot live in peace. What a wonderful world it would be.

24 - 214 - very cool article.

24 - 215 - Hi, why this passage

23 - 25 - Years ago we sang with a quire the song Dona Nobis. During that song I had to sing English text. The words were if I rember well If I had word... Do you happen to know where I can find this version of Dona Nobis. Gr, Frans Pennings Cuijk. Holland.

23 - 26 - If this is in reference to the Mozart traditional Dona Nobis Pacem that is commonly featured many times on U Tube etc, The one with 5 verses each of different melody. why can it not be found as a recording, cd or whatever for sale, anywhere. Do you know a source? John P. Thank you.

23 - 27 - lovely

23 - 28 - I live in a retirement village and am aged 80. Eight of us, with the aid of one who was a music teacher, are trying to learn Dona Nobis Pacem to sing at our village's annual variety concert - without an accompanist! Please wish us luck! :)

23 - 29 - 1. Snobbish attitude towards "folk Music) 2. Peace is welcomed all the year round, not only at Christmastime.

23 - 30 - Frans, If you are wanting to download the version on this page you should try this link below. They have three versions of the song there. If you are looking for a version of the text in another language please let me know and I will make a page with the text in that language for you. http://www.westminsterdayton.org/music/listen.html

23 - 31 - More like a distain for what is called "academic." I agree but the point still stands that it is sung more often around Christmastime.

23 - 32 - Good luck Margaret. Our Men's choir in Sydney sang another (non-Mozart) version of Pacem. Halfway through, we froze, and only slowly found our peace.

23 - 33 - Thank you, John. Hope we don't freeze, but then it's warmer up here in Brisbane. :)

23 - 34 - Good luck to you Margaret! Post a link to your performance if at all possible. This is a beautiful song and every rendition is unique.

23 - 92 - no

23 - 121 - I must say I'm really impressed by the nice write-up you have here. You actually did a great job, unlike most bloggers I've seen on the internet talking about this same topic. Just reading the first few paragraphs, I was already locked in the content. Bravo and keep up the good work. If you have the time, I would appreciate it if you could help me rate my blog .

23 - 127 - Thank you for providing this service! My husband and I are doing a concert at a retirement home tomorrow (voice and Ukrainian bandura) with a mixture of Ukrainian and other music,and I couldn't locate the sheet music to check what to say about this song's origins in the introduction. I typed Dona Nobis Pacem into Google, and boom, there was your article with exactly what I needed! 16th-17th century unknown German composer.

23 - 134 - Bach's "Dona Nobis Pacem" in his great B minor mass is as beautiful as music or man can get.

22 - 119 - not good

21 - 22 - Abd al Rahman needed just a little more patience. Islam would take over Europe. Sadly,the pride, heritage and national boundaries of these countries are disappearing.

21 - 23 - Damn i love history i hope i dont die soon so i can see the advancement of modern society.

21 - 24 - That does appear to be the case at the moment. But it is anyone's guess what the next era in history will be like.

21 - 82 - This is a great summary of the Battle of Tours. It amazes me that this great battle is not more known to western society. As you say in the final para "a major turning point in western civilisation" yet very few know it.

21 - 86 - Thanks Peter. I wish we were taught more history in general but especially events like this one. We all have an amazing story.

21 - 85 - If you do then make sure to write your experiences down somehow. People in the future will be very interested in your perspective.

21 - 114 - Tg

21 - 171 - Thanks, I love history and believe that it is important for us all to understand our past so that we can learn from our mistakes. This article gave me heaps of info. Thanks for being willing to take the time to help others learn about our past. It truly is amazing - Anonymous

19 - 18 - Thanks for an astute summary. I am currently reading Barbara Tuchman's book on this period "The Proud Tower". What an amazing era. Such hubris. Such arrogance. Unfortunately, as always those taking the risks and making idiot decisions did not pay the bill. In fact they became more wealthy out of the war. What do you thing the next period in world history will bring? At least today there is no irrational optimism about the future as at the end of the nineteenth century. Maybe that is a start?

19 - 19 - Very interesting and insightful. Perhaps an article on the Lost Generation would be a good companion piece. I believe WW2 broke out in 1939, not 1940 (unless one counts the Asian-Pacific theater in which hostilities began in 1937).

19 - 20 - The end of any era in history severely challenges a culture's values. If you were to question national pride or absolute duty to your country prior to WWI you would likely have been executed. This shows just how entrenched cultural values can be. That being said, any prediction of what the next era in our history will be would be offensive to just about anyone who read it. I will guess that a civil war in England will be the event at which historians in the future will determine as the marker for the end of the Modern Era. I tend to wish there was more irrational optimism about the future in our time. WWI was a tremendous event matched only by the 30 years war or the Plague in its destructiveness. Maybe quite a bit of our cultural energy was destroyed as a result of the Great War. Thank you for the book recommendation, I'll definitely give it a look.

19 - 21 - Thanks for the suggestion! I will add that to my list of future articles. The great thing about writing these is that in doing the research you find so many ideas for new articles. Fixed the date too, thank you RT.

19 - 136 - Hitler was not good!

19 - 173 - What is a troy a reference to?

18 - 17 - This explanation is an oft-repeated myth. The bedrock is deeper below the surface in the areas below Canal Street than it is in region from the Flatiron district up to 42nd between. See http://observer.com/2012/01/uncanny-valley-the-real-reason-there-are-no-skyscrapers-in-the-middle-of-manhattan/

18 - 198 - Engaging read! This post brilliantly unpacks the geological foundations of NYC, underpinning its architectural prowess. It's the unseen hero of the city's skyline.

17 - 70 - A very interesting piece of history.

17 - 73 - Glad you enjoyed it!

17 - 74 - Love reading history raise of christianity.

17 - 99 - wow! so interesting. helped so much!

17 - 100 - is this site credible?

17 - 102 - It is as credible as the available source material. I list all references on each article. If you have a different perspective please feel free to email me or leave a comment. Thanks for reading!

17 - 107 - Thanks for this information. This helped me a lot! :D

17 - 108 - Thanks for this information. This helped me a lot! :D

17 - 111 - HI

17 - 115 - Very interesting information. How the living religion, Christianity has spread around the world like this miracle is an open proof that JESUS is living and He changes lives and a help in times of helplessness.

17 - 118 - Constantine was a jerk

17 - 120 - thanks

17 - 139 - Very nice article I am a student and this helped me learn a lot in the 6th grade!

17 - 144 - Very Good!

17 - 142 - Very interesting about his conversion to Christianity

17 - 143 - learning heaps

17 - 146 - Interesting

17 - 147 - Constantine is a very interesting bloke. Thanks to all the chaps at Classic History!

17 - 148 - thanks

17 - 156 - This is a great resource of knowledge for my kindergarteners!!!

17 - 158 - Thanks Ian! I'm happy it has helped!

17 - 159 - I love this cite! very credible 10/10 great resource for some fun reading!

17 - 175 - love it !!!

17 - 185 - i dont like this cause it didnt talk about MLK

17 - 206 - ????????????

17 - 205 - stupid

17 - 202 - You are so fake. There is no god. Shut up, just, shut up!

17 - 207 - Very good

17 - 211 - All thanks to Jesus,for his mercy

17 - 216 - this app is so amazing it js makes me want to slap eian

16 - 16 - Meine Mutter war eine geborene Bach.Besteht Event.eine Verbindung zu Johann Sebastian?Ich wurde es unbedingt wissen wollen .Irgend wo ist mir das ubermittelt worden.Bitte helfen Sie mir.Danke im Voraus-

15 - 182 - I'd like to use the above graphic as a sidebar to an upcoming equinox post at EarthSky. My article informs the reader of the intriguing fact that the tip of a shadow stick (gnomon) follows a straight (west-to-east) path on the day of an equinox. If given permission, I plan to credit the graphic to Classic History and to provide a link to this Eratosthenes page. Thank you for your consideration!

15 - 183 - Bruce, Yes please feel free to use anything you want so long as you reference this website as a source. Here is a slightly larger resolution image. Thanks for reading!

13 - 166 - Please include date of publication as I am trying to cite this article for school

12 - 10 - I was intrigued by Origin of Romanticism, how it changed its meaning over in a short span of time. From its lovers escapade into beautiful spots of nature to non- tangent expression of emotion and dramatism. thank you very much for this insight. grateful - sheera Betnag

12 - 69 - And wonder how it might change in the future as well. Glad you enjoyed the article and thank you for reading Sheera.

12 - 150 - This post was truly worthwhile to read. I wanted to say thank you for the key points you have pointed out as they are enlightening.

12 - 208 - As a Chinese, I've got the origin of romance! Thank u a lot.

9 - 0 - test'

5 - 151 - how should i reference this website?

5 - 153 - You could use Source: www.ClassicHistory.net Author: Thomas Acreman

4 - 7 - Keep on writing, great job!

4 - 8 - Congratulations. Agrees with the Welsh versions I was taught at school in the 1930s and 40s and what I read and gathered afterwards. I am now interested in finding out how much effect would 350 year of Roman rule have had on the Britons and why was it that the Romano Britons were so complacent and lax to be overtaken by the pagan immigrant settlers from Saxony in c400B.C.

4 - 9 - Thanks so much! I plan to keep on writing for years. My goal is to write at least one article per month.

4 - 78 - Thanks Gordon. I should have read my own title, where it was named Britain.

4 - 77 - "The island nation currently known as England?!" That's funny; I live here, and we call it Great Britain.

4 - 131 - Misspellings: "every forrest and hillside" (forest) "the furry of battle" (fury) "He employed them all to weather their captivity with bravery and courage, and to be strong men and women" (implored? impelled?) "an ivory thrown" (throne)

4 - 132 - Thanks JD. This is one of the first articles I wrote for this website and I really need to rewrite it.

4 - 167 - This story does, at least, acknowledge that the tale of Julius Caesar conquering Britain is not true! JC was ejected more than once. It was Cartimandua who betrayed Caradoc.. in the time of Claudius. BTW… No celts in Britain which was named for Brutus, grandson of Anaeas of Troy. Anaeas also features in the story of the founding of Rome. I.e., the peoples were related. The Cymry were not ‘primitive’!

3 - 1 - I love visiting the cross but, there's one thing that drives me nuts. Vietnam was not a war it was an armed conflict, not one of the 5 presidents that were in office during this time [1945 to 1972] did NOT declare war on the Viet Cong nor on North Vietnam.

3 - 3 - Are small weddings allowed Infront of the cross ?

3 - 4 - What camera was used here?

3 - 2 - Indeed, but the purpose of the cross is to remember those who answered their call to service and how much better the world is for their sacrifice. To that goal I think the cross does a fine job.

3 - 5 - I am not affiliated with Sewanee in any way but yes, I have seen a wedding there. It looked very peaceful and beautiful. There is a link to their website on this page which would be a good place to look for a contact number for the University.

3 - 6 - I believe I just used an old iPhone 4s for both of these photos.

3 - 109 - Why are those who severed in the Civil War not memorialized as well?

3 - 110 - Because the cross was originally built to memorialize those who served and died in World War I. Plaques were only added for those who served in wars after WWI. It was ultimately decided that the cross would only serve as a memorial for those who served and died in wars during the 20th century. From The University of the South: "Sewanee’s Memorial Cross honors the students and alumni of the University of the South and the Sewanee Military Academy and the citizens of Franklin County who fought and those who lost their lives in service to their country in the wars of the last century."

3 - 161 - Can someone in a wheelchair be able to get to the cross fairly easy?

3 - 162 - Yes, parking is available at the cross and the walkway to the cross is only slightly uphill.

2 - 0 - Nice article. The lake actually rarely freezes and only enough to walk on less than once every 10 years and only for a few days. In 2006 it was 29 days but otherwise it is clear and the ferries run year round.

-1 - 66 - Thanks for sharing your thoughts on History. Regards

-1 - 67 - I enjoyed your article on Charles Martel. Thank you for maintaining this beautiful site!

-1 - 68 - Thank you! I enjoyed researching and writing that one too. Thanks for reading and Merry Christmas.

-1 - 193 - Thanks very much for this mentally engaging, attention-grabbing articles. This content is right up mu intellectual alley, and I'll be a regular frequenter.

-100024 - 106 - test comment!! ©

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The Last Voyage of Captain James Cook

A Brief History

On July 12, 1776, famous explorer English Captain James Cook set sail from Plymouth on what was to be his final voyage.  The premier English explorer of the Pacific, Cook had taken voyages from 1768-1771 and 1772-1775, greatly expanding British knowledge of the Pacific, its islands, aits people.  Cook’s third voyage would take the route around Africa to the Indian Ocean and on to the Pacific.

Digging Deeper

Captain Cook was given the task of returning a young man named Omai (Mai in his native language) to his homeland of the island of Raiatea, one of the Society Islands near Tahiti.  The British expedition included the HMS Resolution under the command of Captain Cook, and the HMS Discovery under the command of Captain Charles Clerke, with Cook in overall command.  Returning Omai to his native island was the public reason for the trip, though the main reason Cook and his ships had been sent to the Pacific was to search for a Northwest passage, a navigable water route across the top (North) of North America which would provide a greatly abbreviated route to the Pacific from Europe rather than going around the Southernmost tip of South America or the Southernmost tip of Africa.

Captain Cooks first Pacific voyage (he was just Lieutenant Cook then) took him 3 years and circled the globe.  He became the first European to visit what is now New Zealand since Abel Tasman went ashore there an astounding 127 years earlier!  That visit did not go well for the native Maori people, with the British leaving at least 5 of the natives dead.  The purpose of this voyage was to chart the path of the planet Venus and to ascertain if there was indeed a large land mass in the area of what we now know as Australia, and indeed, Cook and his crew became the first known Europeans to land at Australia.  His ship for that first voyage was a converted collier (coal hauler) renamed the Endeavor . The ship was tiny by modern standards only 106 feet long and 28 feet wide, with a displacement of only 368 tons.  She was armed with a dozen swivel guns and 10 four pound cannons.  Intended for exploration and landing on exotic shores, the ship was also equipped with 3 boats and provisioned with the necessities of a sea voyage, namely 17 barrels of rum, 44 barrels of brandy and 250 barrels of beer!  Cook and friends returned to England to a heroes’ welcome 3 years later, with rumors of the ship and men having been lost at sea or sunk by the French giving the English folk a nice surprise when Endeavor showed up with its crew intact.

Cook’s second voyage also circumnavigated the globe, taking him around New Zealand and the East coast of Australia where he charted the lands down under.  Another notable achievement of Cook’s second voyage was his sailing past the Antarctic circle, the first known Europeans to have gone South of that latitude.  This second voyage was a 2 ship affair, with the Resolution and the Adventure making up the little fleet.  Resolution was slightly bigger than Endeavor and marginally better armed, with 6 pounder guns instead of Endeavor’s 4 pounders.  A main goal of this second voyage was to determine the presence or absence of a fabled land called Terra Australis Incognita, not to be confused with what we call Australia.  (There was no such land found.)  Another accomplishment of the second voyage was navigational advances using a new type of chronometer.  The success of the second voyage earned Cook a promotion to Captain.

Now a renowned explorer, Cook was dispatched on his third voyage to explore more of the Pacific and hopefully discover a Northwest Passage around the Northern coast of North America.  Unfortunately for James Cook, not only was the search for the Northwest Passage a failure, but the Captain was also killed in a battle with native Hawaiians on the Big Island of Hawaii in February of 1779.  His crew returned to England via the Westerly route through the Indian Ocean and around Africa back to Great Britain, arriving home in October of 1780, almost 3 and a half years after the voyage began.  Upon the death of Captain Cook, Charles Clerke assumed command, but he also died during the voyage in August of 1779, from the insidious enemy, tuberculosis.  Command then reverted to John Gore, a British naval officer from the Virginia Colony in North America.  Gore stayed loyal to the Crown when the American colonies, including Virginia, declared independence in 1776. (Gore died in 1790 having circumnavigated the globe a total of 4 times during his naval career.)

The encounter that led to the death of Captain Cook concerned the Hawaiians stealing one of Cook’s small boats, a not uncommon occurrence when dealing with Pacific Islanders during the 18 th Century voyages of discovery.  Normally, the British would take natives and hold them hostage under the British property was returned, but this time Cook made the mistake of seizing the Hawaiian king as his hostage, evoking a violent response by the natives.  Hawaiian legend has it that Cook was killed personally by a chieftain named Kalanimanokahoowaha.  (Say that 3 times fast!)

When the Resolution and Discovery made it back to the British Isles in October of 1780, they were blown past England and ended up in the Orkney Islands of Northern Scotland!  News of the deaths of Cook and Clerke had preceded the arrival of the ships, and this time the welcome was somewhat restrained.

The voyages of James Cook and his intrepid sailors and the journals compiled by Cook and others expanded the European knowledge of the Pacific and its lands and peoples.  James Cook goes down in history as one of the great explorers in the Age of Discovery.

Question for students (and subscribers): Who is your favorite explorer and why?  Please let us know in the comments section below this article.

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Historical Evidence

For more information, please see…

Dugard, Martin.  Farther Than Any Man: The Rise and Fall of Captain James Cook . Washington Square Press, 2002.

Hough, Richard. Captain James Cook: A Biography . W. W. Norton & Company

The featured image in this article, the Death of Captain Cook by John Webber (–1793), is in the  public domain  in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the  copyright term  is the author’s  life plus 100 years or fewer .

Major Dan is a retired veteran of the United States Marine Corps. He served during the Cold War and has traveled to many countries around the world. Prior to his military service, he graduated from Cleveland State University, having majored in sociology. Following his military service, he worked as a police officer eventually earning the rank of captain prior to his retirement.

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James Cook and his voyages

The son of a farm labourer, James Cook (1728–1779) was born at Marton in Yorkshire. In 1747 he was apprenticed to James Walker, a shipowner and master mariner of Whitby, and for several years sailed in colliers in the North Sea, English Channel, Irish Sea and Baltic Sea. In 1755 he volunteered for service in the Royal Navy and was appointed an able seaman on HMS Eagle . Within two years he was promoted to the rank of master and in 1758 he sailed to North America on HMS Pembroke . His surveys of the St Lawrence River, in the weeks before the capture of Quebec, established his reputation as an outstanding surveyor. In 1763 the Admiralty gave him the task of surveying the coast of Newfoundland and southern Labrador. He spent four years on HMS Grenville , recording harbours and headlands, shoals and rocks, and also observed an eclipse of the sun in 1766.

First voyage

In May 1768 Cook was promoted to the rank of lieutenant and given command of the bark Endeavour . He was instructed to sail to Tahiti to observe the transit of Venus in 1769 and also to ascertain whether a continent existed in the southern latitudes of the Pacific Ocean. The expedition, which included a party of scientists and artists led by Joseph Banks, left Plymouth in August 1768 and sailed to Brazil and around Cape Horn, reaching Tahiti in April 1769. After the astronomical observations were completed, Cook sailed south to 40°S, but failed to find any land. He then headed for New Zealand, which he circumnavigated, establishing that there were two principal islands. From New Zealand he sailed to New Holland, which he first sighted in April 1770. He charted the eastern coast, naming prominent landmarks and collecting many botanical specimens at Botany Bay. The expedition nearly ended in disaster when the Endeavour struck the Great Barrier Reef, but it was eventually dislodged and was careened and repaired at Endeavour River. From there it sailed around Cape York through Torres Strait to Batavia, in the Dutch East Indies. In Batavia and on the last leg of the voyage one-third of the crew died of malaria and dysentery. Cook and the other survivors finally reached England in July 1771.

Second voyage

In 1772 Cook, who had been promoted to the rank of captain, led a new expedition to settle once and for all the speculative existence of the Great Southern Continent by ‘prosecuting your discoveries as near to the South Pole as possible’. The sloops Resolution and Adventure , the latter commanded by Tobias Furneaux, left Sheerness in June 1772 and sailed to Cape Town. The ships became separated in the southern Indian Ocean and the Adventure sailed along the southern and eastern coasts of Van Diemen’s Land before reuniting with the Resolution at Queen Charlotte Sound in New Zealand. The ships explored the Society and Friendly Islands before they again became separated in October 1773. The Adventure sailed to New Zealand, where 10 of the crew were killed by Maori, and returned to England in June 1774. The Resolution sailed south from New Zealand, crossing the Antarctic Circle and reaching 71°10’S, further south than any ship had been before. It then traversed the southern Pacific Ocean, visiting Easter Island, Tahiti, the Friendly Islands, New Hebrides, New Caledonia, Norfolk Island and New Zealand. In November 1774 Cook began the homeward voyage, sailing to Chile, Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego, South Georgia and Cape Town. The expedition reached England in July 1775.

Third voyage

A year later Cook left Plymouth on an expedition to search for the North West Passage. His two ships were HMS Resolution and Discovery , the latter commanded by Charles Clerke. They sailed to Cape Town, Kerguelen Island in the southern Indian Ocean, Adventure Bay in Van Diemen’s Land, and Queen Charlotte Sound in New Zealand. They then revisited the Friendly and Society Islands. Sailing northwards, Cook became the first European to travel to the Hawaiian Islands (which he named the Sandwich Islands), and reached the North American coast in March 1778. The ships followed the coast northwards to Alaska and the Bering Strait and reached 70°44’N, before being driven back by ice. They returned to the Sandwich Islands and on 14 February 1779 Cook was killed by Hawaiians at Kealakekua Bay. Clerke took over the command and in the summer of 1779 the expedition again tried unsuccessfully to penetrate the pack ice beyond Bering Strait. Clerke died in August 1779 and John Gore and James King commanded the ships on the voyage home via Macao and Cape Town. They reached London in October 1780.

Acquisition

The earliest acquisitions by the Library of original works concerning Cook’s voyages were the papers of Sir Joseph Banks and a painting of John Webber, which were acquired from E.A. Petherick in 1909. In 1923 the Australian Government purchased at a Sotheby’s sale in London the Endeavour journal of James Cook, together with four other Cook documents that had been in the possession of the Bolckow family in Yorkshire. The manuscripts of Alexander Home were purchased from the Museum Bookstore in London in 1925, while the journal of James Burney was received with the Ferguson Collection in 1970. A facsimile copy of the journal of the Resolution in 1772–75 was presented by Queen Elizabeth II in 1954.

The 18 crayon drawings of South Sea Islanders by William Hodges were presented to the Library by the British Admiralty in 1939. They had previously been in the possession of Greenwich Hospital. The view from Point Venus by Hodges was bought at a Christie’s sale in 1979. The paintings of William Ellis were part of the Nan Kivell Collection, with the exception of the view of Adventure Bay, which was bought from Hordern House in Sydney in 1993. The painting of the death of Cook by George Carter and most of the paintings of John Webber were also acquired from Rex Nan Kivell. The painting by John Mortimer was bequeathed to the Library by Dame Merlyn Myer and was received in 1987.

Description

Manuscripts.

The Endeavour journal of James Cook (MS 1) is the most famous item in the Library’s collections. It has been the centrepiece of many exhibitions ever since its acquisition in 1923, and in 2001 it became the first Australian item to be included on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO’s) Memory of the World Register. While there are other journals of the first voyage that are partly in Cook’s hand, MS 1 is the only journal that is entirely written by Cook and covers the whole voyage of the Endeavour . The early entries in 1768, as the ship crossed the Atlantic Ocean, are brief but the passages describing Cook’s experiences and impressions in Tahiti, New Zealand and New South Wales in 1769–70 are very detailed. The journal, which is 753 pages in length, was originally a series of paper volumes and loose sheets, but they were bound into a single volume in the late nineteenth century. The current binding of oak and pigskin dates from 1976.

Two other manuscripts, also acquired in 1923, relate to the first voyage. The Endeavour letterbook (MS 2), in the hand of Cook’s clerk, Richard Orton, contains copies of Cook’s correspondence with the Admiralty and the various branches of the Navy Board. Of particular importance are the original and additional secret instructions that he received from the Lords of the Admiralty in July 1768. The other item (MS 3) is a log of the voyage, ending with the arrival in Batavia. The writer is not known, although it may have been Charles Green, the astronomer. Other documents concerning the voyage are among the papers of Joseph Banks (MS 9), including his letters to the Viceroy of Brazil in 1768 and the ‘Hints’ of the Earl of Morton, the president of the Royal Society.

The Library holds a facsimile copy (MS 1153) of the journal of HMS Resolution on the second voyage, the original of which is in the National Maritime Museum in London. It is in the hand of Cook’s clerk, William Dawson. It also holds the journal (MS 3244) of James Burney, a midshipman on HMS Adventure , covering the first part of the voyage in 1772–73. It includes a map of eastern Van Diemen’s Land and Burney’s transcription of Tongan music. In addition, there is a letterbook (MS 6) of the Resolution for both the second and third voyages. Documents of the third voyage include an account of the death of Cook (MS 8), probably dictated by Burney, and two manuscripts of Alexander Home (MS 690). They contain descriptions of Tahiti and Kamtschatka and another account of Cook’s death.

The earliest manuscript of Cook in the collection is his description of the coast of Nova Scotia, with two maps of Harbour Grace and Carbonere, dating from 1762 (MS 5). The Library holds original letters of Cook written to John Harrison, George Perry, Sir Philip Stephens and the Commissioners of Victualling. There is also in the Nan Kivell Collection a group of papers and letters of the Cook family, 1776–1926 (MS 4263).

MS 1 Journal of the H.M.S. Endeavour, 1768-1771

MS 2 Cook's voyage 1768-71 : copies of correspondence, etc. 1768-1771

MS 3 Log of H.M.S. Endeavour, 1768-1770

MS 5 Description of the sea coast of Nova Scotia, 1762

MS 6 Letterbook, 1771-1778

MS 8 Account of the death of James Cook, 1779

MS 9 Papers of Sir Joseph Banks, 1745-1923

MS 690 Home, Alexander, Journals, 1777-1779

MS 1153 Journal of H.M.S. Resolution, 1772-1775

MS 3244 Burney, James, Journal, 1772-1773

MS 4263 Family papers 1776-1926

Many records relating to the voyages of Cook have been microfilmed at the National Archives (formerly the Public Record Office) in London and other archives and libraries in Britain. They include the official log of HMS Endeavour and the private journals kept by Cook on his second and third voyages. The reels with the prefixes PRO or M were filmed by the Australian Joint Copying Project.

mfm PRO 3268 Letters of Capt. James Cook to the Admiralty, 1768–79 (Adm. 1/1609-12)

mfm PRO 1550–51 Captain’s log books, HMS Adventure , 1772–74 (Adm. 51/4521-24)

mfm PRO 1554 Captain’s log books, HMS Discovery , 1776–79 (Adm. 51/ 4528-9)

mfm PRO 1554 Captain’s log books, HMS Resolution , 1779 (Adm. 51/4529)

mfm PRO 1555–6 Captain’s log books, HMS Discovery , 1776–79 (Adm. 51/4530-1)

mfm PRO 1561–3 Captain’s log books, HMS Endeavour , 1768–71 (Adm. 51/4545-8)

mfm PRO 1565–70 Captain’s log books, HMS Resolution , 1771–79 (Adm. 51/4553-61)

mfm PRO 1572 Logbooks, HMS Adventure , 1772–74 (Adm. 53/1)

mfm PRO 1575–6 Logbooks, HMS Discovery , 1776–79 (Adm. 53/20-24)

mfm PRO 1580 Logbooks, HMS Endeavour , 1768–71 (Adm. 53/39-41)

mfm PRO 1590–4 Logbooks, HMS Resolution , 1771–80 (Adm. 53/103-24)

mfm PRO 1756 Logbook, HMS Adventure , 1772–74 (BL 44)

mfm PRO 1756 Observations made on board HMS Adventure , 1772–74 (BL 45)

mfm PRO 1756A Logbook, HMS Resolution , 1772–75 (BL 46)

mfm PRO 1756 Observations made on board HMS Resolution , 1772–75 (BL 47)

mfm PRO 1756 Journal of Capt. J. Cook: observations on variations in compass and chronometer rates, 1776 (BL 48)

mfm PRO 1756 Astronomical observations, HMS Resolution , 1778–80 (BL 49)

mfm PRO 4461–2 Ship’s musters, HMS Endeavour , 1768–71 (Adm. 12/8569)

mfm PRO 4462–3 Ship’s musters, HMS Adventure , 1769–74 (Adm. 12/7550)

mfm PRO 4463–4 Ship’s musters, HMS Resolution , 1771–75 (Adm. 12/7672)

mfm PRO 4464 Ship’s musters, HMS Discovery , 1776–80 (Adm. 12/8013)

mfm PRO 4464–5 Ship’s musters, HMS Resolution , 1776–80 (Adm. 12/9048-9)

mfm PRO 6119 Deptford Yard letterbooks, 1765-78 (Adm. 106/3315-8)

MAP mfm M 406 Charts and tracings of Australian and New Zealand coastlines by R. Pickersgill and Capt. James Cook, 1769–70 (Hydrographic Department)

mfm M 869 Letters of David Samwell, 1773–82 (Liverpool City Libraries)

mfm M 1561 Log of HMS Endeavour , 1768–71 (British Library)

mfm M 1562 Journal of Capt. Tobias Furneaux on HMS Adventure , 1772–74 (British Library)

mfm M1563 Drawings of William Hodges on voyage of HMS Resolution , 1772–74 (British Library)

mfm M 1564 Log of Lieut. Charles Clerke on HMS Resolution , 1772–75 (British Library)

mfm M 1565 Journal of Lieut. James Burney on HMS Discovery , 1776–79 (British Library)

mfm M 1566 Journal of Thomas Edgar on HMS Discovery , 1776–79

mfm M 1580 Journal of Capt. James Cook on HMS Resolution , 1771–74 (British Library)

mfm M 1580–1 Journal of Capt. James Cook on HMS Resolution , 1776–79 (British Library)

mfm M 1583 Journal of David Samwell on HMS Resolution and Discovery , 1776–79 (British Library)

mfm M 2662 Correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks, 1768–1819 (Natural History Museum)

mfm M 3038 Letters of Capt. James Cook, 1775–77 (National Maritime Museum)

mfm M 3074 Drafts of Capt. James Cook’s account of his second voyage (National Maritime Museum)

mfm G 9 Journal of voyage of HMS Endeavour , 1768–71 (National Maritime Museum)

mfm G 13 Journal of voyage of HMS Resolution , 1772–75 (National Maritime Museum)

mfm G 27412 Journal of Capt. James Cook on HMS Endeavour , 1768–70 (Mitchell Library)

The only manuscript maps drawn by Cook held in the Library are the two maps of Halifax Harbour, Nova Scotia, contained in MS 5. The map by James Burney of Van Diemen’s Land, contained in his 1773–74 journal, is the only manuscript map in the Library emanating from Cook’s three Pacific voyages.

On the first voyage most of the surveys were carried out by Cook himself, assisted by Robert Molyneux, the master, and Richard Pickersgill, the master’s mate. Cook produced some of the fair charts, but it seems that most were drawn by Isaac Smith, one of the midshipmen. After the voyage the larger charts were engraved by William Whitchurch and a number of engravers worked on the smaller maps. The Library holds nine maps (six sheets) and five coastal views (one sheet) published in 1773, as well as two French maps of New Zealand and New South Wales based on Cook’s discoveries (1774).

Cook and Pickersgill, who had been promoted to lieutenant, carried out most of the surveys on the second voyage. Others were performed by Joseph Gilbert, master of the Resolution , Peter Fannin, master of the Adventure , the astronomer William Wales and James Burney. Isaac Smith, the master’s mate, again drew most of the fair charts of the voyage and William Whitchurch again did most of the engravings. The Library holds 15 maps (10 sheets) published in 1777.

On the third voyage, Cook seems to have produced very few charts. Most of the surveys were carried out by William Bligh, master of the Resolution , and Thomas Edgar, master of the Discovery . Henry Roberts, the master’s mate and a competent artist, made the fair charts and after the voyage he drew the compilation charts from which the engraved plates were produced. Alexander Dalrymple supervised the engravings. The Library holds five maps and five coastal views published in 1784–86.

The Library holds a number of objects that allegedly belonged to Cook, such as a walking stick, a clothes brush and a fork. A more substantial artefact is a mahogany and rosewood fall-front desk that was believed to have been used by Cook on one of his voyages. Other association items are a compass, protractor, ruler and spirit level owned by Alexander Hood, the master’s mate on HMS Resolution in 1772–75.

Three of the medals issued by the Royal Society in 1784 to commemorate the achievements of Cook are held in the Library. Another medal issued in 1823 to commemorate his voyages is also held.

The Library has several collections of tapa cloth, including a piece of cloth and two reed maps brought back by Alexander Hood in 1774 and a catalogue of 56 specimens of cloth collected on Cook’s three voyages (1787).

Captain James Cook's walking stick

Clothes brush said to have been the property of Captain Cook

Captain James Cook's fork

Mahogany fall-front bureau believed to have been used by Captain Cook

Compass, protractor, ruler and spirit level owned by Alexander Hood

Commemorative medal to celebrate the voyages of Captain James Cook (1784)

Medal to commemorate the voyages of Captain Cook (1823)

Sample of tapa cloth and two reed mats brought back by Alex Hood

A catalogue of the different specimens of cloth collected in the three voyages of Captain Cook

The Library holds a very large number of engraved portraits of James Cook, many of them based on the paintings by Nathaniel Dance, William Hodges and John Webber. It also holds two oil portraits by unknown artists, one being a copy of the portrait by Dance held in the National Maritime Museum in London. Of special interest is a large oil painting by John Mortimer, possibly painted in 1771, depicting Daniel Solander, Joseph Banks, James Cook, John Hawkesworth and Lord Sandwich.

There were two artists on the Endeavour : Alexander Buchan, who died in Tahiti in 1769, and Sydney Parkinson, who died in Batavia in 1771. The Library has a few original works that have been attributed to Parkinson, in particular a watercolour of breadfruit, which is in the Nan Kivell Collection. In addition, there are a number of prints that were reproduced in the publications of Hawkesworth and Parkinson in 1773, including the interior of a Tahitian house, the fort at Point Venus, a view of Matavai Bay, Maori warriors and war canoes, mountainous country on the west coast of New Zealand, and a view of Endeavour River.

William Hodges was the artist on the Resolution in 1772–75. The Library holds an outstanding collection of 18 chalk drawings by Hodges of the heads of Pacific Islanders. They depict men and women of New Zealand, Tahiti, Tonga, New Caledonia, New Hebrides and Easter Island. Other works by Hodges include an oil painting of a dodo and a red parakeet, watercolours of Tahiti, Tonga and the New Hebrides, and an oil painting of Point Venus. There are also two pen and wash drawings of the Resolution by John Elliott, who was a midshipman on the ship. Among the prints of Hodges are other heads of Pacific Islanders, a portrait of Omai, the Tahitian who visited England in 1775–76, and views of Tahiti, New Caledonia, New Hebrides, Norfolk Island, Easter Island and Tierra del Fuego.

John Webber, who was on the Resolution in 1776–80, had been trained as a landscape artist in Berne and Paris. Another artist on the expedition was William Ellis, the surgeon’s mate on the Discovery , who was a fine draughtsman. The Library holds 19 of Webber’s watercolours, ink and wash drawings, crayon drawings and pencil drawings of views in Tahiti, the Friendly Islands, the Sandwich Islands, Alaska and Kamchatka. There are also oil portraits by Webber of John Gore and James King. Ellis is equally well represented, with 23 watercolours, ink drawings and pencil drawings of scenes in Kerguelen Island, New Zealand, Tahiti, Nootka Sound, Alaska and Kamchatka. Of particular interest is a watercolour and ink drawing by Ellis of the Resolution and Discovery moored in Adventure Bay in 1777, the earliest original Australian work in the Pictures Collection. The death of Cook is the subject of the largest oil painting in the Library’s collection, painted by George Carter in 1781.

Omai, the first Polynesian to be seen in London, was the subject of a number of portraits, included a celebrated painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds. The Library has a pencil drawing of Omai by Reynolds. A pantomime by John O’Keefe entitled Omai, or a Trip Round the World , enjoyed great success in London in 1785–86, being played more than 50 times. The Library holds a collection of 17 watercolour costume designs for the pantomime, drawn by Philippe de Loutherbourg and based mainly on drawings by Webber. The subjects include ‘Obereyaee enchatress’, ‘Otoo King of Otaheite’, ‘a chief of Tchutzki’ and ‘a Kamtchadale’.

Publications

Bibliography.

Beddie,M.K. (ed.), Bibliography of Captain James Cook, R,N., F.R.S., circumnavigator , Library of New South Wales, Sydney, 1970.

Original Accounts of the Voyages

Hawkesworth, John, An account of the voyages undertaken by the order of His Present Majesty, for making discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere, and successively performed by Commodore Byron, Captain Wallis, Captain Carteret, and Captain Cook, in the Dolphin, the Swallow, and the Endeavour (3 vols, 1773)

Parkinson, Sydney, A journal of the voyage to the South Seas, in His Majesty’s Ship, the Endeavour (1773)

Marra, John, Journal of the Resolution’s Voyage, in 1772, 1773, 1774, and 1775, on Discovery to the Southern Hemisphere (1775)

Cook, James, A voyage towards the South Pole, and round the world: performed in His Majesty’s Ships the Resolution and the Adventure in the years 1772,1773, 1774, and 1775 (2 vols, 1777)

Forster, Georg, A voyage round the world in His Britannic Majesty’s Sloop, Resolution, Commanded by Capt. James Cook, during the years 1772, 3, 4 and 5 (2 vols, 1777)

Wales, William, The original astronomical observations, made in the course of a voyage towards the South Pole, and round the world (1777)

Rickman, John, Journal of Captain Cook’s last voyage to the Pacific Ocean, on discovery: performed in the years 1776, 1777, 1778, and 1779 (1781)

Zimmermann, Heinrich, Heinrich Zimmermanns von Wissloch in der Pfalz, Reise um die Welt, mit Capitain Cook (1781)

Ellis, William, An authentic narrative of a voyage performed by Captain Cook and Captain Clerke, in His Majesty’s ships Resolution and Discovery during the years 1776, 1777, 1778, 1779, and 1780 (2 vols, 1782)

Ledyard, John, Journal of Captain Cook’s last voyage to the Pacific Ocean, and in quest of a North-West Passage Between Asia & America, performed in the years 1776, 1777, 1778 and 1779 (1783)

Cook, James and King, James, A voyage to the Pacific Ocean: undertaken by Command of His Majesty, for making discoveries in the Northern Hemisphere, performed under the direction of Captains Cook, Clerke, and Gore, in the years 1776, 1777, 1778, 1779, and 1780 (4 vols, 1784)

Sparrman, Anders, Reise nach dem Vorgebirge der guten Hoffnung, den sudlischen Polarlandern und um die Welt (1784)

Modern Texts

Beaglehole, J.C. (ed.), The Endeavour journal of Joseph Banks, 1768–1771 (2 vols, 1962)

Beaglehole, J.C. (ed.), The journals of Captain James Cook on his voyages of discovery (4 vols, 1955–74)

David, Andrew (ed.), The charts & coastal Views of Captain Cook’s voyages (3 vols, 1988–97)

Hooper, Beverley (ed.), With Captain James Cook in the Antarctic and Pacific: the private journal of James Burney, Second Lieutenant on the Adventure on Cook’s second voyage, 1772–1773 (1975)

Joppien, Rudiger and Smith, Bernard, The art of Captain Cook’s voyages (3 vols in 4, 1985–87)

Parkin, Ray, H.M. Bark Endeavour: her place in Australian history: with an account of her construction, crew and equipment and a narrative of her voyage on the East Coast of New Holland in 1770 (1997)

Biographical Works and Related Studies

There are a huge number of books and pamphlets on the lives of Cook, Banks and their associates. The following are some of the more substantial works:

Alexander, Michael, Omai, noble savage (1977)

Beaglehole, J.C., The life of Captain James Cook (1974)

Besant, Walter, Captain Cook (1890)

Blainey, Geoffrey,  Sea of dangers: Captain Cook and his rivals  (2008)

Cameron, Hector, Sir Joseph Banks, K.B., P.R.S.: the autocrat of the philosophers (1952)

Carr, D.J., Sydney Parkinson, artist of Cook’s Endeavour voyage (1983)

Carter, Harold B., Sir Joseph Banks, 1743–1820 (1988)

Collingridge, Vanessa, Captain Cook: obsession and betrayal in the New World (2002)

Connaughton, Richard, Omai, the Prince who never was (2005)

Dugard, Martin, Farther than any man: the rise and fall of Captain James Cook (2001)

Duyker, Edward, Nature’s argonaut: Daniel Solander 1733–1782: naturalist and voyager with Cook and Banks (1998)

Furneaux, Rupert, Tobias Furneaux, circumnavigator (1960)

Gascoigne, John, Captain Cook: voyager between worlds (2007)

Hoare, Michael E., The tactless philosopher: Johann Reinhold Forster (1729–98) (1976)

Hough, Richard, Captain James Cook: a biography (1994)

Kippis, Andrew, The life of Captain James Cook (1788)

Kitson, Arthur, Captain James Cook, RN, FRS, the circumnavigator (1907)

Lyte, Charles, Sir Joseph Banks: 18th Century explorer, botanist and entrepreneur (1980)

McAleer, John and Rigby, Nigel, Captain Cook and the Pacific: art, exploration & empire (2017)

McCormick, E.H., Omai: Pacific envoy (1977)

McLynn, Frank, Captain Cook: master of the seas (2011)

Molony, John N., Captain James Cook: claiming the Great South Land (2016)

Moore, Peter, Endeavour: the ship and the attitude that changed the world (2018)

Mundle, Rob, Cook (2013)

Nugent, Maria, Captain Cook was here (2009)

Obeyesekere, Gananath, The apotheosis of Captain Cook: European mythmaking in the Pacific (1992)

O’Brian, Patrick, Joseph Banks, a life (1987)

Rienits, Rex and Rienits, Thea, The voyages of Captain Cook , 1968)

Robson, John, Captain Cook's war and peace: the Royal Navy years 1755-1768 (2009)

Sahlins, Marshall, How ‘natives’ think: about Captain Cook, for example (1995)

Saine, Thomas P., Georg Forster (1972)

Smith, Edward, The life of Sir Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society (1911)

Thomas, Nicholas, Cook: The extraordinary voyages of Captain James Cook (2003)

Villiers, Alan, Captain Cook, the seamen’s seaman: a study of the great discoverer (1967).

Organisation

The manuscripts of Cook and his associates are held in the Manuscripts Collection at various locations. They have been catalogued individually. Some of them have been microfilmed, such as the Endeavour journal (mfm G27412), the Endeavour log and letterbook (mfm G3921) and the Resolution letterbook (mfm G3758). The Endeavour journal and letterbook and the papers of Sir Joseph Banks have been digitised and are accessible on the Library’s website. The microfilms have also been catalogued individually and are accessible in the Newspaper and Microcopy Reading Room.

The paintings, drawings, prints and objects are held in the Pictures Collection, while the maps and published coastal views are held in the Maps Collection. They have been catalogued individually and many of them have been digitised.

Biskup, Peter, Captain Cook’s Endeavour Journal and Australian Libraries: A Study in Institutional One-upmanship , Australian Academic and Research Libraries , vol. 18 (3), September 1987, pp. 137–49.

Cook & Omai: The Cult of the South Seas , National Library of Australia, Canberra, 2001.

Dening, Greg, MS 1 Cook, J. Holograph Journal , in Cochrane, Peter (ed.), Remarkable Occurrences: The National Library of Australia’s First 100 Years 1901–2001 , National Library of Australia, Canberra, 2001.

Healy, Annette, The Endeavour Journal 1768–71 , National Library of Australia, Canberra, 1997.

Healy, Annette, ' Charting the voyager of the Endeavour journal ', National Library of Australia News, volume 7(3), December 1996, pp 9-12

Hetherington, Michelle, 'John Hamilton Mortimer and the discovery of Captain Cook', British Art Journal, volume 4 (1), 2003, pp. 69-77

First posted 2008 (revised 2019)

The National Library of Australia acknowledges Australia’s First Nations Peoples – the First Australians – as the Traditional Owners and Custodians of this land and gives respect to the Elders – past and present – and through them to all Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Cultural Notification

Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are advised that this website contains a range of material which may be considered culturally sensitive including the records of people who have passed away.

James Cook : Biographie, voyages, découvertes, ce qu'il faut savoir sur l'explorateur

James Cook était un navigateur, cartographe et explorateur britannique. Devenu capitaine de la Royal Navy, il est connu en tant que premier Européen à débarquer sur la côte Est de l’Australie. James Cook est le premier navigateur à avoir cartographié la Nouvelle-Zélande et la Terre-Neuve.

Biographie :

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Naissance : 7 Novembre 1728

Mort : 14 Février 1779

Après avoir passé la plus grande partie de son enfance à la ferme de son père dont il aidait la gestion, il décide vers l’âge de 17 ans d’affirmer son indépendance et devint employé chez William Sanderson, une épicerie - mercerie à Staithes, un village de pêcheurs. Un an plus tard, Cook s’engage pour 7 années avec les Quakers John & Henri Walker, dans la marine marchande , sur leur flotte où il travaillera au cabotage, entre la Tyne et Londres. Cook profite de ses années de commerce du charbon en mer afin d’étudier les mathématiques , la trigonométrie , la navigation et l’ astronomie . Il monte rapidement en grade et devient second au commandement du Friendship en 1755.

Une année plus tard, il s’engage dans la Marine royale alors que la Grande-Bretagne est en préparation à la future guerre de Sept Ans. Cook est alors recruté en tant que « mousse » à bord du HMS Eagle (bateau de guerre), sous le commandement du capitaine Hugh Palliser, mais devient rapidement second maître d’équipage. Deux années plus tard, James Cook réussit son examen de Maîtrise, lui permettant d’accéder aux commandes d’un navire de la flotte royale.

En 1758, au cours de la guerre, Cook se montre particulièrement doué pour la cartographie et topographie lors du siège de la ville de Québec, de part son étude du fleuve Saint-Laurent qui permettra au général James Wolfe d’établir une stratégie gagnante, et d’attaquer les plaines d’Abraham en 1759.

En 1762, alors que la guerre est presque terminée, Cook épouse Elisabeth Batts alors âgée de 21 ans. Le couple aura donné naissance à six enfants, dont un seul, l’aîné, est parvenu à l’âge adulte. Il mourra néanmoins à 31 ans. Les années suivantes, Cook ayant été rappelé pour poursuivre ses relevés cartographiques à Terre-Neuve, il y passa ses étés pendant cinq ans, et ses hivers en Angleterre afin de terminer ses cartes. En 1768, après l’obtention de son premier commandement, il quitte le Canada et part mener sa première expédition.

Le premier voyage de James Cook dure trois années (1768-1771) et débute à bord du HMB Endeavour , où il se verra chargé par la Royal Society d’explorer l’océan Pacifique sud. Le 13 avril 1769, Cook débarque à Tahiti où il fera construire un observatoire en prévision du transit de Vénus, ayant pour but principal de mesurer la distance séparant cette dernière du Soleil. Le manque de précision des résultats obtenus a marqué l’arrêt de ces observations. James Cook poursuit sa mission et part à la recherche d’un continent austral hypothétique qu’il ne trouvera pas, conformément à ses doutes concernant l’existence de cette terre.

Avec l’aide d’un Tahitien nommé Tupaia , il atteignit cette même année la Nouvelle-Zélande en tant que Second Européen à y avoir débarqué. Il cartographie l’intégralité des côtes du pays, et nomme un détroit séparant l’île du Sud de l’île du Nord après lui: le détroit de Cook.

Le navigateur change de cap pour l’ouest en direction de la Tasmanie (appelée à l’époque Terre de Van Diemen , après le nom du gouverneur général des Indes néerlandaises). Cook y découvrit la côte sud-est du continent australien, qu’il nomma Point Hicks. James Cook mit environ une année pour explorer le territoire allant de Botany Bay (Sydney) à Cooktown.

Cook reprend son expédition, toujours à bord de l’ Endeavour , et s’engage dans le détroit de Torres. Sa traversée permit au navigateur de prouver que l’ Australie et la Nouvelle-Guinée sont deux territoires distincts. Il débarque sur l’île de la Possession le 22 août 1770, où il revendique la totalité du territoire côtier qu’il vient d’explorer, pour le compte de la Couronne Britannique . Il accoste par la suite à Batavia pour effectuer quelques réparations, capitale des Indes néerlandaises, mais également foyer de malaria. Sur la route du retour au pays, la maladie fut la cause de décès de plusieurs membres de son équipage, qui jusqu’ici avait échappé au scorbut grâce à des précautions alimentaires anticipées de James Cook .

Le 12 Juin 1771, James Cook et son équipage sont de retour en Grande-Bretagne.

Dès son retour, le navigateur est promu Capitaine de frégate ( commander ) et se voit chargé d’une seconde expédition (1772-1775) par les membres de la Royal Society, persuadés qu’il existe un continent austral plus grand que les estimations de Cook sur la taille de l’Australie. La mission « Terra Australis Incognita » débute en 1772, et fut dotée de deux navires : Resolution , commandé par Cook, et Adventure , par Tobias Furneaux (officier de la Marine Royale , et premier homme à avoir effectué le tour du monde dans les deux sens), équipés d’un chronomètre capable de calculer précisément la longitude.

L’expédition descend très au Sud, jusqu’au cercle polaire Antarctique , en Janvier 1773. Sur sa route, Cook découvre la Géorgie du Sud et les îles Sandwich du Sud. Les conditions météorologiques de l’Antarctique perturbent le voyage et les deux bateaux se perdent de vue. Furneaux décide de retourner vers la Nouvelle-Zélande où il perdit une dizaine d’hommes de son équipage dans une bataille contre les Maori, et repart pour la Grande-Bretagne. De son côté, notre navigateur continue d’explorer la zone Antarctique pour remonter vers l’île de Pâques, les îles Marquises, la Nouvelle-Calédonie et les îles Sandwich. James Cook renomma au passage l’Archipel des Grandes Cyclades (de Bougainville) pour les Nouvelles-Zébrides .

Le 19 mars 1775, James Cook se rendit au Cap de Bonne espérance pour y effectuer quelques réparations, avant de rentrer en Angleterre en passant par St Hélène et les Açores.

Il conclut son rapport d’expédition sur la non-existence de la terre australe.

A son retour, l’ explorateur est promu captain (officier supérieur de la Marine Royale), devient membre de la Royal Society se voit décerner la médaille Copley (la plus ancienne et la plus prestigieuse récompense de la Royal Society), et se fait qualifier du « plus grand navigateur d’Europe » par le Parlement.

Pour sa dernière expédition (1776-1779), James Cook commande de nouveau le Resolution , et Charles Clerke ( navigateur britannique, fidèle aux deux premières expéditions) s’est vu confié le commandement du Discovery .

Il fit une première escale de réapprovisionnement à Ténérife (une des îles constituant l’archipel des Canaries), puis change de cap direction Tahiti afin d’y ramener Omai (un tohunga ayant participé à la deuxième expédition de Cook). L’exploration commence aux îles Kerguelen , qu’il avait cherché en vain lors de son premier voyage. Il y accoste le jour de Noël 1776, mais ces terres, désertiques, n’ont retenu le navigateur que peu de temps. Deuxième escale en Nouvelle-Zélande, permettant à Omai de retrouver sa terre, puis l’ explorateur met le cap au nord, où il découvrira la veille de Noël 1777 l’île Christmas (en Equateur) et devient le premier européen à accoster aux îles Hawaï en 1778.

Il se dirige par la suite vers le Détroit de Béring qui se révéla infranchissable malgré plusieurs tentatives, de part les glaces qui obstruaient le passage même en plein mois d’août. Redescente sur Hawaï pour les deux navires, où l’équipage reçoit un très bon accueil. Cook devient la personnification du dieu de la paix Lono de part son arrivée concordant avec la saison de Makahiki ( censée correspondre à son règne ) ainsi que son statut de chef d’exploration. L’ explorateur y reste environ un mois puis reprend sa route mais se voit très rapidement contraint de rebrousser chemin pour effectuer des réparations aux navires. Il décide de retourner à Hawaï où l’atmosphère s’avéra cette fois conflictuelle. La saison de Lono étant terminée pour laisser place à celle du dieu de la guerre Ku , les Hawaïens voient le retour de Cook comme un déséquilibre du monde. Après des vols et bagarres à répétition, un conflit éclate entre les indigènes et les Britanniques le 14 février 1779. Cook s’interposant entre les deux camps se fait battre à mort par les habitants de l’île, qui par la même, voulaient prouver la non immortalité de l’ explorateur et donc leur erreur de jugement sur sa divinité. Plusieurs hypothèses sont alors émises, certaines indiquant l’immolation du corps par les prêtres de l’île, d’autres tendent vers un épisode de cannibalisme… L’équipage aurait récupéré quelques restes pour les inhumer en mer dans le rituel des honneurs militaires avant de reprendre la route vers l’Angleterre, en passant de nouveau par le détroit de Béring, une ultime tentative, en vain.

Discovery et Resolution accostent en Grande-Bretagne le 4 octobre 1780.

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Histoire : James Cook l'explorateur du Pacifique

Époque moderne

question réponse

Courageux, leader ambitieux et humaniste dans l’âme, doté d’un grand sens marin, doué pour la cartographie, James Cook incarne l’idée de l’explorateur au XVIII e siècle bravant et dépassant les limites. Le récit des observations de ce capitaine de la Royal Navy fut précieux pour enrichir les connaissances sur l'océan Pacifique.

au sommaire

Au XVIII e siècle, le grand  navigateur navigateur  explorateur est certainement incarné par l'Anglais James Cook (1728-1779) : cartographe et hydrographe, il débute sa carrière dans la marine royale britannique en 1755. Pendant la guerre de Sept Ans et le siège de Québec , il cartographie l'embouchure du Saint-Laurent, Terre-Neuve et les côtes du Labrador.

Nommé commandant de l' Endeavour Endeavour en 1768, il va acquérir un prestige considérable en se consacrant à trois expéditions successives dans l'océan Pacifique, au cours desquelles il effectue le tour complet de la Nouvelle Zélande, explore la côte est de l'Australie, tente d'approcher le continent antarctique antarctique , étudie l'île de Pâques et découvre les îles Hawaï.

Premier voyage (1768-1771)

Commandité par la Royal Society de Londres, le premier voyage de James Cook a pour but d'observer à Tahiti , le passage de la planète Vénus Vénus sur le disque du Soleil, phénomène très rare prévu pour le 3 juin 1769. Parti de Plymouth en août 1768, le navire Endeavour  traverse l'Atlantique, passe le Cap Horn et atteint Tahiti en avril 1769. Cook y fait construire un observatoire dans le but de recueillir des mesures permettant de déterminer avec précision la distance séparant Vénus du Soleil.

Les instructions pour la seconde partie de son voyage concernent la recherche de la mythique Terra Australis  inconnue (le continent Antarctique). La Royal Society est persuadée de son existence et la couronne britannique espère y faire flotter l'Union Jack ! En septembre 1769, l'expédition atteint la Nouvelle Zélande  : James Cook est le deuxième explorateur à visiter l'île après sa découverte par Abel Tasman en 1642. Il en établit une carte exceptionnellement précise, qui montre qu'elle comprend deux îles séparées par un détroit qui porte porte aujourd'hui son nom.

Sur le chemin du retour, il explore la côte orientale de la Nouvelle Hollande (Australie) où les scientifiques anglais découvrent les kangourous kangourous et une grande quantité d' espèces espèces animales nouvelles, dans une baie baptisée Botany Bay . La Grande Bretagne choisira ce site pour y établir la première colonie britannique d'Australie. En poursuivant vers le nord, le long de la côte australienne, l'Endeavour évite de justesse un naufrage sur la Grande Barrière de corail , en juin 1770.

Après sept semaines de réparation à l'embouchure de l' Endeavour River , le navire prend la route maritime de l'Ouest et entre dans le port de Batavia (Indonésie), siège de la Compagnie des Indes orientales néerlandaises, en octobre 1770. Puis, il double le Cap de Bonne Espérance en mars 1771 et rejoint l'Angleterre en juin. La publication du journal de l'expédition rend James Cook très populaire au sein de la communauté scientifique britannique.

Deuxième voyage (1772-1775)

Très satisfaite des conclusions de la première expédition, la Royal Society demande à Cook de se rendre à nouveau dans le Pacifique , à la recherche du continent austral. Le deuxième voyage va détruire pour un temps le mythe de la terre australe inconnue. Deux navires participent à l'expédition : le Resolution et l' Adventure . L'acquisition d'un nouveau chronomètre chronomètre de marine va permettre le calcul précis de la longitude longitude .

Le cercle polaire cercle polaire antarctique est franchi le 17 janvier 1773 et la latitude latitude de 71°10' (sud) est atteinte. Les deux bateaux se perdent de vue dans le brouillard brouillard de l’Antarctique et l' Adventure met le cap sur la Nouvelle-Zélande, avant de repartir pour la Grande Bretagne. Cook poursuit son exploration de la zone Antarctique et frôle le continent sans l'apercevoir ; personne n'est encore jamais allé aussi loin vers le sud.

Cook en conclut que la grande terre australe tant recherchée n'existe pas. Sur le chemin du retour, il effectue une halte à l’île de Pâques (Rapa Nui), découverte par le navigateur hollandais Jakob Roggeveen, le dimanche de Pâques 1722. Cook est le premier à tenter de percer l'énigme des statues gigantesques : son séjour sur l'île en mars 1774, fournit des informations essentielles sur la constitution géologique, la végétation, la population et pose de nombreuses questions sur les statues déjà renversées par les Hommes ou par un séisme séisme .

Troisième voyage (1776-1779)

Pour son troisième voyage, James Cook tente de trouver le passage du nord-ouest entre Atlantique et Pacifique. L'expédition comprend encore deux navires : le Resolution et le Discovery Discovery . L'exploration commence par les îles Kerguelen à Noël 1776, et se poursuit par un détour en Nouvelle Zélande. Puis, Cook met le cap au Nord, découvre l'île Christmas à Noël 1777 (Kiribati, Pacifique nord) et accoste aux îles Hawaï (ou îles Sandwich) en 1778.

Les navires suivent les côtes du continent américain : dans son journal, James Cook décrit les tribus indiennes de Vancouver, les côtes d'Alaska, les îles Aléoutiennes et les rives du détroit de Béring . Après plusieurs tentatives, le détroit de Béring reste infranchissable en raison des glaces qui l'obstruent même en plein mois d'août.

Une escale fatale aux îles Sandwich en février 1779, met fin à la vie du grand navigateur : une altercation éclate avec les habitants, Cook est frappé à la tête, battu puis, les Hawaïens enlèvent son corps. Des hypothèses controversées font état d'une possible consommation humaine ; l'équipage récupère les restes de leur capitaine pour l'inhumer en mer avec les honneurs militaires.

C'est James Cook lui-même qui a baptisé les îles « Sandwich » en l'honneur d'un comte anglais du même nom ! Il n'est certainement pas le premier Européen à y poser le pied : en effet durant le XVI e siècle, des navigateurs espagnols, néerlandais et portugais sillonnent déjà le Pacifique. Les îles Hawaï sont peut-être découvertes en 1527 par des navigateurs espagnols envoyés par Cortés .

James Cook a consacré plus de dix années à naviguer dans l'océan Pacifique et ses voyages ont apporté énormément de connaissances sur cette région du globe aux Européens. Il a découvert plusieurs îles, cartographié d'immenses portions de côtes, permis le calcul précis de la longitude. L'une des conséquences des explorations de Cook est la colonisation de l'Australie par la Couronne britannique et l'installation d'un lieu de déportation à Botany Bay . En 1788, les premiers déportés vont y croiser le Français,  Jean-François de La Pérouse , et son équipage. Ils seront aussi les derniers à le voir vivant.

par Isabelle Bernier

le 30 mai 2019

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• Qu'est-ce que "soleil" signifie ?

'The Wide Wide Sea' revisits Capt. James Cook's fateful final voyage

DAVE DAVIES, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies.

You may remember the story of the Apollo 13 mission to the moon, when an explosion in the spacecraft of three astronauts forced them to summon the courage, focus and ingenuity to rescue the situation and return home safely. That story came to me often as I read the latest book by our guest, historian Hampton Sides. It's about an 18th-century sea voyage around the world, led by Captain James Cook, an explorer so accomplished that in the 1770s his was a household name in England.

Sides' book is an account of what it took for a ship full of men to sail for months in uncharted waters with only what they had on board to survive, how they coped with hunger, thirst, disease and weather so fierce it could snap a ship's mast in two and still found ways to keep going. It's a tale of fearless exploration, which greatly expanded our understanding of the world's geography. And it's a story of remarkable encounters with Indigenous people, some of whom had never seen Europeans before. All such encounters were unique and most friendly, but one rooted in deep cultural gaps and misunderstandings would lead to a tragic outcome remembered for centuries.

Hampton Sides is a contributing editor to Outside magazine and a historian who's written five previous books on subjects ranging from the exploration of the American West to the Korean War. His latest is "The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact And The Fateful Final Voyage Of Captain James Cook."

Hampton Sides, welcome back to FRESH AIR.

HAMPTON SIDES: Yeah, it's a real pleasure to be back with you.

DAVIES: Let's just begin by giving you a bit of a thumbnail profile of James Cook. What was he known for back in the 1770s?

SIDES: Captain Cook was arguably one of the greatest explorers of all time - you know, the quality of his observations, the sheer number of nautical miles that he traveled, the incredible volumes that emanated from his voyages with beautiful art and descriptions of flora and fauna never before seen by Europeans. He had three voyages around the world, any one of which would have put him on the map and put him in the pantheon of great explorers like Magellan. But there was just a kind of a probity and a kind of almost scientific approach that he applied to his voyages that was unusual for his time.

And, you know, I think you would describe him as a product of the Enlightenment, someone who - yes, of course he understood he was working for the empire. He was working to advance the aims of the crown of England and the admiralty. But he also was a citizen of the world who knew that he was supposed to publish. He was supposed to describe objectively what he saw. And he was supposed to contribute to the global knowledge of the makeup of the planet - what does it look like? How does it look on a map? Who are these people that he was encountering? - and to try to describe them fairly and fully and without a lot of, you know, the typical stuff that you would see prior to his generation where it's like, they're savages. They're heathens. He was - he really approached it in a very different manner.

DAVIES: And what was his style as a commander?

SIDES: His style?

DAVIES: His personality...

SIDES: OK. So this was an age...

DAVIES: ....His approach - you know, we think of these...

SIDES: Yeah.

DAVIES: ...You know, commanding a ship - tough guys, right?

SIDES: Especially in his age. I mean, they were tyrants. They were - it was master and commander. They were absolutely in control of their ships. And so many of the British captains - and, for that matter, almost all the other European captains - were brutal tyrants. Cook, in that context, was quite - at least during his first two voyages, quite lenient, quite tolerant, quite concerned about ship conditions and hygiene and diet, very worried about scurvy and other diseases and had a kind of scientific approach to how to deal with diseases. He seemed to kind of have an almost intuitive understanding of germ theory, cleanliness, all these kinds of things.

Now, I'm not trying to say that he was a soft guy. He was stern and dour and tough and, you know, it was not - you know, he would dole out the discipline. But he was also mindful of the morale of his men. And for those first two voyages, you see a very different captain from his generation.

The third voyage, he begins to change, and you start to see a temper come out and a - just an absolute inflexibility. He starts to apply the lash to his own men and to treat some of the Native folks that he encounters along the way with increasing severity and cruelty. And so it's caused a lot of people to wonder, well, what's up with Cook in this third voyage? What - does he have a parasite? Is there some kind of mental or even spiritual problem that he's dealing with? Is he just simply exhausted from all the hundreds of thousands of miles he's traveled? It's one of the kind of forensic questions that comes up repeatedly in my book - is what's ailing the captain?

DAVIES: You mentioned scurvy. You know, scurvy was a disease, which is caused by a lack of vitamin C, I guess, which could kill up to half of - you know, a half of a crew on many voyages. He had a remarkable record on this - right? - by - I think on his last voyage, which was more than four years, not a single sailor died from scurvy.

SIDES: Yeah, and this was unheard of. Any voyage over a couple of hundred days, men started to drop like flies from scurvy. It was just kind of considered an occupational hazard of long-distance voyaging that most European navies seemed to be willing to tolerate, even though it was so horrendous, such a horrific way to die. Cook seemed to have figured it out, but he didn't really know precisely what was doing the trick. He had all kinds of weird things on board his ship that were supposed to be anti-scorbutic, meaning, you know, combating scurvy.

But what he fundamentally did understand was that eating fresh vegetables, fresh fruit and even fresh meat as opposed to just the constant typical diet of salt, pork and hardtack biscuits - that something in that was the trick, you know, that fresh stuff that he always had his men out hunting and fishing and gathering vegetables and berries and things like that. And that was a major factor. You know, it was only - you know, it was, what, a couple hundred years later before we definitively understood that it was actually vitamin C - a lack of vitamin C.

So when he comes back from his first and then his second voyage without anyone dying of scurvy, people at the admiralty - people at the Royal Society in London - think he's conquered this horrible malady. He hasn't exactly conquered it. He has figured something out. It will take generations before they absolutely figure it out. But - so he's hailed as a hero for this accomplishment.

DAVIES: There are so many writings from not just Captain Cook - he kept journals - but from other members of the crew. Some of them were quite literate. It's sort of remarkable that was - they wrote - a lot to draw on here, wasn't there?

SIDES: Yeah. You know, I think that by the time Cook went out on his third voyage, you know, so many people wanted to be a part of these voyages. They understood that this was a great captain and something interesting was going to happen. And so a lot of really interesting officers came aboard the ship, and they all kept journals. They wrote very well. Captain Cook wrote well but in a kind of stodgy, very emotionless way. But there were some other officers on board who just wrote beautiful, beautiful accounts of things, like, you know, our first detailed description of tattooing, of surfing, of a human sacrifice that was performed on Tahiti - these sorts of things. And I definitely view this story as an ensemble story, not just Cook's account but all these officers on board who wrote their own journals. Sometimes they were approved journals. Other times they were kind of done under the table and published without the approval of the admiralty. But it's a kind of an embarrassment of riches, all the different accounts that I had to draw from and to sort of triangulate them and to come up with this three-dimensional account.

DAVIES: You know, it's interesting - Cook's third voyage, which is the subject of your book, begins in July of 1776, which, you know, Americans will note coincides with another big moment on this side of the Atlantic, right? That's when the colonies declared independence from Great Britain. And a lot of attention was focused on the war in America, which, as you write it, meant that his ship didn't get quite the care it should have when they were preparing it for the voyage. The kind of caulking and reinforcing of the ship was done poorly. What impact did that have?

SIDES: It had a huge impact, because the Resolution was leaking like a sieve much of the voyage. It seemed like - this is a ship that had just returned from Cook's second voyage, so it was a tired ship, captained by a tired captain, and it seemed like a lot of things started going wrong from the very beginning because of - the shipwrights at Deptford had been focused much more on this war that's brewing in the colonies. And they leave.

And as you mentioned, in July of 1776, just as the American Revolution is getting started, it's interesting that, although this is very much a British story with a British captain, it's also very much an American tale, because so much of the action ends up in the present-day United States, whether you're talking about Hawaii or Oregon, Washington, Alaska. They're exploring the Northwest coast of North America just as the revolution is getting started. And by the time they return to England, the revolution is basically over, and it's a whole new world.

DAVIES: So Cook was a famous mapmaker and seaman. He'd done two around-the-world voyages. He didn't want to do another one, but he was kind of talked into it. King George III wanted it. And the Earl of Sandwich - the guy known for inventing the sandwich, who was...

DAVIES: ...In the Admiralty, wanted him to - Cook to command another expedition. What were the goals? What did they want him to do in this round-the-world trek?

SIDES: Well, the British had been obsessed for a long time with the idea of finding the - what they called the Northwest Passage - a shortcut over North America between the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean - for trade reasons, for reasons of commerce. But at a certain point, it had become kind of a geographical obsession. And every time they poked into the pinched geography of Canada, they found ice, right?

So this time, the idea was go around to the other side, to the Pacific side, go up through the Bering Strait - which we had some very vague ideas about because of Bering's voyages - and to try to find that Northwest Passage from the Pacific side - the backside of America, as the English called it. It was one of the holy grails of British geography and exploration. And if Cook could have found this elusive Northwest Passage, it would have been the crowning achievement of his career. This was such a tantalizing voyage, with such huge ambitions and rewards behind it, that he decided, oh, I'll go back out.

DAVIES: Let's take a break here. Let me reintroduce you. We are speaking with Hampton Sides. His book is "The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact And The Fateful Final Voyage Of Captain James Cook." We'll continue our conversation in just a moment. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF GOGOL BORDELLO SONG, “NOT A CRIME”)

DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. And we're speaking with historian Hampton Sides, whose new book is a gripping account of an 18th-century round-the-world sea voyage led by British Captain James Cook. You know, many of the fascinating stories in this book - and there are a lot of them - involve these two ships in Cook's expedition, you know, dropping anchor on an island and interacting with Indigenous people. You open the book with one of them. This was in January 1778, where he visits Kauai, which is in the Hawaiian Island chain. And there's some - you know, some accounts from Hawaiian historians about what the people ashore thought when these two, you know, tall, masted ships showed up. How did they react? What did they think when they saw this?

SIDES: They worried that their world was forever changed. There was a sense of exhilaration and terror and rapture. They talked about maybe these are manta rays that have emerged from the sea. Maybe they are gods. That does come up, even at Kauai, that idea that these may be manifestations of the god Lono, which will come up later in the story. They could tell instantly that these were very different people.

And what they most were fascinated by was all the metal that was on board the ship. They could see it gleaming in the sunlight. It was a substance that they had a very, very faint knowledge of only because some pieces of driftwood had landed on Kauai with - you know, sometimes with nails in it. And they understood this was a magical substance. And they wanted a piece of it and very quickly started to tear the ship apart, trying to get at the nails and any other piece of metal they could find. But they understood this was a new world. This was a new people. And it was very - the initial greeting was quite peaceful, but things escalated in a hurry. A hothead officer fired a musket and killed a Hawaiian man. And things went downhill very quickly.

DAVIES: Now, you write in that case that these were not people who had seen Europeans before, and they mistook their garments for their skin and the tricorn hats for their - for the shape of their heads.

SIDES: Yeah. They thought they had deformed heads that - you know, three-point heads. And they had never seen pockets before and thought, you know, look, they stick their hands into their bodies and they come out with treasure. And there's a lot of really bizarre and wonderful oral history that was done by some Hawaiian - Native Hawaiian historians about these reactions. They didn't understand smoking, and when they saw these white men smoking, they thought they were - they called them the volcano people because they seemed to just be constantly seething smoke.

DAVIES: Yeah. You know, it's kind of as close as you could get to imagining what it would be like for Martians landing on Earth, I guess, if you see someone that - with no preparation...

DAVIES: ...And no context, to see something in these vessels with those garments and all that. You know, you write that Cook's attitude towards and descriptions of the Indigenous folks he encountered was very different from other European explorers, right? More tolerant...

SIDES: I think, you know...

DAVIES: ...More curious?

SIDES: ...I call him a proto-anthropologist. He certainly had no training in that regard, but he was interested in getting it down in a very level and kind of agnostic treatment of just, like, this is what they wear. This is how they converse. This is what the rituals look like. He never tries to convert them to Christian faith, never uses the word heathen or savage, to my recollection, so yeah, he's unique in that regard, and some of that he had learned from his first voyage. A famous scientist, Joseph Banks, was on that ship, and he had learned a little of the language of, you know, science, I guess you would say, and language of the enlightenment. But he was quite fair in his assessment of these people, I think.

DAVIES: And what would be his approach when first going ashore? I mean, you know, one might think, I better bring, you know, he had a platoon of marines onboard with - who were armed with muskets. Do you bring them? Do you bring one or two? Do you go by yourself? Did he have a standard approach?

SIDES: Most of the time, he would march ashore unarmed. He liked to be the first one ashore. He had this kind of, what I call, a minuet of first contact, this sort of dance that he did with the locals, where he, you know, yes, it's probably dangerous, but if I look them in the eye and, you know, present myself in - as a peaceful person, maybe they won't kill me. And it was a dangerous and, some people thought, reckless way of going about things, but he would - yes, there would be marines waiting in the wings, but he would usually be the first one ashore. And so I guess you could say that's very brave, or you could say it's perhaps hubristic and reckless.

DAVIES: Right. And he would sometimes have someone who spoke some Polynesian languages onboard, so there might be some basis for communication. It seems, You know, and it's interesting, because there are so many of these accounts in the books, including tribes that are up in the Arctic. There's the Hawaiian islands, there's, you know, around Tahiti and Tasmania and New Zealand, and it seems that in every case, the Indigenous folks are quickly ready to engage in commerce, barter, trade. They want some things, and not always the same things.

SIDES: Not always the same things, but, there's, you know, that was always the first question was what Cook was interested in when he landed on an island was, can I get some water? Can I get some timber? Can I get some food? And so what am I going to trade with? And one of the things they would trade with, the blacksmiths would generate crude tools and chisels and knives, and they would give these as gifts. Another time, they accumulated a bunch of red feathers on Tonga, the island of Tonga, and found that in some of the islands, red feathers were like gold, considered as valuable as gold. So - but, you know, the native people were also very intrigued by Cook's instruments, partly 'cause they were made out of metal, but things like sextants and quadrants and astronomical gear, and would often be tempted to steal this stuff, not knowing precisely what it did, but perhaps thinking that it had something to do with the heavens and perhaps the gods. So every island, the economy, the barter trade was a little bit different from the next one.

DAVIES: Let's take another break here and we'll talk some more.

We are speaking with Hampton Sides. His new book is "The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, The First Contact And The Fateful Final Voyage Of Captain James Cook" (ph). He'll be back to talk more after this short break. I'm Dave Davies, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LEAVING OF LIVERPOOL")

SHANE MACGOWAN: (Singing) Fare thee well to Prince's Landing Stage. There were many fare thee wells. I am bound for California, a place I know right well. So fare thee well, my own true love. When I return, united we will be. It's not the leaving of Liverpool that grieves me, but, my darling, when I think of thee. Oh, and I have shipped upon it once before. I think I know it well. The captain's name is Burgess, and I've...

DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies. We're speaking with historian Hampton Sides, whose new book is a gripping account of an 18th century round-the-world sea voyage led by British captain James Cook. The journey took him and his crew above the Arctic Circle north of Alaska looking for a water passage through North America, and they explored many islands in Hawaii in the South Pacific, having memorable encounters with Indigenous people, including one that would prove deadly for the explorers. Sides' book is "The Wide, Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact And The Fateful Final Voyage Of Captain James Cook."

So let's talk a bit about what an overseas voyage was like in the, you know, 1750s or 1770s when this happened. The main ship he was on was called the Resolution. There was a companionship, the Discovery. The Resolution was 110ft long. That's 37 yards long. About, you know, a middling pass in the NFL. That's the distance. And roughly a hundred men aboard. They might go months without landfall. They had to carry all the water. I mean, well, what kinds of supplies would you have to pack to know that you could go exploring uncharted waters and stay alive?

SIDES: Yeah. It certainly wasn't a Carnival cruise. People were suffering and, you know, living in cramped quarters and swinging in hammocks and dealing with bad food, dealing with the discipline of the ship, obviously and the closeness, the claustrophobic closeness of being with the same group of guys for so long.

DAVIES: How did cook, and his sailors, for that matter, communicate with the locals?

SIDES: A lot of grunting. A lot of gesticulating. A lot of pidgin Polynesian, which many of the men did learn along the way because the language, although it varied from island to island, was largely the same throughout the South Seas, at least. And they communicated mainly through bartering and expressions on their face. It was, you know, certainly true that whatever the men were understanding was only a fraction of what was really going on. And that's a big part of when you're dealing with the documents, you're trying to sift through all this and try to realize well, only getting, you know, sort of the unreliable narrator thing. We're only getting a part of the real story. But, you know, you just try to do the best you can with the documents that you have to work with.

DAVIES: You know, there's one fascinating figure here who was on Cook's voyage, or much of it, who was not an Englishman. He was a Polynesian man named Mai, who had joined Cook's second voyage, was interested in joining the Navy, did so, became a seaman, and then goes to England, where he becomes kind of a celebrity, this Polynesian guy. Tells us something about his experience.

SIDES: Mai was amazing. He was the first Polynesian man to set foot on English soil, and he very quickly became a celebrity. He learned English. He hung out at the estates of the aristocracy. He learned to hunt and, you know, he learned to play backgammon and chess. And he met with the Royal Society. He met with King George. He met with Samuel Johnson and all the sort of intelligentsia of the times. And England just fell in love with this guy. He was the personification of, as they put it, the noble savage. He had a wonderful smile. He had a wonderful - he was a very handsome guy that - quite popular with the ladies. And he had a two-year period of London where they really rolled out the red carpet for him.

And - but then the king, King George, said, we're going to take you home. We've got to find a way to get you home. And that ended up being errand number one on Captain Cook's third voyage, which is to bring him home, bring Mai home to Tahiti with his belongings and with a bunch of animals, and ensconce him back in his home island, partly for his own good, but also because they wanted to sort of show Tahitian society how great England was and all these belongings that they had given him. They wanted to impress the Tahitian society that, you know, England was the best, better than Spain, better than France. So that's a big part of the voyage and a big part of the - really, a big part of the book.

DAVIES: Yeah. Like infusing stem cells of British culture in Tahiti.

SIDES: That's a great way to put it. Yeah.

DAVIES: You know, it is interesting because Mai spent two years in England and was a big hit and learned to speak English pretty well and met all these notables. When he left to go on the voyage, he wasn't traveling light, was he? I mean, tell us some of the stuff he brought with him to impress his Tahitian friends when he got back.

SIDES: Well, they - he had been given lots of muskets. He had been given, like, all kinds of trinkets and completely, for the most part, useless things, toys and all kinds of things that, you know, were really kind of meant to impress people but weren't exactly useful.

DAVIES: Well, and also a full suit of armor, right?

SIDES: Oh, he was given also - he was also given - yeah, a full suit of armor. What are you going to do with chainmail and a, you know, full suit of armor in a tropical Tahiti? I'm not really sure. But there was an ulterior motive going on the whole time, which was that he wanted guns. He wanted ammunition because he - his father had been murdered by the warriors from Bora Bora, and he wanted to reclaim his home island from the Bora Bora. And so he wanted - he ventured to England, really, to get guns. And he did get guns. And that's a whole nother part of after Cook leaves and deposits Mai in the Society Islands. Unfortunately, Mai's story is sad and tragic and, you know, kind of an example of what happens, I think, when you cross-pollinate cultures, you know, it was like he was a man without a country.

He wasn't really English and he wasn't really Tahitian anymore. He was something else. He had all these belongings, but he didn't really know what to do with them. And he immediately started using his guns to cook up a battle with the Bora Borans. And things do not go well for him, tragically, in the end.

DAVIES: It was interesting because they, you know, Cook wanted to integrate him into Tahitian society. But he goes and he meets with the chief and, you know, he was a little station when he left. Now he thinks he's big stuff. He goes riding on the beach on a horse in a full suit of armor. They are less than impressed. They kind of just did not ingratiate him with Tahitian culture. The British end up building him a house with a lock on it, which was a new thing. Just didn't...

SIDES: Right.

DAVIES: ...Work at all, did it?

SIDES: It's just like a completely grafted from England trying to make it work in a completely different society. The thing is, Mai came from basically nothing. He was a commoner, and apparently, no amount of possessions or guns or suit of armor could change that. You know, Tahitian society was very stratified. The kings and chiefs were all powerful. And here comes this impostor - this poser - trying to now say, oh, I'm powerful, and I'm well-connected, so you should treat me differently. Well, they didn't treat him differently. They're just like, you're still Mai.

DAVIES: We're going to take another break here.

We are speaking with Hampton Sides. His new book is "The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact And The Fateful Final Voyage Of Captain James Cook." We'll talk more after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF DAN AUERBACH SONG, "HEARTBROKEN, IN DISREPAIR")

DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. And we're speaking with historian Hampton Sides. His new book is a gripping account of an 18th-century, round-the-world sea voyage led by British Captain James Cook.

After he spent time in the South Pacific with - near islands around Tahiti, he actually "discovers," quote-unquote, I mean, the islands in the chain that includes Hawaii, that we now know as our - the state of Hawaii. I mean, I say discovered, because obviously people had been living there for centuries, but Europeans somehow didn't know about this. But then he goes on to explore the west coast of North America, looking for this long-sought water passage that would allow, you know, Europeans to go through North America to the Pacific Ocean. So he's trying to do it from the backside - plenty of encounters with local communities, plenty of times he had to stop and repair his ship, explores all kinds of inlets and rivers and estuaries, does not find this passage.

So he does try to go north up to the Arctic Circle to see if - is there a chance you can sail, you know, over the north - over the top of the world, bypass Greenland and go to Great Britain. This was in the summer. And there were some thinking that this might be possible. A guy named Daines Barrington you write about had opinions about Arctic sea travel. Tell us - what were the expectations here?

SIDES: There was a lot of weird ideas back then and pieces of kind of pseudoscience and rumor that - for example, one of the ideas was that sea ice cannot freeze. And so if you can get far enough from land, the only ice is along the shore coming from rivers. So the idea was, you know, if you can find a big, wide passage somewhere up there that's just in the broad ocean, it will not freeze, and you'll find your way over Canada. This is obviously very flawed science. And a lot of science - a lot of explorers had to suffer and die to try to disprove it. But Cook was willing to give it a try. And he also understood that this whole part of the world was - it was not known at all. It was terra incognita. Yeah, it was a mystery what was up there. The Russians had been there, but they didn't really share their information.

And we do see Cook, during this phase of the voyage, at his very best. He's back to what he does best, which is mapping and charting and exploring something entirely new and trying to understand the lay of the land. He was a brilliant cartographer. And he was an amazing captain in these kinds of dicey sailing situations. So he goes, I mean, he basically gives us the outline of the entire northwest part of the continent, you know, Oregon to Alaska. And he goes up and over Alaska. And he's heading toward what we now call Point Barrow, Alaska, when he finally encounters an impenetrable wall of ice. And he understands immediately, not only is this not going to lead to the Atlantic but we've got to get the hell out of here, because we're going to get trapped in this ice. And he nearly does get trapped. And if that had happened, we'd never hear - heard from him again.

And so most people, at that point, would have said, well, time to go home. But he decided, no, we're going to try it one more season. We're going to come back during the next summer in the hope that we'll - maybe the ice will have shifted, and we can find that way through. But in the meantime, winter's coming. I got to go somewhere to replenish the ships and let the men have some R&R. So why don't we go back to that amazing archipelago we stumbled upon, Hawaii - the Hawaiian chain. And so that's what they do. They head back to Hawaii to thaw out and relax for a short while.

DAVIES: Yeah. This is just an amazing moment in the book. Like, OK, you've, like, you've given it a shot. There is no northwest passage. The Arctic is frozen. Go home. But no, no. And he's going to extend the voyage by another full year. He's going to wait and go back the next summer. Captain Cook would not make it home from this voyage. He would be killed on the island of Hawaii. The circumstances are a little too intricate for us to cover here, and it's frankly a fascinating story that I think folks, along with other great stories, will get when they read the book.

You know, Cook is revered by many as, you know, one of the greatest explorers and sailors ever. And, you know, a man of the enlightenment who cared about expanding knowledge and being precise. He's also reviled as, you know, an agent of European imperialism. I mean, his - monuments to him in the islands have been, you know, desecrated. And I noticed that the copy in the jacket to your book says Cook's scientific efforts were the sharp edge of the colonial sword. From his writings, did he care deeply about colonial conquest and rivalries with, you know, Spain, which was really active in the Pacific?

SIDES: Yes. He - you know, he wasn't naive. He knew that he was doing the work of Empire. He certainly was a devoted, you know, follower of the Crown and was a dutiful employee, if you want to call it, of the Admiralty. And he understood that this enormous chess game that was going on between the European powers, particularly the Spanish and the French and the English and the Dutch, was happening all around, and that he was working in the service of all that. He wasn't naive. But you get the feeling when you read his journals that the places places where he's most animated, when he's most excited, when he's most interested is when he's describing something totally new, when he's playing the role of even an anthropologist or a, you know, ethnographer or when he's mapping something that's never been seen by Europeans before.

I say in the book that he's more empirical than imperial and that he's more inquisitive than acquisitive, and I think that's true. I do think that he was operating in a very, very unique time when there was still this kind of ethic of the Enlightenment. But there's no question that exploration is the first phase of colonial conquest. You know, these explorers come, they describe the bays and places where you can anchor and where the food is, and then here come the occupiers, and here comes the alcohol and the diseases and, you know, just the entire dismantling of these fragile island communities. So that's why he's hated so much, I think. He was - it's not really so much what he did. It's what came immediately after him as a consequence of his voyages.

DAVIES: Yeah. It's interesting. You know, he didn't claim lands for the crown, and he didn't conquer and subjugate and exploit the locals. I mean, he made a point of not getting into local wars with them. They would want him to kind of help them. He wouldn't get involved in that. But the interactions in some way undermined the traditional societies in ways that were not helpful.

SIDES: You know, he did claim some lands for England occasionally, especially in his first two voyages, because it was required by the admiralty, but by the third voyage, you can tell he's rolling his eyes at the whole thing. In fact, he would have his younger officers, junior officers, go out and raise the flag and, you know, have a little ceremony 'cause he thought it was absurd. But, you know, he understood that these were new lands that probably one of the European powers was going to try to take over, and he was consciously writing notes to the admiralty saying, you know, the Spanish are probably going to come here next, or, you know, what are the French going to do? So, you know, this imperial game is still going on in the background, and it still has reverberations to this day.

DAVIES: Hampton Sides, thanks so much for speaking with us.

SIDES: It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much.

DAVIES: Hampton Sides' book is "The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact And The Fateful Final Voyage Of Captain James Cook." Coming up, Ken Tucker reviews Beyonce's new album, "Cowboy Carter." This is FRESH AIR.

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Cook's First Voyage

First voyage of captain james cook.

(1768 - 1771)

James Cook’s first voyage circumnavigated the globe in the ship Endeavour , giving the botanists Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander the opportunity to collect plants from previously unexplored habitats. Although the Endeavour voyage was officially a journey to Tahiti to observe the 1769 transit of Venus across the sun, it also had a more clandestine mission from the Royal Society to explore the South Pacific in the name of England. The two botanists on the expedition returned with a collection of plant specimens including an estimated 100 new families and 1,000 new species of plants, many of which are currently housed in the U. S. National Herbarium.

Joseph Banks, who would later become Sir Joseph Banks and president of the Royal Society, was a wealthy young scientist. He invited his close friend Daniel Solander, a Swedish student of Linnaeus working in the natural history collections of the British Museum, to join him on the Endeavour expedition. Together they acted as the naturalists on the voyage, commanding several servants and artists, including Sydney Parkinson, and outfitted with an excellent array of scientific equipment. After setting out from London, the expedition stopped briefly at Madeira, a small Portuguese island in the Atlantic Ocean, and then continued on to Rio de Janiero, on the eastern coast of Brazil. Here, the expedition encountered one of its first major setbacks when the Portuguese governor Dom Antonio Rolim de Moura Tavare refused to allow anyone from the Endeavour to come on land except to acquire necessities. This restriction, however, didn’t stop the two determined botanists. Banks and Solander risked being arrested as spies or smugglers in order to sneak onshore to collect specimens around the city. Despite this difficulty, the expedition traveled on to Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip of South America, where they collected a large number of specimens despite bitterly cold weather that killed two members of the crew. In April of 1769, the expedition reached Tahiti, where they stayed until July. During this time, Banks and Solander collected over 250 plant species, including the orchids Liparis revoluta and Oberonia equitans (also known as Oberonia disticha ) and the flowering plant Ophiorrhiza solandri , in the first extensive botanical study in Polynesia.

After viewing the transit of Venus on June 3, 1769, the expedition began mapping, exploring, and collecting specimens in the relatively unknown regions of New Zealand and the eastern coast of Australia (then called New Holland). Plants collected included the large orchid Dendrobium cunninghamii , also known as Winika cunninghamii , native to the western shore of New Zealand, as well as white-honeysuckle ( Banksia integrifolia ), native to the east coast of Australia. The Endeavour stopped for nine days at a bay on the coast of Australia, where, according to Banks, the expedition’s plant collection became “so immensely large that it was necessary that some extraordinary care should be taken of them least they should spoil.” The botanists were so successful that Cook decided to name the place Botany Bay in honor of their extensive discoveries.

The Endeavour continued its voyage mapping the eastern coast of Australia, narrowly avoiding shipwreck on the Great Barrier Reef, until it re-entered known waters near New Guinea in late August, 1770. During the last part of the voyage, the Endeavour stopped at the disease-ridden city of Batavia in Java and at the Cape of Good Hope in Africa, returning to England in July, 1771. Overall, the expedition was very successful, with little strife among the crew and no deaths from scurvy. Although neither Banks nor Solander published their botanical findings, the two naturalists returned to England with a vast wealth of new discoveries.

References:

Adams, Brian. The Flowering of the Pacific . Sydney: William Collins Pty, 1986. Allen, Oliver E. The Pacific Navigators . Canada: Time-Life Books, 1980. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) database, http://gbif.org/ (for information on plant species Dendrobium cunninghamii ; accessed June 15, 2010). Ebes, Hank. The Florilegium of Captain Cook’s First Voyage to Australia: 1768-1771 . Melbourne: Ebes Douwma Antique Prints and Maps, 1988. Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) database, http://www.eol.org/ (for information on plant species Oberonia disticha and Dendrobium cunninghamii ; accessed June 15, 2010). Merrill, Elmer Drew. The Botany of Cook’s Voyages and its Unexpected Significance in Relation to Anthropology, Biogeography and History . Waltham, Massachusetts: Chronica Botanica Co., 1954. O’Brian, Patrick. Joseph Banks: A Life . Boston: David R. Gardine, Publisher, 1993. Rauchenberg, Roy A. “Daniel Carl Solander: Naturalist on the ‘Endeavour’,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society , New Series, 58, no. 8 (1968): 1-66. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1006027 (May 26, 2010). National Library of Australia. “South Seas: Voyaging and Cross-Cultural Encounters in the Pacific.” South Seas , n.d. http://southseas.nla.gov.au/ . Contains maps and text of expedition journals by James Cook and Joseph Banks. USDA PLANTS database. United States Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service. National Plant Data Center. http://plants.usda.gov/ (for information on plant species Banksia integrifolia ; accessed June 15, 2010).

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June 3 dawned crystal clear, and for six hours, in temperatures rising to 119°F, the men did the best they could, but their astronomical observations of Venus were hindered by a dusky cloud surrounding the planet. For a week at the end of the month, Cook, with a small party, took the ship’s pinnace and circled the island so that he could chart it, a rather daring feat considering his vulnerability. Before leaving Tahiti on July 13, he had to deal with an attempted desertion by two crewmen and the kidnap and counterkidnap of Tahitian chiefs and British crew members to resolve this escalating problem. At the last moment, he reluctantly agreed to the addition of Tupaia, a young Tahitian priest and interpreter who wanted to join Banks’s party.

Bénard, Robert, fl. 1750–1785 . “Baye de Matavai à Otahiti ; Havre d’Ohamaneno à Ulietea ; Havre d’Owharre dans l’isle d’Huaheine : Havre d’Oopoa à Ulietea.” Four copperplate maps on 1 sheet, with added color, 12 × 15 cm. or smaller, on sheet 27 × 40 cm. From Hawkesworth’s Relation des voyages entrepris par ordre de Sa Majesté Britannique . . . (Paris, 1774) [Historic Maps Collection]. Point Venus in Matavai Bay was the site of Cook’s observation of the transit of Venus in June 1769.

Breadfruit. [Hawkesworth, vol. 2, plate 3]

The bread-fruit grows on a tree that is about the size of a middling oak: its leaves are frequently a foot and a half long, of an oblong shape, deeply sinuated like those of a fig-tree, which they resemble in consistence and colour, and in the exuding of a white milkey juice upon being broken. The fruit is about the size and shape of a child’s head, and the surface is reticulated not much unlike a truffle: it is covered with a thin skin, and has a core about as big as the handle of a thin knife: the eatable part lies between the skin and the core; it is as white as snow, and somewhat of the consistence of new bread: it must be roasted before it is eaten. . . . [vol. 2, p. 80]

Hogg, Alexander, fl. 1778–1819. “Chart of the Society Isles Discovered by Captn. Cook, 1769.” Copperplate map, with added color, 22 × 34 cm. From G. W. Anderson’s A New, Authentic and Complete Collection of Voyages Around the World, Undertaken and Performed by Royal Authority . . . (London, 1784). [Historic Maps Collection]

New Zealander Tattoos. [Hawkesworth, vol. 3, plate 13]

The bodies of both sexes are marked with black stains called Amoco, by the same method that is used at Otaheite, and called Tattowing; but the men are more marked, and the women less. . . . [T]he men, on the contrary, seem to add something every year to the ornaments of the last, so that some of them, who appeared to be of an advanced age, were almost covered from head to foot. Besides the Amoco, the have marks impressed by a method unknown to us, of a very extraordinary kind: they are furrows of about a line deep, and a line broad, such as appear on the bark of a tree which has been cut through . . . and being perfectly black, they make a most frightful appearance. . . . [W]e could not but admire the dexterity and art with which they were impressed. The marks upon the face in general are spirals, which are drawn with great nicety, and even elegance, those on one side exactly corresponding with those on the other. . . . [N]o two were, upon a close examination, found to be alike. [vol. 3, pp. 452–53]

“Carte de la Nle. Zelande visitée en 1769 et 1770 par le Lieutenant J. Cook Commandant de l’Endeavour, vaisseau de sa Majesté.” Copperplate map, with added color, 46 × 36 cm. From John Hawkesworth’s Relation des voyages entrepris par ordre de Sa Majesté Britannique . . . (Paris, 1774). French copy of Cook’s foundation map of New Zealand, showing the track of the Endeavour around both islands, from October 6, 1769, to April 1, 1770. [Historic Maps Collection]

Endeavour came within sight of land on April 19, well north of the area charted by Tasman 125 years earlier. The New Holland (Australia) coast was exasperating, however, and Cook could not find a safe place to land until the afternoon of Saturday, April 28, when they entered Botany Bay (part of today’s Sydney Harbor), which Cook later named for the wide variety of plant life found there. The Aborigines that they saw there were unintelligible to Tupaia and kept away, avoiding contact. Through May and into June, Endeavour sailed north, arcing northwest, following the Great Barrier Reef coastline. On the evening of June 10, when most of the men were sleeping, the ship struck coral, stuck fast, and began leaking. Quick thinking and decisive action by Cook and his men—pumping furiously and jettisoning fifty tons of decayed stores, stone ballast, and cannons—kept the ship afloat and allowed a temporary underwater repair. A few days later, the damaged ship was safely beached on a barren shore (near today’s Cooktown, by the EndeavourRiver), and a fury of activity began more permanent work: the expedition had avoided a real disaster. (Henceforth, the British Admiralty would send Cook out with two ships for safety.) During this time, the men enjoyed more favorable interactions with the natives, but not without miscommunications and incidents of distrust. (See the box on Cook’s ultimately positive views on the New Hollanders.) By August 13, the ship was ready to resume its journey.             The labyrinth of treacherous islands and reefs was threaded slowly and carefully, with vigilance and some luck, as the expedition sailed northward through the Great Barrier Reef, westward around the northernmost point of New Holland, and into what Cook called Endeavour Strait. He stopped briefly at Possession Island (his name) where, now knowing he was in territory explored by the Dutch, he claimed the whole coastline he had just charted for King George III. It was a proud moment, essentially marking the end of Cook’s first Pacific voyage’s geographical discoveries.

Bonne, Rigobert, 1727–1794. “Nlle. Galles Mérid.le [i.e. Nouvelle Galles Méridionale], ou, Côte orientale de la Nouvelle Hollande.” Copperplate map, with added color, 34 × 17 cm. Plate 137 from vol. 2 of R. Bonne and N. Desmarest’s Atlas Encyclopédique . . . (Paris, 1788). [Historic Maps Collection]

Places to note include Botany Bay (B. de Bontanique) around 34°, part of today’s Sydney, highlighted in an inset, and Endeavour River (Riv. Endeavour) at the top, between 15° and 16°, where the ship was repaired. The large inset at the bottom left shows the part of Tasmania explored by Captain Tobias Furneaux of the Adventure during Cook’s second voyage.

Beached Endeavour and Examination of Its Damage. [Hawkesworth, vol. 3, plate 19]

In the morning of Monday the 18th [June 1770], a stage was made from the ship to the shore, which was so bold that she floated at twenty feet distance: two tents were also set up, one for the sick, and the other for stores and provisions, which were landed in the course of the day. We also landed all the empty water casks, and part of the stores. . . . At two o’clock in the morning of the 22d, the tide left her, and gave us an opportunity to examine the leak, which we found to be at her floor heads, a little before the starboard fore-chains. In this place the rocks had made their way through four planks, and even into the timbers; three more planks were much damaged, and the appearances of these breaches was very extraordinary: there was not a splinter to be seen, but all was as smooth, as if the whole had been cut away by an instrument: the timbers in this place were happily very close, and if they had not, it would have been absolutely impossible to have saved the ship. But after all, her preservation depended upon a circumstance still more remarkable: in one of the holes, which was big enough to have sunk us, if we had eight pumps instead of four, and been able to keep them incessantly going, was in great measure plugged up by a fragment of the rock, which, after having made the wound, was left sticking in it. . . . By nine o’clock in the morning the carpenters got to work upon her, while the smiths were busy in making bolts and nails. [vol. 3, pp. 557, 559–60]

Kangaroo. [Hawkesworth, vol. 3, plate 20]

As I was walking this morning at a little distance from the one ship, I saw myself one of the animals which had been so often described: it was of a light mouse colour, and in size and shape very much resembling a greyhound; it had a long tail also, which it carried like a greyhound; and I should have taken it for a wild dog, if instead of running, it had not leapt like a hare or deer: its legs were said to be very slender, and the print of its foot to be like that of a goat. . . . [vol. 3, p. 561]

Natives of New Holland

From what I have said of the Natives of New-Holland they may appear to some to be the most wretched people upon Earth, but in reality they are far more happier than we Europeans; being wholly unacquainted not only with the superfluous but the necessary Conveniences so much sought after in Europe, they are happy in not knowing the use of them. They live in a Tranquillity which is not disturb’d by the Inequality of Condition: The Earth and sea of their own accord furnishes them with all things necessary for life, they covet not Magnificent Houses, Household-stuff &c., they live in a warm and fine Climate and enjoy a very wholesome Air. . . . In short they seem’d to set no Value upon any thing we gave them, nor would they ever part with any thing of their own for any one article we could offer them; this in my opinion argues that they think themselves provided with all the necessarys of Life and that they have no superfluities. [ Journals , p. 174]

In Batavia (today’s Jakarta, Indonesia), where Endeavour anchored on October 7, 1770, there was English news! American colonists had refused to pay taxes, and the king had dispatched troops to put down the first signs of a rebellion. Because of Cook’s strict insistence on a clean ship, exercise, and a healthy diet (including scurvy-preventing sauerkraut) for his crew, he had, until then, lost no man to sickness. Now, in one of the most diseased foreign cities, malaria, dysentery, and other ills began their work: almost everyone got sick during the months they remained on the island for refit and repair, and many died, including the Tahitian, Tupaia. Even after Cook left for home (December 26), the unfortunate deaths continued—thirty-four in all by the time they reached Cape Town in March—and five more would die there or on the last leg back to England. (Never failing to provide milk for the officers, Wallis’s goat was among the elite, having survived its second circumnavigation.) Endeavour docked in the Downs on July 12, 1771.             The three men—Cook, Banks, and Solander—companions during more than a thousand days at sea, now shared a seven-hour post-chaise trip through Kent to London—riding into history. The botanists had brought back a wealth of scientific data about plant and animal species, including thousands of plants never seen in England as well as the amazing drawings of Sydney Parkinson and Alexander Buchan, the expedition’s artists, who had both died on the voyage. Cook had recorded his observations of the life and customs of the Polynesians of Tahiti, the Maori of New Zealand, and the Aborigines of Australia. And he had his accurate charts, which would immediately improve the mapping of the Pacific Ocean.

Zatta, Antonio, fl. 1757–1797. “Nuove scoperte fatte nel 1765, 67, e 69 nel Mare del Sud” (1776). Copperplate map, with added color, 29 × 39 cm. From Zatta’s Atlante novissimo (Venice, 1775–1785). Reference: Perry and Prescott, Guide to Maps of Australia , 1776.01. [Historic Maps Collection]

First decorative map to show Cook’s tracks in the Pacific, recording the discoveries he made in Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea, and the South Pacific during the Endeavour voyage. Also noted are the tracks of Philip Carteret, John Byron, and Samuel Wallis. The chartings of the east coast of Australia and New Zealand’s two islands are shown in detail, drawn from Cook’s own map of the region, “Chart of Part of the South Seas” (1773). The ship depicted is most probably the Endeavour .

Watch CBS News

Captain James Cook and the controversial legacy of Western exploration

By Ben Tracy

April 7, 2024 / 9:52 AM EDT / CBS News

On the Big Island of Hawaii, where the waves roll into Kealakekua Bay, a white obelisk 27 feet tall looms over the shoreline. It's a tribute to the great circumnavigator Captain James Cook. It stands just feet from where he died.

Akoni Palacat-Nelsen is a native Hawaiian (or kanaka, as they call themselves) who works for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs advocating for the native population. He says there is a lot of frustration that many people think history began here with Captain Cook.

"He brought a lot of diseases, he brought a lot of problems to our society, he introduced westernization," said Palacat-Nelsen.

Captain Cook is a controversial figure – villain or hero, colonizer or trailblazer, depending on who is telling the story. But what is not in dispute is that in the 1700s the British explorer literally put much of what we now know as the Pacific Ocean on the map, creating detailed diagrams of the places he was the first European to discover, including New Zealand, Australia, the Cook Islands (which still bear his name), and the islands of Hawaii.

"Whatever you think about Cook, he's certainly in the pantheon of the greatest explorers of all time," said writer Hampton Sides. "He gave us the contours of the Pacific Ocean."

Sides is author of the new book, "The Wide Wide Sea," documenting Cook's final and fateful voyage. "He had three voyages around the world; each one was monumental," said Sides.

Cook's third voyage left England in July of 1776, just as the American Revolution was taking off. His mission was to go around the Cape of Good Hope and then proceed to the west coast of North America, all the way up to Alaska, in pursuit of the elusive, fabled Northwest Passage. On his way, he stumbled upon islands in the Pacific. "He couldn't believe that he had found these islands," Sides said. "These aren't just lowly atolls somewhere out in the Pacific. These are massive volcanic islands with thousands and thousands of people living here, a whole thriving, flourishing civilization. He couldn't believe it. He was astounded."

Cook and his men came ashore on the Big Island of Hawaii, warmly welcomed by the islanders at a temple during a religious festival.

Sides writes in his book that, unlike many of his contemporary explorers, Cook took a genuine interest in the people he encountered. He treated them with respect, tried to prevent his men from spreading venereal disease, and made little attempt to convert them to Christianity.

And yet, "On this third and final voyage, something was wrong with Cook," Sides said. "He was mercurial. He was violent. He was cruel to the native people that he encountered as well. He just was losing it all the time near the end."

That end came when Cook and his men overstayed their welcome, attempting to hold the king of Hawaii ransom to get back a rowboat taken by the local people. Sides said, "It turned into a brawl and a melee, and things did not go well for Captain Cook."

Cook was killed on the shore of Kealakekua Bay on Valentine's Day 1779.

And yet, nearly 250 years later Cook's story is still being told, revisited and revised as the age of imperialism has not aged so well. Statues of Cook have recently been toppled in Canada and Australia, his monument in Hawaii defaced. Cook was the leading edge of what Pacific Islanders call the "fatal impact," and the death and loss of their culture that followed.

Sides said, "I get the fact that he's become a symbol of imperialism, because he was the first. It's easy just to assign the blame to one person rather than all the people that came after him." 

Yet, on the Big Island you still find Cook's name on a post office, roadside stands, and an apartment complex. There is no simple break from this piece of the past.

The Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau National Historical Park is one of the last places on the Big Island that still looks like what Captain Cook and his crew would have seen centuries ago. It was known as a place of refuge, where if you broke a rule or a law you could get a second chance. 

It's also a place where Hawaiians get to preserve and share their history, said Keola Awong, the chief of interpretation and education. "It's a second chance for us to get to tell our story, and tell it from our perspective," she said. 

She wants people to see Hawaii as more than a tourist attraction – more than white sands and scarlet sunsets, a place that existed long before it was "discovered" by a Captain named Cook.

Awong said she feels most tourists who come to Hawaii don't know much about the true history. "I think they see the history told by the western point of view," she said. "Our culture is very much alive. Our culture carries on and continues."

      READ AN EXCERPT:  "The Wide Wide Sea" by Hampton Sides

      For more info:

• "The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook"  by Hampton Sides (Doubleday), in Hardcover, Large Print Trade Paperback, eBook and Audio formats, available April 9 via  Amazon ,  Barnes & Noble  and  Bookshop.org
• hamptonsides.com
• Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau National Historical Park, Hawaii

      Story produced by John Goodwin. Editor: Ben McCormick. 

Ben Tracy is CBS News' senior national and environmental correspondent based in Los Angeles. He reports for all CBS News platforms, including the "CBS Evening News with Norah O'Donnell," "CBS Mornings" and "CBS Sunday Morning."

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• Histoires de livres

Les trois voyages du capitaine Cook

par Frédérique Laval · Publié 07/02/2020 · Mis à jour 10/02/2020

Depuis le mois de janvier 2020, les livres anciens conservés à la bibliothèque de l’Arsenal sortent de leur réserve ! La mise en place d’expositions de courte durée dites «expos flashs» dans le hall de la bibliothèque universitaire Toulouse I Capitole nous donne l’occasion, tous les deux mois, de présenter une sélection de documents originaux sur des thèmes donnés.

Pour la première «expo flash», consacrée aux livres de voyage illustrés, nous avons choisi de présenter les voyages de James Cook et de mettre en lumière trois titres conservés dans le fonds de la réserve.

Navigateur, explorateur et cartographe britannique, James Cook (1728 – 1779) est demeuré célèbre pour ses trois expéditions dans le Pacifique. Il est le premier Européen à avoir débarqué sur la côte est de l’Australie, en Nouvelle-Calédonie, aux îles Sandwich et à Hawaï et le premier à avoir cartographié Terre-Neuve et la Nouvelle-Zélande.

Le premier voyage de James Cook

Ouvrage présenté : Relation des voyages entrepris par ordre de Sa Majesté britannique, actuellement régnante ; pour faire des découvertes dans l’hémisphère méridional, et successivement exécutés par le commodore Byron, le capitaine Carteret, le capitaine Wallis & le capitaine Cook […] .- A Paris, chez Saillant et Nyon, rue Saint-Jean de Beauvais. Panckoucke, Hôtel de Thou, rue des Poitevins, 1774. (Cote : Resp Mn 2087)

La BU de l’Arsenal conserve la première édition française du voyage de Cook parue en 1774, en format In-4°, chez Saillant et Nyon & Panckoucke. Composée de 4 tomes, elle contient 52 planches.

Compilation de quatre récits d’expéditions britanniques effectuées dans le Pacifique, le tome I contient les voyages de John Byron et Philip Carteret, la première partie du tome II celui de Samuel Wallis et la suite est dévolue au premier voyage de James Cook effectué sur le bateau HMB Endeavour de 1768 à 1771.

Cet ouvrage initialement publié en Angleterre en 1773 chez Strahan and T. Cade ll est rédigé par le littérateur John Hawkesworth. Il est en effet courant au XVIIIe siècle que les responsables d’expédition fournissent des journaux rédigés par eux-mêmes ou par divers collaborateurs à un rédacteur qui n’a pas pris part à l’expédition. C’est le cas pour ces relations de navigateurs anglais confiées par l’Amirauté à John Hawkesworth, chargé en 1771 de « transformer les notes de ces hommes de mer en un ouvrage accessible au public ».

John Hawkesworth, bien qu’ajoutant au texte ses propres impressions, fait le choix de conserver le journal écrit sous une forme personnelle. Il s’en justifie dans l’introduction générale « Lorsque j’entrepris la rédaction de cet ouvrage, on mit en question s‘il devoit être écrit à la première ou à la troisième personne ; mais après y avoir réfléchi, tout le monde convint qu’une narration faite à la première personne, en rapprochant davantage le lecteur du narrateur, sans l’intervention d’un historien étranger, attacheroit plus fortement l’attention, & par-conséquent, seroit plus intéressante & plus agréable ».

Publication populaire dès sa sortie, l’édition de John Hawkesworth fut cependant sévèrement critiquée pour les inexactitudes dans la description des mœurs et coutumes des peuples des mers du Sud. 

Itinéraire du premier voyage :

Le premier voyage de James Cook débute le 25 août 1768 à bord du HMB Endeavour , un trois-mâts de 366 tonneaux avec un effectif à bord de 94 hommes. Cook est chargé par la Royal Society d’aller observer, à Tahiti, une très rare éclipse prévue le 3 juin 1769. Passé par le cap Horn, il débarque à Tahiti, le 13 avril 1769. Avec Charles Green, l’astronome de l’expédition, il fait construire un petit fort et un observatoire sur la pointe de Mahina, au nord de l’île, qu’ils appellent “la pointe Vénus”. Le 3 juin, Charles Green, effectue ses observations malgré “l’effet de la goutte noire”, une tâche qui grossit légèrement les contours de Vénus et altère ses mesures.

Une fois les données consignées, James Cook ouvre les scellés qui contiennent les instructions pour la seconde partie de son voyage : chercher les signes de la légendaire Terra Australis , immense continent situé dans l’hémisphère Sud et qui assure, par son poids, l’équilibre du globe.

A l’aide d’un Tahitien nommé Tupaia , Cook atteint la Nouvelle-Zélande le 6 octobre 1769 et cartographie l’intégralité des côtes néo-zélandaises. Il étudie également les habitants avec précision, et l’année suivante cartographie la côte est de la Nouvelle-Hollande (l’Australie actuelle). Il revient en Angleterre le 12 juillet 1771 en passant par Batavia (Jakarta aujourd’hui) puis le cap de Bonne-Espérance.

Lors de sa première expédition, James Cook est accompagné de deux dessinateurs : Alexander Buchan et Sydney Parkinson. Mais, dès le mois d’avril 1769, Buchan est terrassé par une crise d’épilepsie. Les dessins de Parkinson seront les seuls témoins illustrés de ce premier voyage. Il réalise durant le voyage 674 ébauches et 267 dessins achevés dont cette tête de guerrier maori de la Nouvelle-Zélande. Malheureusement, il meurt de dysenterie à Batavia le 26 janvier 1771.

Le second voyage de James Cook

Ouvrage exposé : Voyage dans l’hémisphère austral autour du monde, fait sur les vaisseaux du roi, l’Aventure, & la Résolution, en 1772, 1773, 1774 & 1775 .- Paris, Hôtel de Thou, 1778. (Cote : Resp Mn 2088)

Édition française en 5 tomes de format In-4° parue en 1778 à l’Hôtel de Thou. Elle comporte 67 gravures et cartes, dont la carte générale du voyage . L’édition originale anglaise du second voyage de Cook est publiée, un an auparavant, en 1777 sous le titre « A Voyage towards the South Pole, and Round the World » chez W. Strahan et T. Cadell.

La traduction de « A Voyage towards the South Pole, and Round the World » est confiée à l’académicien Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Suard, époux d’Amélie Panckoucke, sœur de l’éditeur Charles-Joseph Panckoucke, propriétaire de la Librairie de l’Hôtel de Thou. Il joint au journal de Cook des passages du journal du naturaliste Forster, qu’il place entre guillemets, et fait un ensemble des deux ouvrages.

Cependant ce titre n’est pas le premier récit imprimé de l’entrée de l’homme dans la région sud-antarctique. En effet, une édition du journal rédigée par John Marra, canonnier du bateau de James Cook le HMS Résolution , paraît anonymement chez F. Newbery en 1775, soit 18 mois avant l’édition officielle.

Itinéraire du second voyage :

Pour son second voyage, James Cook est chargé par la Royal Society de se rendre à nouveau dans les mers du sud à la recherche du continent austral. Parti le 13 juillet 1772 à bord du HMS Resolution et accompagné de Tobias Furneaux à la tête du HMS Adventure , James Cook descend très au sud et franchit le cercle polaire antarctique le 17 janvier 1773. Les deux bateaux se perdent de vue et Furneaux met le cap sur la Nouvelle-Zélande, avant de repartir pour la Grande-Bretagne. Cook poursuit son exploration de la zone antarctique et remonte vers Tahiti pour se réapprovisionner. Il repart ensuite au sud dans l’espoir de trouver la Terra Australis , mais sans succès. Il finit par la déclarer inexistante.

Le retour vers l’Angleterre le mène aux Tonga, à l’île de Pâques (mars 1774), à l’île Norfolk, en Nouvelle-Calédonie (septembre 1774) et aux Nouvelles-Hébrides. Promu capitaine, la Royal Society l’admet au sein de ses membres et lui décerne la médaille Copley (médaille des sciences) en 1776.

Le troisième voyage de James Cook

Ouvrage présenté : T roisième Voyage de Cook, ou voyage à l’Océan Pacifique, ordonné par le Roi d’Angleterre, pour faire des Découvertes dans l’Hémisphère Nord, … Éxécuté sous la direction des capitaines Cook, Clerke & Gore, sur les vaisseaux la “Résolution” & la “Découverte”, en 1776, 1777, 1778, 1779 & 1780.” .- Paris, Hôtel de Thou, 1785. (Cote : Resp Mn 2089)

Édition française parue en 1785, à l’Hôtel de Thou, et comptant 4 tomes de format In-4° avec 20 cartes et 68 gravures. La traduction de l’ édition anglaise , parue en 1784, a été confiée à Jean Nicolas Demeunier.

Le troisième voyage de Cook est celui qui suscita le plus de publications non officielles, l’Amirauté ayant pourtant réclamé tous les journaux tenus à bord lors du retour de l’équipage.

La première relation non officielle est celle de Johann Georg Adam Forster. Le naturaliste dit avoir reconstitué les étapes du voyage et les circonstances de la mort de James Cook à partir des récits oraux fournis par deux matelots allemands, membres de l’expédition, Heinrich Zimmermann et Barthel Lohmann.  Le titre « Fragmente über Capitain Cooks letzte Reise und sein Ende » est publié en 1780.

Ce même Heinrich Zimmerman, timonier à bord du HMS Discovery a tenu un journal pendant tout son périple et l’a conservé malgré les consignes de l’Amirauté. Celui-ci est publié en 1781 chez C. F. Schwan à Mannheim sous le titre « Reise um die Welt mit Capitain Cook » et traduit en français en 1782 sous le titre «  Dernier voyage du capitaine Cook autour du monde, où se trouvent les circonstances de sa mort…  » chez la Nouvelle Société typographique de Berne.

Zimmerman précise dans l’introduction avoir « hésité long-tems de publier les remarques dont j’avois tenu note dans mon voyage, dans la crainte que ce ne fût une chose illicite, sachant que tous les gens d’un équipage sont obligés de livrer leurs papiers, mais je crois avoir trouvé quelques réponses à mes scrupules… comment est-ce qu’une relation aussi imparfaite que celle-ci, & sortie de la plume d’un simple matelot, pourroit jamais entrer en concurrence avec celle qui se publiera en Angleterre & lui fera quelques tort ? N’est ce pas plutôt à moi de craindre que l’attente de celle-ci ne fasse mépriser la mienne».

Une autre relation non officielle est celle de John Rickmann, lieutenant à bord du HMS Discovery , publiée en 1781 chez Newbery et intitulée «  Journal of Captain Cook’s last voyage to the Pacific Ocean : on Discovery ; performed in the years 1776, 1777, 1778, 1779  ». Traduite et publiée chez Pissot et Laporte en 1782, cette édition est ornée d’un frontispice gravé replié représentant la mort du capitaine Cook et d’une carte de l’itinéraire suivi par Cook.

William Ellis, chirurgien en second, publia également son journal en 1782 «  An Authentic narrative of a voyage performed by Captain Cook and Captain Clerke in His Majesty’s Ships Resolution and Discovery…  » chez J. Sewell and J. Debrett.

Enfin, John Ledyard un américain présent à bord du HMS Resolution , et qui rendit son journal conformément aux ordres de l’Amirauté, publia  en 1783  un petit récit du troisième voyage de Cook. Ajoutant le récit de John Rickmann au sien, il publie en 1783  chez N. Patten «   A Journal of Captain Cook’s last voyage to the Pacific Ocean…  »

Itinéraire du troisième voyage :

Pour son dernier voyage, James Cook commande à nouveau le HMS Resolution et le capitaine Charles Clerke prend la tête du HMS Discovery avec pour objectif la découverte d’un passage du Pacifique à l’Atlantique au nord du continent américain. L’expédition explore tout d’abord les îles Kerguelen et l’île de Port-Christmas où elle accoste le jour de Noël 1776 puis fait escale en Nouvelle-Zélande. Cook met alors le cap au nord, découvre l’île Christmas la veille de Noël 1777. Remontant ensuite le long du continent américain, il décrit dans son journal les tribus indiennes de l’île de Vancouver, des côtes de l’Alaska, des îles Aléoutiennes et des deux rives du détroit de Béring, qu’il tente à plusieurs reprises de franchir.

L’expédition retourne à Hawaï l’année suivante. Après huit semaines passées à explorer l’archipel, Cook et son équipage atteignent la baie de Kealakekua sur l’actuelle Grande Île et y séjournent un mois. Mais, le 14 février 1779, un canot du HMS Discovery est volé et le capitaine Cook, accompagné de soldats, débarque dans la baie afin de prendre le roi en otage jusqu’à restitution de la chaloupe. La situation dégénère et les habitants de l’île attaquent Cook et ses hommes à l’aide de pierres et de lances. Poignardé, Cook est battu à mort par ses assaillants.

Bien qu’on ne puisse prouver avec certitude si les Hawaïens ont pratiqué le cannibalisme avec sa dépouille, on sait qu’ils ont restitué quelques parties du corps de Cook à son équipage, jetées à la mer lors d’une cérémonie funéraire.

Charles Clerke prend alors le commandement de l’expédition mais meurt en août 1779. Le lieutenant Gore lui succède et fait route vers l’Angleterre par les côtes asiatiques, comme initialement prévu par Cook. Le HMS Resolution et le HMS Discovery arrivent en Grande-Bretagne le 4 octobre 1780.

Durant les onze ans passés sur les océans James Cook a découvert de nombreuses îles, cartographié avec précision de larges portions de côte et démontré l’impossible existence de la Terra Australis .  Accompagné de dessinateurs et de scientifiques de renom, ses voyages ont considérablement élargi les connaissances en matière de navigation, d’astronomie, de sciences naturelles et de géographie.

Les ouvrages présentés lors de l’«expo flash» , proviennent du fonds de la Faculté de théologie protestante de Montauban. Créée en 1808 et rattachée à l’Académie puis à l’Université de Toulouse, la Faculté de théologie protestante de Montauban possédait une très riche bibliothèque, à caractère encyclopédique dont le noyau des collections provient des dépôts littéraires parisiens.

Sources consultées

Le livre maritime au siècle des Lumières : édition et diffusion des connaissances maritimes (1750-1850) . Presses de l’Université Paris-Sorbonne, 2005

Sites web :

Service Commun de la Documentation de l’Université de Poitiers. Traversées : récits de voyages des Lumières . [ en ligne ]

Bibliothèque nationale de France. L’âge d’or des cartes marines [ en ligne ]

Centre de recherche sur la littérature des voyages : conférences [ en ligne ]

Citer ce billet Frédérique Laval (2020, 7 février). Les trois voyages du capitaine Cook. Estampilles et Pontuseaux . Consulté le 12 avril 2024, à l’adresse https://doi.org/10.58079/ojgb

Frédérique Laval

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Très belle et instructive synthèse. Merci

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