1778 1ed ed Captain
James Cook Voyage Pacific Islands Oceania MAPS 5v SET FOLIOS
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Captain James Cook (1728 – 1779) was a
British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the Royal Navy. Cook
made detailed maps of Newfoundland prior to making three voyages to the Pacific
Ocean, during which he achieved the first recorded European contact with the
eastern coastline of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands, and the first recorded
circumnavigation of New Zealand.
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Main author: James Cook; Hodges.; Jean Baptiste Antoine Suard; Tobias Furneaux,
captitaine; Johann Georg Adam Forster; Johann Reinhold Forster
Title: Voyage dans l'hémisphère austral, et autour du monde, fait sur les
vaisseaux de roi l'Aventure & la Résolution, en 1772, 1773, 1774, &
1775
Published: Paris,
Hôtel de Thou, 1778.
Language: French
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1st
French edition
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5 volume
set, complete
·
Complete
with all engraved portraits + 66 maps and plates
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2
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Captain James Cook FRS RN (7
November 1728[NB 1] – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator,
cartographer, and captain in the Royal Navy. Cook made detailed maps of
Newfoundland prior to making three voyages to the Pacific Ocean, during which
he achieved the first recorded European contact with the eastern coastline of
Australia and the Hawaiian Islands, and the first recorded circumnavigation of
New Zealand.
Cook joined the British
merchant navy as a teenager and joined the Royal Navy in 1755. He saw action in
the Seven Years' War, and subsequently surveyed and mapped much of the entrance
to the Saint Lawrence River during the siege of Quebec. This helped bring Cook
to the attention of the Admiralty and Royal Society. This notice came at a
crucial moment in both Cook's career and the direction of British overseas
exploration, and led to his commission in 1766 as commander of HM Bark
Endeavour for the first of three Pacific voyages.
In three voyages Cook sailed
thousands of miles across largely uncharted areas of the globe. He mapped lands
from New Zealand to Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean in greater detail and on a
scale not previously achieved. As he progressed on his voyages of discovery he
surveyed and named features, and recorded islands and coastlines on European
maps for the first time. He displayed a combination of seamanship, superior
surveying and cartographic skills, physical courage and an ability to lead men
in adverse conditions.
Cook was attacked and killed
in a confrontation with Hawaiians during his third exploratory voyage in the
Pacific in 1779. He left a legacy of scientific and geographical knowledge
which was to influence his successors well into the 20th century, and numerous
memorials worldwide have been dedicated to him.
Contents [hide]
1 Early life and family
2 Start of Royal Navy career
2.1 Conquest of Canada (1758–63)
3 Voyages of exploration
3.1 First voyage (1768–71)
3.2 Interlude
3.3 Second voyage (1772–75)
3.4 Third voyage (1776–79)
3.5 Return to Hawaii
3.6 Death
3.7 Aftermath
4 Legacy
4.1 Ethnographic collections
4.2 Navigation and science
4.3 Memorials
4.4 Popular culture
5 See also
6 References
6.1 Footnotes
6.2 Notes
6.3 Bibliography
7 Further reading
8 External links
8.1 Biographical dictionaries
8.2 Journals
8.3 Collections and museums
Early life and family
James Cook was born on 27
October 1728 in the village of Marton in Yorkshire and baptised on 3 November
in the parish church of St Cuthbert, where his name can be seen in the church
register.[1][2] He was the second of eight children of James Cook, a Scottish
farm labourer from Ednam in Roxburghshire, and his locally born wife, Grace
Pace, from Thornaby-on-Tees.[1][3][4] In 1736, his family moved to Airey Holme
farm at Great Ayton, where his father's employer, Thomas Skottowe, paid for him
to attend the local school. In 1741, after five years' schooling, he began work
for his father, who had by now been promoted to farm manager. For leisure, he
would climb a nearby hill, Roseberry Topping, enjoying the opportunity for
solitude.[5] Cooks' Cottage, his parents' last home, which he is likely to have
visited, is now in Melbourne, having been moved from England and reassembled,
brick by brick, in 1934.[6]
Portrait of Mrs Elizabeth
Cook by William Henderson, dated 1830.
In 1745, when he was 16, Cook
moved 20 miles (32 km) to the fishing village of Staithes, to be apprenticed as
a shop boy to grocer and haberdasher William Sanderson.[1] Historians have
speculated that this is where Cook first felt the lure of the sea while gazing
out of the shop window.[4]
After 18 months, not proving
suitable for shop work, Cook travelled to the nearby port town of Whitby to be
introduced to friends of Sanderson's, John and Henry Walker.[6] The Walkers,
who were Quakers, were prominent local ship-owners in the coal trade. Their
house is now the Captain Cook Memorial Museum. Cook was taken on as a merchant
navy apprentice in their small fleet of vessels, plying coal along the English
coast. His first assignment was aboard the collier Freelove, and he spent
several years on this and various other coasters, sailing between the Tyne and
London. As part of his apprenticeship, Cook applied himself to the study of
algebra, geometry, trigonometry, navigation and astronomy—all skills he would
need one day to command his own ship.[4]
His three-year apprenticeship
completed, Cook began working on trading ships in the Baltic Sea. After passing
his examinations in 1752, he soon progressed through the merchant navy ranks,
starting with his promotion in that year to mate aboard the collier brig
Friendship.[7] In 1755, within a month of being offered command of this vessel,
he volunteered for service in the Royal Navy, when Britain was re-arming for
what was to become the Seven Years' War. Despite the need to start back at the
bottom of the naval hierarchy, Cook realised his career would advance more
quickly in military service and entered the Navy at Wapping on 17 June 1755.[8]
Cook married Elizabeth Batts
(1742–1835), the daughter of Samuel Batts, keeper of the Bell Inn, Wapping[9]
and one of his mentors, on 21 December 1762 at St Margaret's Church in Barking,
Essex.[10] The couple had six children: James (1763–94), Nathaniel (1764–80,
lost aboard HMS Thunderer which foundered with all hands in a hurricane in the
West Indies), Elizabeth (1767–71), Joseph (1768–68), George (1772–72) and Hugh
(1776–93), the last of whom died of scarlet fever while a student at Christ's
College, Cambridge. When not at sea, Cook lived in the East End of London. He
attended St Paul's Church, Shadwell, where his son James was baptised. Cook has
no known direct descendants—all his recorded children either pre-deceased him
or died without issue.[11]
Start of Royal Navy career
Further information: Great
Britain in the Seven Years' War
James Cook's 1775 chart of
Newfoundland
Cook's first posting was with
HMS Eagle, serving as able seaman and master's mate under Captain Joseph Hamar
for his first year aboard, and Captain Hugh Palliser thereafter.[12] In October
and November 1755 he took part in Eagle's capture of one French warship and the
sinking of another, following which he was promoted to boatswain in addition to
his other duties.[8] His first temporary command was in March 1756 when he was
briefly master of the Cruizer, a small cutter attached to the Eagle while on
patrol.[8][13]
In June 1757 Cook passed his
master's examinations at Trinity House, Deptford, which qualified him to
navigate and handle a ship of the King's fleet.[14] He then joined the frigate
HMS Solebay as master under Captain Robert Craig.[15]
Conquest of Canada (1758–63)
During the Seven Years' War,
Cook served in North America as master of Pembroke (1757).[16] In 1758 he took
part in the major amphibious assault that captured the Fortress of Louisbourg
from the French, after which he participated in the siege of Quebec City and
then the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in 1759. He showed a talent for
surveying and cartography, and was responsible for mapping much of the entrance
to the Saint Lawrence River during the siege, thus allowing General Wolfe to
make his famous stealth attack on the Plains of Abraham.[17]
Cook's surveying ability was
put to good use mapping the jagged coast of Newfoundland in the 1760s, aboard
HMS Grenville. He surveyed the north-west stretch in 1763 and 1764, the south
coast between the Burin Peninsula and Cape Ray in 1765 and 1766, and the west
coast in 1767. At this time Cook employed local pilots to point out the
"rocks and hidden dangers" along the south and west coasts. During
the 1765 season, four pilots were engaged at a daily pay of 4 shillings each:
John Beck for the coast west of "Great St Lawrence", Morgan Snook for
Fortune Bay, John Dawson for Connaigre and Hermitage Bay, and John Peck for the
"Bay of Despair".[18]
His five seasons in
Newfoundland produced the first large-scale and accurate maps of the island's
coasts and were the first scientific, large scale, hydrographic surveys to use
precise triangulation to establish land outlines.[19] They also gave Cook his
mastery of practical surveying, achieved under often adverse conditions, and
brought him to the attention of the Admiralty and Royal Society at a crucial
moment both in his career and in the direction of British overseas discovery.
Cook's map would be used into the 20th century—copies of it being referenced by
those sailing Newfoundland's waters for 200 years.[20]
Following on from his
exertions in Newfoundland, it was at this time that Cook wrote that he intended
to go not only "farther than any man has been before me, but as far as I
think it is possible for a man to go."[14]
Voyages of exploration
First voyage (1768–71)
Main article: First voyage of
James Cook
Endeavour replica in
Cooktown, Queensland harbour — anchored where the original Endeavour was
beached for seven weeks in 1770.
In 1766, Admiralty engaged
Cook to command a scientific voyage to the Pacific Ocean. The purpose of the
voyage was to observe and record the transit of Venus across the Sun for the
benefit of Royal Society inquiry into a means of determining longitude.[21]
Cook, at the age of 39, was promoted to lieutenant to grant him sufficient
status to take the command.[22][23] For its part the Royal Society agreed that
Cook would receive a one hundred guinea gratuity in addition to his Naval
pay.[24]
The expedition sailed from
England on 26 August 1768,[25] rounded Cape Horn and continued westward across
the Pacific to arrive at Tahiti on 13 April 1769, where the observations of the
Venus Transit were made. However, the result of the observations was not as
conclusive or accurate as had been hoped. Once the observations were completed,
Cook opened the sealed orders which were additional instructions from the
Admiralty for the second part of his voyage: to search the south Pacific for
signs of the postulated rich southern continent of Terra Australis.[26] Cook
then sailed to New Zealand and mapped the complete coastline, making only some
minor errors. He then voyaged west, reaching the south-eastern coast of
Australia on 19 April 1770, and in doing so his expedition became the first
recorded Europeans to have encountered its eastern coastline.[NB 2]
On 23 April he made his first
recorded direct observation of indigenous Australians at Brush Island near
Bawley Point, noting in his journal: "…and were so near the Shore as to
distinguish several people upon the Sea beach they appear'd to be of a very
dark or black Colour but whether this was the real colour of their skins or the
C[l]othes they might have on I know not."[27] On 29 April Cook and crew
made their first landfall on the mainland of the continent at a place now known
as the Kurnell Peninsula. Cook originally christened the area as "Stingray
Bay", but he later crossed it out and named it "Botany Bay"[28]
after the unique specimens retrieved by the botanists Joseph Banks and Daniel
Solander. It is here that James Cook made first contact with an aboriginal
tribe known as the Gweagal.[29]
After his departure from
Botany Bay he continued northwards. On 11 June a mishap occurred when HMS
Endeavour ran aground on a shoal of the Great Barrier Reef, and then
"nursed into a river mouth on 18 June 1770".[30] The ship was badly
damaged and his voyage was delayed almost seven weeks while repairs were
carried out on the beach (near the docks of modern Cooktown, Queensland, at the
mouth of the Endeavour River).[4] The voyage then continued, sailing through
Torres Strait and on 22 August Cook landed on Possession Island, where he
claimed the entire coastline that he had just explored as British territory. He
returned to England via Batavia (modern Jakarta, Indonesia where many in his
crew succumbed to malaria), the Cape of Good Hope, and arriving on the island
of Saint Helena on 12 July 1771.[31]
Interlude
Cook's journals were
published upon his return, and he became something of a hero among the
scientific community. Among the general public, however, the aristocratic
botanist Joseph Banks was a greater hero.[4] Banks even attempted to take
command of Cook's second voyage, but removed himself from the voyage before it
began, and Johann Reinhold Forster and his son Georg Forster were taken on as
scientists for the voyage. Cook's son George was born five days before he left
for his second voyage.[32]
The routes of Captain James
Cook's voyages. The first voyage is shown in red, second voyage in green, and
third voyage in blue. The route of Cook's crew following his death is shown as
a dashed blue line.
Second voyage (1772–75)
Main article: Second voyage
of James Cook
James Cook's 1777 South-Up
map of South Georgia
Shortly after his return from
the first voyage, Cook was promoted in August 1771, to the rank of
commander.[33][34] In 1772 he was commissioned to lead another scientific
expedition on behalf of the Royal Society, to search for the hypothetical Terra
Australis. On his first voyage, Cook had demonstrated by circumnavigating New
Zealand that it was not attached to a larger landmass to the south. Although he
charted almost the entire eastern coastline of Australia, showing it to be
continental in size, the Terra Australis was believed to lie further south.
Despite this evidence to the contrary, Alexander Dalrymple and others of the
Royal Society still believed that a massive southern continent should
exist.[35]
Cook commanded HMS Resolution
on this voyage, while Tobias Furneaux commanded its companion ship, HMS
Adventure. Cook's expedition circumnavigated the globe at an extreme southern
latitude, becoming one of the first to cross the Antarctic Circle (17 January
1773). In the Antarctic fog, Resolution and Adventure became separated.
Furneaux made his way to New Zealand, where he lost some of his men during an
encounter with Māori, and eventually sailed back to Britain, while Cook
continued to explore the Antarctic, reaching 71°10'S on 31 January 1774.[14]
James Cook witnessing human
sacrifice in Tahiti c. 1773
Cook almost encountered the
mainland of Antarctica, but turned towards Tahiti to resupply his ship. He then
resumed his southward course in a second fruitless attempt to find the supposed
continent. On this leg of the voyage he brought a young Tahitian named Omai,
who proved to be somewhat less knowledgeable about the Pacific than Tupaia had
been on the first voyage. On his return voyage to New Zealand in 1774, Cook
landed at the Friendly Islands, Easter Island, Norfolk Island, New Caledonia,
and Vanuatu.
Before returning to England,
Cook made a final sweep across the South Atlantic from Cape Horn and surveyed,
mapped and took possession for Britain of South Georgia, which had been
explored by Anthony de la Roché in 1675. Cook also discovered and named Clerke
Rocks and the South Sandwich Islands ("Sandwich Land"). He then
turned north to South Africa, and from there continued back to England. His
reports upon his return home put to rest the popular myth of Terra
Australis.[36]
Cook's second voyage marked a
successful employment of Larcum Kendall's K1 copy of John Harrison's H4 marine
chronometer, which enabled Cook to calculate his longitudinal position with
much greater accuracy. Cook's log was full of praise for this time-piece which
he used to make charts of the southern Pacific Ocean that were so remarkably
accurate that copies of them were still in use in the mid-20th century.[37]
Upon his return, Cook was
promoted to the rank of post-captain and given an honorary retirement from the
Royal Navy, with a posting as an officer of the Greenwich Hospital. He
reluctantly accepted, insisting that he be allowed to quit the post if an
opportunity for active duty should arise.[38] His fame now extended beyond the
Admiralty; he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society, and awarded the Copley
Gold Medal for completing his second voyage without losing a man to scurvy.[39]
Nathaniel Dance-Holland painted his portrait; he dined with James Boswell; he
was described in the House of Lords as "the first navigator in
Europe".[14] But he could not be kept away from the sea. A third voyage
was planned and Cook volunteered to find the Northwest Passage. He travelled to
the Pacific and hoped to travel east to the Atlantic, while a simultaneous
voyage travelled the opposite route.[40]
Third voyage (1776–79)
Main article: Third voyage of
James Cook
A statue of James Cook stands
in Waimea, Kauai commemorating his first contact with the Hawaiian Islands at
the town's harbour in January 1778
On his last voyage, Cook
again commanded HMS Resolution, while Captain Charles Clerke commanded HMS
Discovery. The voyage was ostensibly planned to return the Pacific Islander,
Omai to Tahiti, or so the public were led to believe. The trip's principal goal
was to locate a Northwest Passage around the American continent.[41] After
dropping Omai at Tahiti, Cook travelled north and in 1778 became the first
European to begin formal contact with the Hawaiian Islands.[42] After his
initial landfall in January 1778 at Waimea harbour, Kauai, Cook named the
archipelago the "Sandwich Islands" after the fourth Earl of
Sandwich—the acting First Lord of the Admiralty.[43]
From the Sandwich Islands
Cook sailed north and then north-east to explore the west coast of North
America north of the Spanish settlements in Alta California. He made landfall
on the Oregon coast at approximately 44°30′ north latitude, naming his landing
point Cape Foulweather. Bad weather forced his ships south to about 43° north
before they could begin their exploration of the coast northward.[44] He
unknowingly sailed past the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and soon after entered
Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island. He anchored near the First Nations village of
Yuquot. Cook's two ships remained in Nootka Sound from 29 March to 26 April
1778, in what Cook called Ship Cove, now Resolution Cove,[45] at the south end
of Bligh Island, about 5 miles (8 km) east across Nootka Sound from Yuquot, lay
a Nuu-chah-nulth village (whose chief Cook did not identify but may have been
Maquinna). Relations between Cook's crew and the people of Yuquot were cordial
if sometimes strained. In trading, the people of Yuquot demanded much more
valuable items than the usual trinkets that had worked in Hawaii. Metal objects
were much desired, but the lead, pewter, and tin traded at first soon fell into
disrepute. The most valuable items which the British received in trade were sea
otter pelts. During the stay, the Yuquot "hosts" essentially
controlled the trade with the British vessels; the natives usually visited the
British vessels at Resolution Cove instead of the British visiting the village
of Yuquot at Friendly Cove.[46]
After leaving Nootka Sound,
Cook explored and mapped the coast all the way to the Bering Strait, on the way
identifying what came to be known as Cook Inlet in Alaska. In a single visit,
Cook charted the majority of the North American north-west coastline on world
maps for the first time, determined the extent of Alaska, and closed the gaps
in Russian (from the West) and Spanish (from the South) exploratory probes of
the Northern limits of the Pacific.[14]
HMS Resolution and Discovery
in Tahiti
By the second week of August
1778 Cook was through the Bering Strait, sailing into the Chukchi Sea. He
headed north-east up the coast of Alaska until he was blocked by sea ice. His
furthest north was 70 degrees 44 minutes. Cook then sailed west to the Siberian
coast, and then south-east down the Siberian coast back to the Bering Strait.
By early September 1778 he was back in the Bering Sea to begin the trip to the
Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands.[47] He became increasingly frustrated on this
voyage, and perhaps began to suffer from a stomach ailment; it has been
speculated that this led to irrational behaviour towards his crew, such as
forcing them to eat walrus meat, which they had pronounced inedible.[48]
Return to Hawaii
Cook returned to Hawaii in
1779. After sailing around the archipelago for some eight weeks, he made
landfall at Kealakekua Bay, on 'Hawaii Island', largest island in the Hawaiian
Archipelago. Cook's arrival coincided with the Makahiki, a Hawaiian harvest
festival of worship for the Polynesian god Lono. Coincidentally the form of
Cook's ship, HMS Resolution, or more particularly the mast formation, sails and
rigging, resembled certain significant artefacts that formed part of the season
of worship.[4][48] Similarly, Cook's clockwise route around the island of
Hawaii before making landfall resembled the processions that took place in a
clockwise direction around the island during the Lono festivals. It has been
argued (most extensively by Marshall Sahlins) that such coincidences were the
reasons for Cook's (and to a limited extent, his crew's) initial deification by
some Hawaiians who treated Cook as an incarnation of Lono.[49] Though this view
was first suggested by members of Cook's expedition, the idea that any
Hawaiians understood Cook to be Lono, and the evidence presented in support of
it, were challenged in 1992.[48][50]
Death
Main article: Kidnapping of
Kalaniʻōpuʻu by Captain James Cook
The Death of Captain James
Cook, 14 February 1779, an unfinished painting by Johann Zoffany, circa
1795.[51]
After a month's stay, Cook
attempted to resume his exploration of the Northern Pacific. Shortly after
leaving Hawaii Island, however, the Resolution's foremast broke, so the ships
returned to Kealakekua Bay for repairs.
Tensions rose, and a number
of quarrels broke out between the Europeans and Hawaiians at Kealakekua Bay. An
unknown group of Hawaiians took one of Cook's small boats. The evening when the
cutter was taken, the people had become "insolent" even with threats
to fire upon them. Cook was forced into a wild goose chase that ended with his
return to the ship frustrated.[52] He attempted to kidnap and ransom the King
of Hawaiʻi, Kalaniʻōpuʻu.
That following day, 14
February 1779, Cook marched through the village to retrieve the King. Cook took
the King (aliʻi nui) by his own hand and led him willingly away. One of
Kalaniʻōpuʻu's favorite wives, Kanekapolei and two chiefs approached the group
as they were heading to boats. They pleaded with the king not to go until he
stopped and sat where he stood. An old Kahuna (priest), chanting rapidly while
holding out a coconut, attempted to distract Cook and his men as a large crowd
began to form at the shore. The king began to understand that Cook was his
enemy.[52] As Cook turned his back to help launch the boats, he was struck on
the head by the villagers and then stabbed to death as he fell on his face in
the surf.[53] He was first struck on the head with a club by a chief named
Kalaimanokahoʻowaha or Kanaʻina (namesake of Charles Kana'ina) and then stabbed
by one of the king's attendants, Nuaa.[54][55] The Hawaiians carried his body
away towards the back of the town, still visible to the ship through their
spyglass. Four marines, Corporal James Thomas, Private Theophilus Hinks,
Private Thomas Fatchett and Private John Allen, were also killed and two others
were wounded in the confrontation.