The Dangerous Book of Heroes (14 page)

In a last dig southeast he discovered and named Sandwich Land (South Sandwich Islands), which he thought might be off a
southern promontory. He was right—the Antarctic Peninsula is not far away. Cook turned the
Resolution
to the east once more, crossed his track of 1772, and completed the first circumnavigation of Antarctica. Finally, he turned north and in March reached Cape Town, where he was told that the
Adventure
had passed safely a year before.

Copyright © 2009 by Graeme Neil Reid

James Cook returned to England in July 1775, to complete an incredible exploration of three years and eighteen days. He lost just four men: three drowned, one of natural causes, none to disease. In the
Resolution
and the
Endeavour
he'd sailed 120,000 nautical miles, twice around the world and many times around the Pacific. At forty-six years of age, he was truly the greatest explorer, discoverer, navigator, surveyor, cartographer, and seaman of his age.

 

Cook was made captain and presented again to King George III. He prepared and delivered his scientific papers to the Royal Society, which awarded him its gold medal and elected him Fellow for his geographic and scientific achievements. Not bad for a man whose only formal education was a village school in Yorkshire.

Of Terra Australis, he concluded: “I had now made the circuit of the Southern Ocean in a high Latitude and traversed it in such a manner as to leave not the least room for the Possibility of there being a continent, unless near the Pole and out of the reach of Navigation…thus I flatter my self that the intention of the Voyage has in every respect been fully Answered, the Southern Hemisphere sufficiently explored and a final end put to searching after a Southern Continent…. That there may be a Continent or large tract of land near the Pole I will not deny. On the contrary I am of opinion there is, and it is probable that we have seen a part of it.” Captain Cook, the first Antarctic explorer, was absolutely right.

The Admiralty also made Cook captain of the Royal Naval Hospital at Greenwich, a sinecure that he accepted with the condition that he could leave should he be required elsewhere. For already the Admiralty was arranging a third great exploration into the Pacific and the
Resolution
was refitted for further duty. This time the destination was
north, to explore Sir Francis Drake's “New Albion” west coast of North America. From there, to sail along the last unknown coastline in the world in search of a sea passage around the top of Canada, the fabled Northwest Passage, and a sea passage around the top of Russia, the Northeast Passage. Neither could be located from the Atlantic. If anyone could find the Pacific entrances, it was James Cook.

 

Having sent the
Adventure
elsewhere, the Admiralty purchased another Whitby collier to accompany the
Resolution
and named her
Discovery.
She was commanded by Lieutenant Charles Clerke, ex-
Endeavour
and ex-
Resolution.
Joining Cook as master of the
Resolution
was the talented William Bligh; rejoining as first lieutenant was John Gore, while many more officers and seamen also rejoined. As well as taking home Omai, a Tahitian brought to Britain in the
Adventure,
further gifts for the South Seas' kings were taken on board including, for the first time, horses. With goats, sheep, chickens, pigs, and horses, the
Resolution
's decks looked and smelled like a farmyard when she left Plymouth on July 12, 1776. Cook had been home for less than a year, which may have been the secret of his long and happy marriage.

As soon as the
Resolution
put to sea, Cook found she leaked like a sieve; her refit was appalling. Throughout this expedition Cook and his crew suffered from this negligence, and ultimately, it was to be fatal. At Cape Town, Cook had almost every seam recaulked as well as replacing some masts.

The
Resolution
and the
Discovery
departed Cape Town in November 1776, sailing southeast to explore, survey, and chart the subantarctic Marion, Crozet, and Kerguelen Islands. There were further problems with the
Resolution
's masts, and Cook anchored at Adventure Bay in Van Diemen's Land for repairs. He met the Australian Aborigines a second time but made little progress with them. When he stopped at Queen Charlotte Sound for yet more repairs, the Maoris were surprised to find that the great Cook intended no punishment for the murder and eating of the
Adventure
's boat crew three years before. Cook understood that it was a collision of cultures and that retribution would gain nothing. Instead, he tried to
explain the concept of mercy and forgiveness. The Maoris were puzzled and Omai was scornful.

Cook sailed the
Resolution
and the
Discovery
on a new route to the northeast, another of his Pacific wanderings in which he was destined to discover unknown islands and peoples, including another Polynesian community in what he named the Hervey Islands (Cook Islands). The two vessels nudged the occasional unknown reef and sandbank—immediately charted—then sailed west to the Friendly Islands. Cook and Bligh landed on Tofua, and King George's gifts—sheep, goats, pigs, and rabbits—were distributed to the island chiefs, while one of the horses was presented to the Tongan king. Cook sailed through the Society Islands to Otaheite, his Pacific home, and returned Omai to his people after several years away. He presented the remaining gifts: two horses, sheep, cattle, geese, a cock, and a hen. Two
Discovery
crew deserted—desertions occurred on every visit—but the Tahitians located the sailors on another island and returned them to be flogged.

It was during this visit that Cook's rheumatism, the sailor's curse, was relieved with massage by a dozen strong women using the a'pi plant. After two treatments, it never returned. One of the Tahitians massaging Captain James Cook was Isabella, who later married a master's mate named Fletcher Christian, the notorious
Bounty
mutineer.

In November 1777 the two ships departed Otaheite and Cook directed them north. On Christmas Eve he made yet another discovery, at the equator. He named them the Line Islands and the first land sighted Christmas Island (Kiritimati). Sixteen days later Cook discovered the last great island group of the Pacific Ocean, the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii), first reaching Atui (Kauai) Island. There were more Polynesians, and Cook wondered again at these island seamen who had sailed the Pacific in their simple outrigger canoes, from Hawaii to New Zealand, from Easter Island to the Friendly Islands.

When Cook landed on Atui on January 20, 1778, the islanders lay flat on their faces. This had never happened before, and, embarrassed,
Cook waved them up. It was explained that this was how these Polynesians greeted their chiefs. It was actually how they greeted their gods, but Cook was not told this. He made friends with the Polynesians in his usual way, bartering for fresh vegetables, meat, and water before setting off to the east.

The
Resolution
and the
Discovery
sailed to a February landfall in North America at Drake's New Albion, north of San Francisco. The weather was cold and the seas lively, but Cook wanted to be far north by the beginning of summer for his exploration into the Arctic. The two Whitby colliers coasted northward along what are now the states of Oregon and Washington, passing Drake's farthest point north, charting and naming as they went. Vancouver Island was named after the
Resolution
's midshipman, Cape Suckling after Nelson's uncle, Bligh Island after the
Resolution
's master, and so on. Cook anchored for further repairs to the
Resolution
at Prince William Sound, where the
Discovery
's crew beat off an attack by knife-wielding Eskimos. Cook ordered the men not to use firearms.

The ships were forced south again by the long Alaska Peninsula. Cook Inlet was thought to be a possible passage east or north, but when Bligh explored he found it to be only a river mouth. The two ships reached the bottom of the peninsula at Ounalashka (Unalaska), where they passed between the Aleutian Islands and sailed northward again through the cold Bering Sea. Cook noted the estuary of the great Yukon River and, finally, passed between the continents of America and Asia to enter the Arctic.

In the charts drawn in the great cabin of the
Resolution,
Captain James Cook had mapped the last, major unknown coastline of the world. The
Resolution
and Cook also became the first ship and man to cross both polar circles, 66° 33.5? south and north of the equator—and thus the first to reach both the Antarctic and the Arctic.

Northward, Cook navigated the little ships into the bitter polar weather. Once again, ice coated the
Resolution
's rigging until the latitude measured was almost 71° north, as before it measured 71° south. Once again, it was ice that stopped Cook, sea ice piled twelve feet high and impassable. Cook had indeed reached the Pacific end of the
elusive Northwest Passage, only to find it choked with ice. He tacked and wore his ships along the edge of the frozen sea, searching for a channel through, but there was none. He turned west for the Northeast Passage.

He beat along the edge of the ice from 164° west across the international date line to 176° east. The pack ice was solid from the North Pole to the coast of Siberia. Cook had reached the Pacific end of the Northeast Passage, and it, too, was choked with ice. It was evident that both passages were unsuitable for commercial navigation.

By then it was September and the pack ice was beginning to reform. Cook turned his ships back along the Siberian coast—he was charting the coast of Siberia in two Whitby colliers!—and south into the Bering Sea. The
Resolution
was in a poor state once more and needed rerigging. Cook required a warm winter anchorage, and he chose the Sandwich Islands, where they'd been welcomed earlier.

For two months Cook searched the islands for a suitable anchorage, surveying and charting as he went. On January 17, 1779, he found Karakakooa (Kealakekua) Bay on the west coast of Owhyhee (Hawaii) itself, the largest island. He sent William Bligh in a boat to sound the bay. The bay was open only to the southwest, and the holding ground was good. It would do.

His reception was overwhelming. Thousands of islanders canoed or swam out to the ships, climbing aboard in their feathers and flowers even while the sailors were anchoring. When Cook stepped ashore with gifts of pigs, goats, and iron tools, the islanders again prostrated themselves before him. Elaborate ceremonies were performed and he was accompanied by priests wherever he went. In awe, the Polynesian king Kalaniopu'u visited Cook's ships. They called Cook “Orono,” “Lono” or “Rono.” No one aboard the two ships understood what was happening. It wasn't until many years later, after interviews with the islanders involved, that the truth was uncovered.

Orono was a Hawaiian god who'd been exiled. The legend was that one day he would return, bearing gifts of swine and dogs. Who else but Orono could the tall, noble Captain Cook be?

Cook stayed only three weeks. With the
Resolution
's rigging
repaired and the ships provisioned and watered, he set sail to complete his survey of the Sandwich Islands, explore the northwest Pacific, and return to the Arctic. He wrote that Owhyhee had “enriched our voyage with a discovery which, though the last, seemed in many respects to be the most important that had hitherto been made throughout the extent of the Pacific Ocean.” Those were the final words in his journal. That he wrote “the last” discovery is intriguing.

The
Resolution
's log records that a strong blow caught the ship and the morning inspection revealed severe damage to the foremast and fore-topmast, one more relic of the poor refit. Repairs required a safe anchorage, for the masts had to be removed. Cook did not want to return to Owhyhee, but there was nowhere else. He put about and anchored again in Karakakooa Bay on February 10.

 

This time, the welcome for “Orono” was somewhat thin. Cook went ashore to explain to King Kalaniopu'u and his chiefs the reason for his return—only to repair the masts. He believed they'd understood him, but what the priests said when he'd gone was another matter. Working as quickly as they could, the British seamen “fished” the masts and floated them ashore for repair. It was complicated, skilled work. As it progressed, stones were thrown at them and there were minor assaults. Thefts increased dramatically until the islanders actually swam under the ships to pull out the nails holding the copper sheathing to the hulls. Cook had an islander flogged as a deterrent.

On the night of the thirteenth, the
Discovery
's cutter was stolen from her mooring. This was extremely serious. In the morning Cook went ashore in the
Resolution
's pinnace with ten marines in the launch to carry out his usual bloodless punishment. He would take a chief hostage until the cutter was returned. It had always worked before. Four more boats cordoned the bay to stop islanders from rowing their canoes or the cutter away. Cook's reluctant orders were to fire if necessary and unusually, he carried a shotgun himself.