Act II: The Third Voyage Expedition (1776–1780): Two ships (Resolution and Discovery), 182 men [Click on the images below for high resolution versions.] |
||
Fortune leaning upon a column with a spear in the crook of her arm, holding a rudder on a globe. Reverse of the Royal Society’s Cook commemorative medal. [Numismatics Collection] “NIL INTENTATVM NOSTRI LIQVERE” (Our men have left nothing unattempted) . Under the female figure are the words “AVSPICIIS / GEORGII III” (under the auspices of George III). |
The Northwest Passage—a northern navigable route linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, hence a shorter path to the riches of the East Indies by avoiding the two capes (Horn and Good Hope)—had been an off-and-on obsession of the British government and merchant community for several hundred years, dating back to the multiple voyages of John Cabot (d. 1498), Sir Martin Frobisher (ca. 1535–1594), and John Davis (1550?–1605). In 1775, the government offered a prize of £20,000 for its discovery, to be shared among the crew of the successful ship. |
|
Book: Cook, James. A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean. Undertaken, by the Command of His Majesty, for Making Discoveries in the Northern Hemisphere, to Determine the Position and Extent of the West Side of North America; Its Distance from Asia; and the Practicability of a Northern Passage to Europe. Performed under the Direction of Captains Cook, Clerke, and Gore, in His Majesty’s Ships the Resolution and Discovery, in the Years 1776, 1777, 1778, 1779, and 1780. 3 vols. and atlas volume. London, 1784. [Rare Books Division] This much delayed first edition of the first official publication of Cook’s third voyage—with its folio atlas—was so early awaited by the public that it sold out in three days. Five additional English editions were published that year alone, and an additional fourteen editions were printed by 1800. Translations in French, German, Dutch, Swedish, Italian, and Russian were also published in the eighteenth century. The first two volumes were the work of Cook, the third by Captain James King. | A renewed Resolution, under Cook, finally got off on the late evening of July 12, 1776—almost exactly four years after leaving on the previous successful voyage—a coincidence that some viewed as a favorable omen. The commander of the second ship, Discovery, was Lieutenant Charles Clerke (1741–1779), who had sailed with Cook on both circumnavigations but was currently in prison for his brother’s debts; he was not released until the end of July, unwittingly having contracted tuberculosis. Also sailing on the expedition were the talented surveyor and navigator William Bligh (1754–1817), of future HMS Bounty fame, as Cook’s sailing master; the ever-skillful American mariner John Gore (d. 1790) as his first lieutenant; the well-educated James King (1750–1784) as his second lieutenant; landscape painter John Webber (1751–1793); and the Society Islander Omai, being returned to his home. To the expedition’s usual menagerie of sheep, rabbits, and hogs were added horses, cattle, and from the king’s farm a peacock and peahen—the space for these animals and their fodder made for a very crowded and uncomfortable space below deck. | |
While waiting a month for Clerke and Discovery at the Cape of Good Hope, Cook and his men thoroughly enjoyed the spring weather. (See Cook’s letter to artist William Hodges, written during this period.) Clerke arrived on November 10, and both ships were under way by the end of the month. However, Cook seemed in no hurry to reach the Pacific and spent weeks finding and confirming the positions of the French Crozet and Kerguelen Islands in the South Indian Ocean, despite falling more than a month behind his timetable. Then, though intending to head directly for Queen Charlotte Sound, a sudden squall in mid-January damaged Cook’s masts and rigging, and the expedition sought refuge in Furneaux’s Adventure Bay in Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania), which Cook felt was the southern point of New Holland (Australia). |
||
Autograph letter by Cook, written at the Cape of Good Hope to artist William Hodges, dated November 5, 1776. [Manuscripts Division] Written at Cape Town while awaiting the arrival of Clerke, Cook compliments Hodges, who had been the expedition artist on the previous voyage, for his drawings, which would become the basis of the engravings used in Cook’s published narrative. Knowing that Hodges’ wife is pregnant, the captain takes this opportunity to anticipate the artist’s joy of becoming a father; unfortunately, Hodges’ wife will die in childbirth. |
“The Inside of a Hippah, in New Zealand.” From atlas volume of Cook’s A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean . . . (London, 1784). [Rare Books Division]
| |
Bonne, Rigobert, 1727–1794. “Carte des Isles des Amis.” Copperplate map, with added color, 23 × 34 cm. Probably from R. Bonne and N. Desmarest’s Atlas encyclopédique . . . (Paris, 1787–1788). [Historic Maps Collection] |
The winds turned against them as they proceeded north at the end of the month, and a water shortage, exacerbated by the needs of the cattle, developed. The expedition reached the Friendly Islands (Tonga) by May and spent two and a half months (until July 17) among them, including over a month at Tongatapu alone, presumably for navigation and geography purposes. The constant thieving exasperated Cook, but his punishments of the guilty islanders seemed more savage and shocking to the crew when he soon followed these acts with gifts to the chiefs of cattle, horses, and sheep. Clerke was not the only one puzzled—why were they there where they had been before? Why not go directly to Tahiti and unload all of the king’s livestock, or do more charting of the other Friendly Islands, like one they heard of called Fidgee (Fiji)? Cook’s inconsistent behavior on this third voyage had been noticed but could not be explained. |
|
“A Human Sacrifice, in a Morai, in Otaheite” [The subject had already been killed before these ceremonies took place.] From the atlas volume.
|
The Captain continued his unusually cruel punitive actions in the Society Islands, where he lingered long enough (August–December) for some officers to think he had forgotten his instructions. There were ceremonies to attend (including a human sacrifice), inter-island politics to confront, the problem of settling Omai somewhere (eventually in Huahine). By December 8 they were in Bora-Bora, about ten months behind schedule, having lost a whole season of Arctic exploration. It was also obvious that Clerke’s health was deteriorating. Proceeding north, they discovered the Pacific’s largest atoll, Christmas Island (today’s Kiritimati), where they celebrated Christmas and Cook observed an eclipse of the sun. After stocking up on over a ton of green turtles, the ships departed on January 2, 1778. |
|
A few weeks later, the surprising, momentous discovery of Hawaii occurred. With the sun rising over the islands’ volcanic mountains, Resolution and Adventure anchored off today’s Waimea on Kauai, a good watering place. Trading pigs and potatoes for nails began immediately with canoeists coming alongside; venturing aboard, the islanders were astonished at what they saw and could not refrain from trying to steal anything they could. (What else was new about these first encounters?) When Cook went ashore (see the photograph of the landing spot) on the morning of January 20, the people prostrated themselves on the ground in his honor; remarkably, they understood the Tahitian language. (Cook always wondered how the Polynesians had populated the vast Pacific.) Later, Cook learned that Third Lieutenant John Williamson, who had been in charge of the search party that had found this anchorage, had shot and killed a native in senseless fear. An ominous, symbolic beginning. The people, though, were friendly, the water was sweet, and the trading was excellent—Clerke, for example, feeling somewhat better, reported that one moderate-size nail supplied his ship’s company with a day’s worth of pork. But Cook was impatient to get to New Albion, the British name for the region that Sir Francis Drake had explored along northwest North America in 1579, so they stayed at Kauai and nearby Niihau for only two weeks. |
||
View in 2009 of the site of Cook’s 1778 landing at Waimea on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. [Photograph courtesy of John Delaney] |
Bonne, Rigobert, 1727–1794. “Carte des Isles Sandwich.” Copperplate map, with added color, 23 × 34 cm. Probably from R. Bonne and N. Desmarest’s Atlas encyclopédique . . . (Paris, 1787–1788). [Historic Maps Collection] |
|
Would they reach the Arctic in time to explore? On March 7 they sighted North America, in the vicinity of the coast nearest today’s Eugene, Oregon, at 44°33′ N. Foul weather kept them at sea until the end of the month, when they landed on the west side of Vancouver Island in Nootka Sound, having missed the Juan de Fuca Strait. The Indians they met, “mild and inoffensive” according to Cook, had a familiar obsession with anything metal and eagerly traded animal pelts. Unlimited timber provided some new masts, and much needed repair work was done over several weeks. Meanwhile, the men enjoyed the new sights and sounds (so many diverse birds), visited the Indians’ log-framed settlements, and cooked abundant fish. When they cast off their moorings on April 26, the local chief gave Cook a full-length beaver cloak and received, in turn, a broad sword with a brass hilt. |
||
Bonne, Rigobert, 1727–1794. “Carte de la rivière de Cook, dans la partie n. o. de l'Amérique.” Copperplate map, with added color, 23 × 34 cm. Probably from R. Bonne and N. Desmarest’s Atlas encyclopédique . . . (Paris, 1787–1788). [Historic Maps Collection] |
“The Inside of a House, in Oonalashka.” From the atlas volume.
|
|
Turning north, they sailed up the coast of Alaska through July, reaching its most western point on August 9; Cook named it Cape Prince of Wales, noting fairly accurately its true location at 65°46′ N, 191°45′ E without going ashore. A gale swept them across the Bering Strait to the coast of Asia—the passage is just over fifty miles at its narrowest point—where they met the friendly, fur-trading Mongoloid Chukchi people. Cook was at his fearless best here, distributing beads and trinkets and tobacco, and the crew enjoyed a drum-beat dance by the natives. But the celebration had to be short, for the exploring season was ending. |
||
Lotter, Tobias Conrad, 1717–1777. “Carte de l’Océan Pacifique au nord de l’equateur, et des côtes qui le bornent des deux côtes: d’après les dernieres découvertes faites par les Espagnols, les Russes et les Anglois, jusqu’en 1780” (Augsburg, 1781.)Copperplate map, with added color, 42 × 50 cm. on sheet 59 × 73 cm. [Historic Maps Collection] An historic document: the first published map to show Cook’s third voyage and the first map to show Hawaii. |
||
Scurvy-Proof
|
For no apparent reason, Cook reversed his earlier prohibition on women coming aboard the ship, and he imposed a new restriction on grog, reducing the crew’s ration and replacing it with beer concocted from local sugarcane. He wanted to preserve the liquor for the Arctic and felt the beer had scurvy-proof properties. (See the box on scurvy.) The men refused to touch it, and so Cook suspended their ration entirely, leading to a mutinous mood that was exacerbated by wind that drove the ships out to sea. At length, the restriction was lifted, but bad weather continued to damage sails and rigging. Heavy trading of axes, knives, and chisels for vegetables and pigs continued whenever they were near the shoreline, however. Cook, appearing noticeably wearier and shorter-tempered to his officers, continued a clockwise circumnavigation of the island, seeking shelter and a good anchorage. On January 16, 1779, they found it in Kealakekua Bay on the island’s western coast and dropped anchor there the next day. (See the illustration and maps of the bay.) | |
Comparison: “Plan de la Baye de Karakakooa,” from Rigobert Bonne’s “Carte des Isles Sandwich” (1788?)—this is a French copy of Cook’s 1779 chart—inset within “Kealakekua Bay to Honaunau Bay” (1998), chart no. 19332 of the coastal survey of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Ocean Service. [Map Library, Princeton University] |
||
“A View of Karakakooa [today’s Kealakekua], Owhyee”: site of Captain Cook’s death. From the atlas volume.
|
“An Offering before Capt. Cook in the Sandwich Islands.” From the atlas volume.
|
|
The crowds were massive, and the ships were swarmed. The atmosphere was both euphoric and hysteric. Cook’s arrival, its timing and manner, mirrored the narrative of a traditional Hawaiian myth regarding Lono makua, the god of Hawaii’s season of abundance: Lono would appear in a great canoe at this season, circle the island clockwise, and enter this bay, Kealakekua, “the path of the gods.” The remarkable coincidence probably accounts for the welcoming-god treatment Cook initially received, though some scholars recently have argued against that interpretation. Several chiefs and a high priest named Koa arrived and restored some order, then led Cook ashore to an elaborate ceremony near a morai, or place of worship. The hysteria diminished in the days that followed; trading, salting and storing hogs, and ship repair work continued. King Kalei’opu’u, whom they had met and whose rank they had underestimated on Maui—he was actually king of all Hawaii—made his regal approach days later and gave Cook his own cloak, while the common natives prostrated themselves in veneration. But Cook was keen to get away and continue his exploration, and the islanders appeared anxious for Lono to return to his heavenly abode. |
||
“An Exact Representation of The Death of Captn. James Cook, F.R.S at Karakakooa Bay, in Owhyhee, on Feby. 14, 1779.” From George William Anderson’s A New, Authentic, and Complete Collection of Voyages Round the World, Undertaken and Performed by Royal Authority . . . Captain Cook’s First, Second, Third, and Last Voyages . . . (London, 1784). [Rare Books Division] |
Monument to Cook, erected in 1874 on the site of his death, viewed in 2009. [Photograph courtesy of John Delaney] |
|
Resolution and Discovery arrived back in the Thames on October 4, 1780—after one more valiant try at discovering a Northwest Passage. On the way, Bligh surveyed the rest of the Sandwich Islands. The expedition reached Petropavlosk by May and was through the Bering Strait by July 6, but the ice field was indomitable, on both sides, beyond 70°33′, a few miles short of Cook’s record, so they headed south. When Clerke succumbed to his tuberculosis on August 22, near the Kamchatkan coast, Gore assumed command and King took over the Discovery. All the officers consulted and agreed to return home via the little-known eastern Asian coast and Japan (which they ultimately missed because of gales), visit Canton (China) for supplies, avoid Batavia, and then proceed directly to the Cape of Good Hope and home. Back in England, the Admiralty already had heard of Cook’s death (from Clerke’s letter sent while in Russia) in January of that year, and the sad news and grief had swept the country, so there was no huge excitement about the expedition’s return in the fall. No distribution of £20,000. But the machinery of Cook myth-making had begun cranking up.
|
||
“A General Chart: Exhibiting the Discoveries Made by Captn. James Cook in This and His Two Preceeding Voyages, with Tracks of the Ships under His Command.” Copperplate map, 36 × 57 cm. From the atlas volume of Cook’s A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean . . . (London, 1784). [Rare Books Division] Cook’s legacy: a revealed world. His world map was the most accurate at its time. During his life, he had explored farther north (70°44′ N) and farther south (71°10′ S) in the Pacific than any previous human being. |