Southland of the Holy Spirit

V

COOK

"Nelson and Cook are the two most revered names in . . . the Royal Navy", but more importantly, Captain James Cook is the man who "discovered" Australia , as every Australian school child knows. He was the "greatest combination of seaman, explorer, navigator, and cartographer that the world has known".[1]

Early Years: Preparation

Cook was born at Marton-in-Cleveland, a small village in north-east Yorkshire on 27 October 1728 . His father, James Cook, was a Scottish farm labourer and his mother, Grace (Pace), a Yorkshire girl. They lived in a two-roomed, clay-built thatched cottage, where their son, James, was born and was baptised in the village church of St Cuthbert on 3 November. The young James inherited a strong physique which was to equip him for a rugged life at sea. (Four younger brothers and sisters died in infancy.) As a boy, Cook learned his letters from Mrs Walker, whose husband farmed Marton Grange. To pay for his education, Cook helped with the farm chores and ran errands. As a farm boy, he learned good work habits from his father and developed an eye for the land, which was useful to him later in his explorations. About 1736, Cook's father was made a "hind" or farm-manager, to Thomas Skottowe, of Airyholme farm near Ayton, a larger village four miles from Marton. This promotion would suggest Cook senior was a man of steadiness, sobriety and intelligence. One of Skottowe's sons, noticing Cook junior had some brains, paid the small fees necessary to send him to Postgate School at Ayton, where the master, Mr Pullen, taught Cook the three R's and catechism. He was good at arithmetic, but Cook did not distinguish himself academically.[2] There were no clues of early genius, but one report that has survived from the 1740s hinted at certain character qualities that attributed to his rise to fame:

It has been asserted by those who knew him at this early period of his life, that he had such an obstinate and sturdy way of his own, as made him sometimes appear in an unpleasant light; notwithstanding which, there was something in his manners and deportment, which attracted the reverence and respect of his companions. The seeds of that undaunted resolution and perseverance which afterwards accelerated his progress to immortality, were conspicuous, even in his boyish days. Frequently, on an evening, when assembled together in the village, to set out in search of birds' nests, Cook might be seen in the midst of his comrades, strenuously contending that they should proceed to some particular spot. This he would do, with such inflexible earnestness, as to be deserted by the greater part of his companions.[3]

In 1745, Cook left home. His proficiency in arithmetic helped to get him a job as a shopboy with William Sanderson, grocer and haberdasher, at Staithes, a small but important North Sea fishing port. It was Cook's first taste of the sea. At seventeen, the life of the strong Yorkshire fishermen fascinated him. Between groceries and ribbons, Cook caught glimpses of them--bent over flat-bottomed boats; hauling baskets of fish; coiling long loops of rope; drying nets in the wind; vanishing into the night. The smells of the beach, wet tar, tangled seaweed, and fish were not the smells of the barnyard, but they stirred him. The long procession of white sails against the grey stormy skyline lured and challenged him. However, Cook did his job faithfully for eighteen months and as a result of his diligence, Sanderson personally took him over to Whitbyten miles away and made arrangements for his formal apprenticeship, as "a three year servant", to John Walker, a respected Quaker ship-owner, who specialised in the colliery trade.[4]

The Quaker connection in Whitby was very strong. The first meeting house was built in 1676 and many of the buildings in the town reflected a Quaker dignity and restraint, including the Walker's house in Haggersgate, where Cook lodged. It is certain that the devout Walkerfamily was an important influence in Cook's life. After his apprenticeship, he continued to stay with them between voyages until his marriage to Elizabeth Batts on 21 December 1762 . It was Walker who noted Cook spent many hours studying navigation, astronomy and mathematics. Cook continued this habit all his life, a habit that was largely responsible for his later rise to fame in the Royal Navy.[5]

Whitby, a port town of 10,000 people, was famous for its ship-building yards. Whitbymen owned over two hundred ships; they traded up and down the English eastern coast, the Baltic, the Mediterranean , America , India and the Orient. The Walkers were involved in the coal trade which was regarded as "a nursery of seamen". Coal was the chief commodity of the northern counties, but the east coast of England was known for its treacherous coast and its unreliable tides. The North Sea was not to be trusted. Learning to navigate its waters was a tough "nursery" for seaman Cook, but the hard lessons he learned prepared him for difficult distant unknown coastlines, just as dangerous. Walker, confident in Cook's competence as a seaman, offered him a command of the Friendship,, a merchant ship, but "Cook had always an ambition to go into the navy".[6]

The Navy

So in 1755, Cook, passing up Walker's offer, joined the Royal Navy as an able seaman. This was an extraordinary decision--to join the lowest rank in the navy in an age when the navy was known for its brutality. A sailor's life was hard enough in the merchant service. However, the navy was so unpopular that men had to be continually pressed into its service. Its physical amenities, as well as its food, and its pay, were worse than the merchant service. Its discipline was also harsh, and its sickness record was dreadful. Cook never explained the reasons for his decision. Possibly he felt it was his duty to do his part in protecting his country against the French in the impending Seven Years' War. We will never know. Cook was an intensely secretive man. We have no record of his internal life. Even Cook's daily log, which he kept faithfully the rest of his life, revealed very little about the man.[7]

To be offered a command at twenty-seven showed that Cook possessed exceptional abilities in navigation, cartography, and leadership--which accounted for his rapid rise in the navy. Within a month of joining the Navy, he became master's mate; in two years he rose to boatswain and then to master. As master, the senior non-commissioned officer, Cook was in charge of the running of the ship. At the same time he continued with his studies in navigation, mathematics, astronomy and cartography. The mastering of these subjects, along with the tough conditioning of naval life, was to prepare him for the later stresses of the Pacific.

On his twenty-ninth birthday Cook joined the Pembroke, a sixty-four gun ship, as master. In February 1758 the Pembroke headed for Canada , where things were going badly for the British, under General Wolfe, in the war with the French. Cook played a crucial part in the Quebec campaign. In the face of constant enemy sabotage, he successfully re-charted and re-buoyed the Traverse, a highly treacherous river crossing in the St Lawrence River , an operation which took several weeks. This allowed the entire British armada of over two hundred ships to pass safely through the Traverse without a single casualty.[8] Cook was then referred to as "Master Surveyor", even in official dispatches. At the personal request of Admiral Colville, Cook spent the next three years charting the St Lawrence River . His charts were published in the North American Pilot in 1775 and became the standard navigational reference for those waters for over a century.[9]

Cook's First Voyage: 1768-71

Cook's next major assignment was in the Pacific. For several centuries, the Europeans had been speculating about a southern continent. The British feared the French might find it first, so while ostensibly putting together an astronomical expedition to an unknown destination in the Pacific to observe a transit of Venus on 3 June 1769 , the Lords of the Admiralty secretly instructed Cook to find a new continent.[10] Cook made three voyages to the Pacific between 1768 and his premature death in 1779. It was on his first voyage that he discovered the east coast of Australia . His ship, the Endeavour, sailed from Plymouthon 26 August 1768 , without any fanfare or saying of prayers.

The entry Cook wrote in his diary sharpens the contrast between him and his predecessors, whether from Roman Catholic or Protestant Christendom. For where Magellan's and Quiros' men had taken the sacrament, and Tasman had beseeched God Almighty to vouchsafe His blessing on his work, Cook recorded the facts: 'At 2 p.m. got under sail and put to sea.'[11]

Cook was an Anglican. His son, Hugh, was to enter the Anglican ministry, but died prematurely.[12] Several writers on Cook referred to him as a Christian.[13] Cook was a good man: above reproach in his morals; moderate in all things; compassionate and conciliatory in his treatment of the natives;[14] always concerned about the welfare of his men; a man of great courage and determination; cool and just in judgement; controlled in speech even when angry. He would not allow profanity on board (which even professing Christians tolerate these days).[15] He required his men to wear clean clothes on Sunday, and, on occasions he conducted divine service for his crew. This would suggest that he certainly would have been sympathetic, not indifferent or hostile, to the faith. [16]

Cook's wife gave him a Prayer Book, which he probably read in order to name a number of places discovered on significant days, such as the Whitsundays, Trinity Bay , Christmas Island , and Pentecost Islands .[17] Accompanying Cook on this voyage was Joseph Banks, a prominent young botanist and Fellow (later President) of the Royal Society. Born in 1744 in Lincolnshire, Banks was educated at Harrow , Eton and Oxford, but his aptitude for Greek and Latin was exceeded by his love of nature. It was from his mother that Banks acquired a love of natural history. From an early age, she encouraged him not to be afraid to pick up toads, "to whose manner of life man is certainly under some obligation as its food is chiefly insects which devour his crops and annoy him in various ways".[18] It was his mother who encouraged Banks to pursue the unusual career of botany rather than the family tradition of politics. There was a strong bond between Banks and his mother, an intelligent strong-willed woman, "void of all fear", deeply religious, and a member of the Moravian Church, which believed that the Holy Scriptures are the only rule of faith and practice. Banks "believed that every consideration a man made of the works of the Almighty increased a man's admiration of his Creator".[19]

Nourished on Gerard's Herbal, rather than Homer and Virgil, Banks was a self-educated man of ample means (having inherited a fortune from his father, who died when he was eighteen). He decided to devote the rest of his life to the progress of natural history, particularly botany, and he developed an enormous natural history collection. His first major field trip was to Newfoundland and Labrador , where there was a Moravian Mission. Banks had always admired the Moravians for their high moral standards and their hardiness in taking Christianity to such inhospitable lands.[20] He had planned other expeditions, but when Banks heard of the planned voyage of the Endeavour, he decided he was going. Since he knew the Earl of Sandwich (who had been First Lord of the Admiralty) and money was no problem, it was arranged. Among the entourage Banks took along with him, were Sydney Parkinson, (the botanist, artist and draughtsman who was charged with making pictures of all the fauna they were to catch); Dr Carl Solander, a famous Swedish botanist; Alexander Buchan, a landscape artist, and artist John Reynolds; in addition to a secretary, four servants and his two English greyhounds, as well as men from the Royal Society. Furthermore, there was Banks' library, and the scientific equipment--devices for catching and preserving insects; traps, nets, drags for catching fish and small animals; cases of bottles of spirits for preserving them; and presses, salts, waxes for preserving plants and seeds.[21]

Cook had chosen a Whitbycollier, the Endeavour, because of its sturdy build and very wide beam, for transporting the large amount of scientific equipment and supplies needed for such a long voyage. Among the supplies, Cook included "7860 pounds of sauerkraut". (This was why no one on Cook's ships developed scurvy.)[22]

Rounding the Cape Horn , Cook headed for Tahiti to observe the transit of Venus, then on to New Zealand . After spending several months charting the coasts of both islands (the first man to do so), Cook headed west for the east coast of Van Diemen's Land ( Tasmania ). But the great ocean swell forced the Endeavour northwards. He landed at Botany Bay , just south of Sydney, on 6 May 1770 . Later, Cook summed up his impressions in his journal:

Finding in many places a deep black soil which produced, besides timber, as fine meadow as ever was seen and which I believe is capable of producing any kind of grain. . . . Fruits and roots of every kind would flourish were they once brought thither and planted and cultivated by the hand of industry, as there was provender for more cattle at all seasons of the year than ever could be brought into the country.[23]

Historian Clark commented: "Substitute sheep for cattle, and this became a prophecy in broad outline of the pastoral period in the history of Australia ".[24] Cook's description of the eastern coast was largely responsible for the choice of Botany Bay as the location for a penal colony by the British Parliament in 1779. It contrasted sharply with Dampier's earlier dismal description of the western coast, "that barren and miserable country"[25] and its inhabitants. Through enlightened eyes, Cook commented on the idyllic life of the Aborigines in glowing terms:

[The inhabitants] are a timorous and inoffensive race . . . in no ways inclinable to cruelty. They may appear to some [Dampier, for example], to be the most [unhappy] 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 disturbed 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 etc., they live in a warm and fine climate and enjoy a very wholesome air, so that they have very little need of Clothing.[26]

As Cook continued sailing up the east coast, an incident occurred that almost terminated the voyage and their lives. There was a danger lurking beneath the waters of which Cook was unaware. It was the Great Barrier Reef . On Trinity Sunday, 10 June, the Endeavour struck a reef and stuck fast. After much work, the crew managed to free her and steered the damaged ship towards a river-mouth, where the banks were suited to laying the vessel ashore for repairs. That was 16 June. It was not until 4 August that Cook was ready to leave, but it was not long before the Endeavour was headed for the reef again. Without any wind and the seas being too deep to cast anchor, the ship was slowly but surely driven by the force of the tides towards certain destruction. Cook knew the Endeavour would smash and sink in a moment when it struck that perpendicular wall. The men manned the boats and tried to tow her away; it was useless. They were eighty yards away when "suddenly, a little breath of air moved, blew for a few minutes, faded, the merest cat's-paw". It was enough to carry them towards a narrow opening in the reef, but there was still no wind. How much longer could the Endeavour endure? Another narrow opening was seen in the reef and Cook pulled the head of the ship around. At last a light breeze sprang up, and with the tide being in their favour, hurried the vessel through this "Providential Channel" as Cook named it, as he anchored in safe waters.[27]

It had been "the narrowest escape we ever had and had it not been for the immediate help of Providencewe must inevitably have perished", said Richard Pickersgill, the master's mate.[28] Cook, in his entry for 16 August 1770, after describing their desperate situation, wrote, "It pleased God at this very juncture to send us a light air of wind, which, with the help of our boats, carried us about half a cable's length from the present danger".[29]

Cook completed charting the east coast as far as Cape York Peninsula . In his journal, he commented: "This Eastern side is not that barren and miserable country that Dampier and others described the western side to be".[32] On 22 August 1770 , before leaving for England via Bataviaand the Cape of Good Hope , Cook landed on an island, which he named Possession Island ,[33] two miles off the western shore of Cape York Peninsula . He hoisted the English colours and took possession of the whole of the eastern coast from the latitude of 38 degrees south to Possession Island in the name of His Majesty King George III.[34] Cook, characteristically, did not consider his discoveries of any great significance though he was awarded his captain's commission for his work. Even until his death, Cook did not believe that he had found the southern continent.

Cook's Second Voyage: 1772-75

As a result of Cook's own suggestion, the Admiralty commissioned him to make a second voyage to search for the southern continent. So, on 13 July 1772 , Cook left again with two ships and headed for the Pacific. Cook scoured the southern oceans from Cape Horn to the Cape of Good Hope for three years, crossing the Antarctic Circle three times. His ship, the Resolution, was aptly named. As he picked his way among the icebergs, Cook's "icy courage" matched his surroundings. Though sturdy, the collier, designed to carry coal, was not made for manoeuvrability and the below zero icy sea spray turned the sails and tackle into lethal weapons. Cook would not give up.[35]

On 30 January 1774 , however, he was forced to stop because he had run up against a solid mass of packed ice. The latitude was 71 degrees 10' south, the longitude 106 degrees 34' west. This was the most southern point any man had reached. Cook, in an unguarded moment, left us the most revealing statement he had ever made about himself:

I, who hope ambition leads me not only further than any man has been before me, but as far as I think it possible for man to go, was not sorry at meeting with this interruption.[36]

Although he did not know it, Cook was only two hundred miles from the nearest coastline. He had not discovered the Antarctic, but when finally Cook turned the Resolution north, he had settled forever the question of the existence of the fabled southern continent, unless it existed in a much reduced form. He arrived at Spithead on 29 July 1775 , three years and eighteen days after setting out on what proved to be the greatest voyage of exploration in history.[37] Cook attributed the success of the voyage, with the loss of only four out of 180 men, to the "care of Providence".[38]

Cook's Third Voyage: 1776-80

In July 1776, the Admiralty commissioned Cook to attempt to find a north-west passage by sea from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean, and to distribute presents among the natives of the Friendly Islands and of the countries they might discover in the northern hemisphere. On 12 July 1776 , Cook sailed from England in the Resolution, accompanied by a second ship, the Discovery; on his last voyage. He spent 1777 exploring the Friendly Islands and the Society group; in 1778 he sailed north to attempt to find the northern passage. This attempt, taking him deep into the Bering Strait , was a daring feat of navigational engineering, winning Cook much praise from Russian writers on Pacific exploration.[39]

From there, Cook sailed south to the Sandwich Islands for the winter. On 14 February 1779 , at Karakakoa Bay on Hawaii Island , some natives stole the cutter (a small fast boat) of the Discovery. Cook attempted to take hostages of the natives until the cutter was returned--a practice he had used many times before with success. However, an angry native, incensed at the shooting of one of their chieftains by a member of Cook's crew, fired a shot at Cook. This caused fighting to break out, and, in a moment when Cook's back was turned, Koa, the high priest, who just days before had deified Cook as one of their gods, struck him down with a club; others stabbed him to death. Cook was fifty years old.[40]

There have been many interpretations of the precipitating circumstances that led to Cook's death. Historian F. B. Goodrich comments:

The last time Cook was seen distinctly, he was standing at the water's edge, calling out to the people in the boats to cease firing. It is supposed that he was desirous of stopping further bloodshed, and wished the example of desisting to proceed from his side. His humanity proved fatal to him; and he lost his life in attempting to save the lives of others. It was noticed that while he faced the natives, none of them offered him any violence, deterred, perhaps, by the sacred character he bore as an Orono; but the moment he turned round to give his orders to the men in the boats, he was stabbed in the back and fell, face foremost, into the water.[41]

When news of Cook's death reached England , the nation mourned his passing. Cook was beloved by his men; they knew him best, but none knew him well. We know much about what he did, but little about what he thought. His words were few. His journals and the little private correspondence that remains reveal little more. In his last letter, written to Lord Sandwich from Capetown in 1776, he wrote: "My endeavour shall not be wanting to achieve the great object of this voyage". James Cook was a man of action. He will be remembered for what he did.[42]

It was Cook's discovery of the fertile east coast of Australia that led directly to the English settlement of Australia , in God's perfect timing. Moreover, it was Captain Cook's Voyages that inspired William Carey, as a young man, to take the Gospel to India . Cook's voyages made Englishmen aware of the existence of new lands. In 1784, nonconformists began to pray for one hour every month for the spread of the Gospel throughout the world. This concern resulted in the greatest period of missionary endeavour since apostolic times.[43] So when the First Fleet with seven hundred and fifty convicts set sail for Australia in 1787, God had his man, Richard Johnson, ready..i).European explorers;