Captain Cook's Journal During His First Voyage Round the World
The priests, however, received them with as much friendliness as before,
and the Morai was given up to them as a place of repairs for the damaged
mast.
The king hurried back on hearing of the return of the ships, and removed
the tabu; but the native disposition was changed. Some of the party on
shore had persuaded women to break the tabu.
Whether this affected relations is uncertain, but the inhabitants
generally exhibited considerable hostility, and headed by some chiefs,
showed an inclination to attack a watering party. Thefts followed, and
the capture of a canoe as a reprisal caused a scuffle on the beach, in
which the Englishmen were worsted by the crowd, though a friendly chief
soon restored order.
Instructions were now given to the party on shore at the Morai to permit
no natives to approach in the night, and a musket was fired at one of
them who came near.
On the morning of February 14th the Discovery's cutter was found to have
been stolen.
Cook at once decided to have recourse to his usual practice, and get
either the king or some principal chief on board, as a hostage till it
was returned. He at the same time gave orders to prevent any canoes from
leaving the bay, in order that he might, if necessary, seize them, and
sent his boats to carry this out. Guns were fired from the ships at two
large canoes that attempted to pass. Cook himself landed with a small
armed force, and went in search of the king, who at once consented to
come on board. The conduct of Taraiopu throughout showed that he had
perfect confidence in Cook, and was entirely friendly, whether he still
believed in the Rono theory or not.
While walking down to the boat, the natives, who were momentarily
increasing in numbers, implored the king not to go. His wife joined her
entreaties. Taraiopu hesitated. At this moment a man ran up and cried,
"It is war; they have killed a chief!" One of the guard boats had, in
fact, fired at a canoe attempting to leave the bay, and killed a man. The
natives at once ran to arms, and Cook, seeing his intentions frustrated,
walked towards the boat. A native attacked him with a spear, and Cook
shot him with his gun. Still, no further attack was made, but the men in
the boats hearing Cook's shot, and seeing the excited crowd, commenced to
fire without orders. Cook still moved to the shore, calling to his men to
cease firing; but whilst so doing, and with his back to the exasperated
natives, he was stabbed in the back with a dagger, and fell with his face
in the water.
There was then general confusion. The boats were a little way from the
beach, and several of the marines were also killed, before they could
reach them. Cook's body was at once dragged off by the natives.
The boats returned on board amid general consternation, and it is
mentioned that a general silence reigned on board when it was known that
their beloved commander had fallen.
The party at the Morai were shortly after attacked, but beat off the
assailants, and reinforcements were sent from the ships. Lieutenant King,
a favourite officer of Cook's, behaved with great discretion, and
assisted by some of the priests, made a truce, during which the mast and
other articles on shore for repairs were got off.
The sailors were mad for reprisals, but Captain Clerke, on whom the
command devolved, decided on pacific measures, and every attempt was made
to recover Cook's body. All that was obtained, however, were some of his
bones, which were brought down with much solemnity by a chief, and
delivered wrapped up in new cloth and red feathers.
It was known in after years that Cook's body had been instantly cut up;
the flesh was burnt, as was the custom with great chiefs and many of the
bones were preserved with great honour in a Morai dedicated to Rono.
It seems clear that Cook's death was due to a revulsion of feeling on the
part of some of the natives, who no longer believed in his divine
character, but that many regarded the outrage with horror. When the first
Europeans came to reside on the island, and learnt the story from the
native side, they found universal regret prevailing at this untoward
occurrence.
Cook left officers imbued with his own noble sentiments. No general
attack was made in revenge for what they saw was the result of
misunderstanding, although they were ignorant of the exact circumstances
which led, first to the uncommon and extraordinary veneration with which
he had been treated, and then to the sudden change in the native
behaviour.
It was found necessary to fire on the natives who prevented the watering
party from working, and some of the sailors on this duty burnt some
houses; but before the ships left, friendly relations were again
established, and many natives visited them.
After Cook's remains had been committed to the sea, the prosecution of
the voyage was determined upon, although Captain Clerke was in the last
stage of consumption, and as soon as the Resolution's mast could be
repaired, the two vessels once more departed, on February 22nd, 1779.
Cook's intentions were carried out as if he had still been in command.
The remainder of the Sandwich Group was mapped, and the ships proceeded
once more to the north. Calling at Petropavlovsk in Avatcha Bay,
Kamtchatka, they again passed through Bering Strait, and sought in vain
for a passage either to the north-east or north-west, being everywhere
baffled by dense masses of ice. Captain Clerke at last abandoned the
struggle, and repassed Bering Strait on his way south on August 1st.
On August 22nd Captain Clerke died.
This officer had accompanied Captain Cook in all his voyages, and had
also circumnavigated the globe in the Dolphin with Captain Byron before.
No man had seen more of the Pacific, and he proved himself, during his
short period of command, a worthy successor of Cook.
Captain Gore, who had been with Cook on his First Voyage, now succeeded,
King being put as Commander into the Discovery, and the two ships made
the best of their way home, via Macao and the Straits of Sunda, arriving
at the Nore on October 4th, 1780, after an absence of four years and two
months. During the whole of this voyage not the slightest symptom of
scurvy appeared in either ship, so completely were Cook's precautions
successful.
Cook had six children. Three died young. Of the others, all boys, the
eldest, James, entered the Navy, and lived to be a Commander, when, in
1794, he was drowned. The second, Nathaniel, also in the Navy, was lost
in a hurricane in 1780. The third died when at Cambridge. They none of
them lived to be married, and no descendant of the great navigator has
perpetuated his race.
Of Cook's private life during his brief intervals at home we know
nothing. A man rising from the ranks, and of his reserved character,
would have but few friends, when he had such short time to make them in
his new sphere. He lived at Mile End when at home, but after his death
his widow removed to Clapham, living there for forty years, at first with
her cousin, Isaac Smith, who had served with Cook in the Endeavour and
Resolution. She died in 1835, at the great age of ninety-three.
Of Cook's character, none could be a better judge than Captain King, who
writes as follows, after describing his death:--
"Thus fell our great and excellent commander. After a life of so much
distinguished and successful enterprise, his death, as far as regards
himself, cannot be considered premature, since he lived to finish the
great work for which he seems to have been designed. How sincerely his
loss was felt and lamented, by those who had so long found their general
security in his skill and conduct, and every consolation in their
hardships in his tenderness and humanity, it is neither necessary nor
possible for me to describe. The constitution of his body was robust,
inured to labour, and capable of undergoing the severest hardships. His
stomach bore without difficulty the coarsest and most ungrateful food.
Indeed, temperance with him was scarcely a virtue, so great was the
indifference with which he submitted to every kind of self-denial. The
qualities of his mind were of the same hardy, vigorous kind with those of
his body. His understanding was strong and perspicacious. His judgment in
whatever related to the service he was engaged in quick and sure. His
designs were bold and manly, and both in the conception and in the mode
of execution bore evident marks of a great original genius. His courage
was cool and determined, and accompanied by an admirable presence of mind
in the moment of danger. His manners were plain and unaffected. His
temper might, perhaps, have been justly blamed as subject to haughtiness
and passion, had not these been disarmed by a disposition the most
benevolent and humane. Those intervals of recreation, which sometimes
unavoidably occurred, and were looked for by us with a longing that
persons who have experienced the fatigues of service will readily excuse,
were submitted to by him with a certain impatience whenever they could
not be employed in making further provision for the more effectual
prosecution of his designs."
This is a pretty complete picture, and of a great man; a man who had
before him continually his duty, and who had in an eminent degree the
capacity to carry it out.
Though, under his determination to do this, he drove his people hard;
though he tried them with his irascibility; their conviction of his
greatness, their confidence in his leadership and in his justice, led
them to love him. He had no sympathy with the ordinary foibles and
weaknesses of his men. The charms of Tahiti, the paradise of the sailor,
were no charms for him; he hardly notices the attractive ladies of that
island; the attractions of the place to him were the abundance of
provisions, as a means of fitting his expedition for further exploration
and hardship. The strongest proof of his capacity as a commander is the
devotion of his officers. Those who know the Navy know how difficult it
is for any man who rises from the ranks to be successful in command. But
Cook was a gentleman born; he had the intuition of great minds for
fitting themselves to every position to which they may rise, and there is
never a whisper of disinclination to submit to the rule of the once
collier boy, the son of a labourer.
His intelligence is remarkably shown in his greatest triumph, the
suppression of scurvy. That it should be left to a man of little
education to discern the combination of means by which this enemy of long
voyages could be conquered, is the most remarkable thing about this
remarkable man. He himself notices the disinclination of the sailor to
any new article of food, especially when not particularly palatable; but
he soon found the means to induce them to understand that their lives
greatly depended upon these rather nasty messes. Sour krout; the
unsavoury portable soups of that day; the strange greens that Cook
insisted on hunting up at every land he visited, and boiling with their
ordinary food; the constant washing between decks; the drying below with
stoves, even in the hottest weather; the personal baths; the change of
wet clothing; the airing of bedding, were all foreign and repugnant to
the notions of the seamen of the day, and it required constant
supervision and wise management to enforce the adoption of these odd
foods and customs.
It is evident that it is to Cook's personal action the success was due.
Wallis and Byron had anti-scorbutics, but they suffered from scurvy;
Furneaux, sailing with Cook in the second voyage, under precisely similar
circumstances, suffered from scurvy. It was only in Cook's ships, and in
the Discovery, commanded and officered by men who had sailed with Cook,
and seen his methods, that exemption occurred.