Captain Cook’s Pacific Adventure

On August 26th 1768, the Endeavour left England with instructions to head to Tahiti to view the transit of Venus. He took on board a new instrument, the chronometer. With this, he could pinpoint his exact position on Earth. His first stop was Madeira where Cook took on board plenty of onions. He fed his crew onions and sauerkraut (a German fermented cabbage) so that they wouldn’t get scurvy. He also made sure that they aired out their beds and had regular baths so that they didn’t catch diseases from being unhygienic.

On November 13th 1768, the Endeavour sailed into the Portuguese port of Rio de Janerio, Brazil. There, he was held up by authorities who thought that they were smugglers. Eventually, they were allowed ashore where Joseph Banks collected plants and Cook restocked supplies.

The Endeavour anchored on the north coast of Tahiti on the 13th April 1769. They had seven weeks to prepare for the transit so they immediately got to work with setting up somewhere that they could view the transit. After the unsuccessful viewing of the Transit of Venus, Cook opened his envelope containing secret orders. They were to go search for a southern continent and if he found it, to claim it for Britain.   

When he left, he took onboard a local called Tupaia who proved to be very beneficial to the voyage because of his navigational, translation and diplomatic skills. He headed west from Tahiti and then made a turn south. He then landed at the North Island of New Zealand. At first, some of the crew thought that this was the southern continent but Cook later proved that it was just two large islands. He became the first man to circumnavigate the two main islands of New Zealand. Along the way, they met with some of the Maoris. Some of them were friendly while some of them forced members of the crew to shoot. In his journal, Cook expressed his sadness of the shootings and deaths. After circumnavigating New Zealand, he decided to head to Britain via New Holland and Batavia.

After Lieutenant Zachary Hicks spotted the mainland of Australia, Cook sailed up the coast trying to find a place to land. He eventually landed in Botany Bay. Interaction between the Aboriginals and Cook’s crew was limited as neither understood each other.

As the Endeavour sailed further up the Australian coast, it had to navigate through hundreds of coral reefs. On June 11th 1771 at 10:30pm, the ship got stuck on the reef. After about 24 hours, the ship was freed and was quickly taken ashore for repairs. After it was repaired, they sailed to Batavia through Torres Strait, proving that it existed.

When he arrived in Batavia, the progress on repairs for the ship was slow because of Dutch suspicions. There, almost everyone fell ill at from malaria or typhoid. After leaving Batavia, he sailed back to Britain via Cape Town. The trip back was quite uneventful.

When he got back to Britain, the trip was hailed as a success even though the viewing of the Transit of Venus wasn’t successful. It set many new standards in the treatment of crew including the fact that so few men died. The maps that Cook made of Australia and New Zealand were so accurate that they were still been used in the 20th century. It also proved that the chronometer could be used to successfully to find longitude.

Bibliography

Levene, R. (2005), Captain Cook, Usborne Publishing Ltd., Spain

Shields, C.J. (2002), James Cook and the Exploration of the Pacific,

            Chelsea House Publishers, USA

Stammard, B. (1995), Aboard Endeavour: Cook’s voyage 1768-1771, Ashton

            Scholastic, London

“Captain Cook” in Britannica Encyclopaedia, (2003) Vol. 3 pp 595-597

“James Cook” in World Book Encyclopaedia, (2007) Vol. 4 pp 1025-1026

http://pages.quicksilver.net.nz/jcr/~cookbio2.html

http://www.captaincooksociety.com/ccsu72.htm

http://www.environment.gov.au/heritage/publications/cook.html

http://www.fact-index/j/ja/james_cook.html

http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/95oct/jcook.html

http://www.mariner.org/educationalad/ageofex/cook.php

http://www.orac.net.au/~mhumphry/jamescook.html