Captain Cook and the Discovery of Australia

It is strange to think now, that well into the eighteenth century, Australia and New Zealand were little more than a rumour to the wider world. Ferdinand Magellan had made the first Pacific crossing in as early as 1520 but the great Ocean was still virtually uncharted. There were a lingering suspicion that a vast unknown continent lurked in the depths of the world, it was generally referred to as Terra Australis Nondum Cognita, loosely translated as The Southern Land Yet Unknown. Many European sailors including Francis Drake had searched in vain for this secretive land. In 1769, the British Admiralty organised a scientific expedition to observe the transit of Venus which was to cross the sun, the expedition was also given the secret mission to hunt for the hidden continent. The Admiralty chose a brilliant young navigator named James Cook to lead the expedition. Cook had successfully charted the St. Lawrence river in Quebec, his charts later helping General Wolfe’s army capture Quebec from the French in 1759. Cook had been born in humble circumstances in the small village of Marton in Yorkshire. At the age of seventeen he became apprenticed to a firm of Whitby coal shippers, he spent several years on colliers sailing between Tyne and London mastering his craft; while at night studying algebra, geometry, trigonometry, navigation and astronomy. On completion of his apprenticeship he began working on trading ships on the Baltic Sea. He worked his way through the ranks, eventually being offered command of his own vessel in the merchant navy, however, quite amazingly he turned it down, opting instead to volunteer in the Royal Navy as an Able Seaman.

Cook quickly rose through the ranks obtaining the rank of Master which was the highest non-commissioned rank achievable. It was as a Master that he produced his highly valuable maps during the Siege of Quebec that first brought him to the attention of the British Admiralty. During the early 1760s, he surveyed the jagged coastline of Newfoundland gaining a mastery of the skill of practical surveying under the most adverse conditions. His appointment as Captain of the major expedition into the South Seas was a remarkable achievement, as very few men ever managed to rise from seaman to commander and in addition, such high class appointments were usually ridden with bribery and corruption and granted to those with influence. Cook chose a Whitby built collier named the Endeavour, the type of ship that he knew so well. It was stoutly built, well capable of withstanding the pounding sea, could hold a glut of provisions and could be managed by a small crew if necessary. It sailed from Plymouth on 26 August 1768 with a rather large crew of ninety-four. It made its way around Cape Horn and anchored in Tahiti on 13 April 1769 where the observations for the transit of Venus were to be made, however they did not prove to be as conclusive or accurate as had been hoped. It was an idyllic sojourn on the island with the crew and islanders striking up a camaraderie. The Endeavour then continued on to New Zealand, where Cook mapped the entire coastline, remarkably making only some minor errors, in fact the maps used today are little different.

 

 

Cook then sailed onto the south-eastern coast of Australia anchoring in Botany Bay, naming it after the rich specimens which the botanists of the expedition had gathered there. It was here that Cook’s crew made first contact with an Aboriginal tribe before heading northwards as far as Possession Island, declaring the entire explored coastline as British. They returned to England via the Cape of Good Hope landing on 12 July 1771. Cook was promoted from Master to Commander and was once again commissioned by the Royal Society to search for the mythical Terra Australis. His first voyage had proved that New Zealand was not connected to a larger landmass and although he had charted the eastern coast of Australia, it was not considered to be what they were looking for, as it was thought to lie much further south. He took two Whitby colliers for his second voyage, Resolution and Adventure, the expedition circumnavigated the globe at a very high southern latitude. Cook almost encountered the mainland of Antarctica but turned northwards back towards Tahiti. Cook’s third and last voyage was to find the North-West Passage, believed to link the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans. Once again he took the Resolution and another Whitby collier named Discovery. The expedition made landfalls at South Africa, Tasmania, New Zealand, Tahiti, Canada, Alaska and the Hawaiian Islands. Sadly however, Cook became involved in a confrontation with a party of Hawaiian islanders in which he was stabbed to death on 14 February 1779. His voyages paved the way for British colonisation of New Zealand and Australia and the advances in surveying and mapping that were garnered, reinforced the Royal Navy’s place as the naval superpower of the time.

Russell Shortt is a travel consultant with Exploring Ireland, the leading specialists in customised, private escorted tours, escorted coach tours and independent self drive tours of Ireland. Article source Russell Shortt, http://www.exploringireland.net http://www.visitscotlandtours.com

This entry was posted in Admiralty-Maritime Law and tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply