THE JOURNALS

JAMES COOK was born in Marton, Yorkshire, in 1728, the son of an agricultural labourer. Apprenticed to a Whitby shipowner, he joined the Navy in 1755, becoming Master in 1757. Cook led three expeditions to the Pacific Ocean. The first, from 1768 to 1771, as Lieutenant in the Endeavour; the second, from 1772 to 1775, as Commander in the Resolution, accompanied by the Adventure; and the last, from 1776 until his death in 1779, as Captain in the Resolution, accompanied by the Discovery. Cook did more than any other navigator to add to our knowledge of the Pacific and Southern oceans, circumnavigating and charting New Zealand, surveying and claiming the east coast of Australia, exploring the extent of Antarctica, visiting Tahiti and discovering island groups like New Caledonia and Hawaii. He died on 14 February 1779, in Hawaii, after being forced to turn back during his attempt to find a passage around the north coast of America from the Pacific. The inhabitants of the island, while friendly to begin with, killed Cook when he landed to recover a stolen boat.

Cook wrote in great detail about his voyages, to begin with for the eyes of the Admiralty, but then, having been upset by the authorized account published by Dr John Hawkesworth, with a view to his work being read by the public. His first, and only, publication, was A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World (1777).

PHILIP EDWARDS has been a professor of English Literature at Trinity College Dublin, Essex University and Liverpool University, and has held visiting posts in the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Japan. He is now in retirement, Emeritus Professor of English at Liverpool University. He is a Fellow of the British Academy. During the Second World War he served with the Royal Navy in both the Indian and Pacific oceans.

He is the author of numerous studies on the literature of voyages, including Last Voyages: Cavendish, Hudson, Ralegh (1988) and The Story of the Voyage: Sea Narratives in Eighteenth-Century England (1994). He has also written widely on Shakespeare and the literature of his time, including Shakespeare and the Confines of Art (1968), Threshold of a Nation (1979), Shakespeare: A Writer's Progress (1986) and Sea-Mark: The Metaphorical Voyage, Spenser to Milton (1997). He has edited Pericles and Hamlet, and Kyd's Spanish Tragedy, and co-edited the plays of Massinger.

JAMES COOK

The Journals

Prepared from the original manuscripts by
J. C. Beaglehole for the Hakluyt Society, 1955–67

Selected and edited by
PHILIP EDWARDS

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First published by the Hakluyt Society 1955–67, in 4 volumes

Published in Penguin Classics as The Journals of Captain Cook 1999

Reprinted under the present title with new Further Reading 2003

The moral right of the editor has been asserted

Maps by Nigel Andrews

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

ISBN: 978-0-14-192808-1

List of maps

General Introduction

LIST OF MAPS

VOYAGE MAPS

1. The First Voyage, 1768–1771:
August 1768 – October 1769

2. The First Voyage, 1768–1771:
October 1769 – July 1771

3. The Second Voyage, 1772–1775:
July 1772 – October 1773

4. The Second Voyage, 1772–1775:
October 1773 – July 1775

5. The Third Voyage:
July 1776 – February 1779 (the death of Cook)

LOCATION MAPS

6. Tierra del Fuego: First and Second Voyages

7. Society Islands: First, Second and Third Voyages

8. Tahiti and Moorea: First, Second and Third Voyages

9. New Zealand: First, Second and Third Voyages

10. ‘New South Wales’, Cook's Passage of the East Coast of Australia, May – August, 1770: First Voyage

11. Tonga or Friendly Isles: Second and Third Voyages

12. Easter Island: Second Voyage

13. Marquesas Islands: Second Voyage

14. New Hebrides: Second Voyage

15. Sandwich Islands (Hawaiian Islands): Third Voyage

16. North-West America: Third Voyage

17. The Bering Sea and Arctic Sea: Third Voyage

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

James Cook led three famous expeditions to the Pacific Ocean: in the Endeavour (as lieutenant) from 1768 to 1771; in the Resolution (as commander), with the Adventure, from 1772 to 1775; and in the Resolution again (now captain), this time with the Discovery, from 1776 until his death in Hawaii in 1779. Accounts of these voyages, based on Cook's journals, were published at the time, soon after the completion of each voyage, but it was not until halfway through the twentieth century that the texts of Cook's own manuscripts were made available, in a monumental edition by John Cawte Beaglehole for the Hakluyt Society.¹ The journal of the first voyage was published in 1955, that of the second in 1961, that of the third in 1967. This edition is one of the finest achievements of twentieth-century scholarship, but, running to four large volumes, totalling 3,350 pages, and long out of print, the original is hard to come by and second-hand copies are very expensive. An American reprint used to be available, and this has now been replaced by an English reprint (Boydell and Brewer, 1999), which makes Beaglehole's full text once more accessible. Nevertheless, there has for a long time been a real need for a shorter version of the full edition for the general reader, and that is what the present volume, undertaken by permission of the Hakluyt Society, sets out to meet. The great plenitude of Beaglehole's edition, surrounding the journals with magisterial introductions, a wealth of footnotes, appendices and extracts from the journals of others, cannot be reproduced in this abridgement, but the text of the journals themselves, reduced to about one-third of their length, is Beaglehole's text, preserving Cook's own idiosyncratic spelling and in every line giving the reader a sense of the great seaman's presence. It is my hope that this shortened version preserves the spirit and the rhythm of Cook's narrative, and, without doubt, compression of the full texts into manageable form has advantages of its own. All omissions are clearly indicated and I have provided short narratives to cover gaps of importance. There is a new introduction to each voyage, and a Postscript in which I give my understanding of events from the point at which Cook's journal breaks off until his death.

Cook gave an enormous amount of time and labour – mostly at sea but also ashore – to writing up the story of his voyages, constantly revising and rewriting, and it was no easy matter for Beaglehole to choose, for each of the voyages, the version of the journal which was best to print. Cook kept his own log of the ship's movements and daily events (separate from the official ship's log) and from this he wrote up what he called on the first voyage the ‘remarkable occurrences’ – meaning of course things worthy of note, not just out-of-the-way things. On this first voyage Cook was not expecting his account to be published, but he was certainly preparing it with an audience in mind – the Admiralty, to whom he was required to report – and he often rewrote what he had first set down. Even when he had given his clerk his own revised version to copy out fair for their Lordships, he might still continue to make alterations.

What the Admiralty did with their copy of Cook's journal for the first voyage was to hand it – along with the journals of Byron, Wallis and Carteret from earlier expeditions – to Dr John Hawkesworth to prepare an authorized history of recent voyages. Cook did not see Hawkesworth's three volumes, published in 1773, until he was at the Cape of Good Hope in 1775, near to the end of his second voyage. He was deeply upset by the freedom Hawkesworth had taken with his work, altering and omitting what he had written and supplying him with sentiments he had never expressed, and making a prodigious profit into the bargain. Even if the thought that he might be the author of his own story had crossed his mind before, it would seem that from then on he was quite determined that he should be in charge of the authorized account, and, to judge from the extant manuscripts, the amount of writing and rewriting now undertaken by this unlettered seaman to provide an account of his second voyage satisfying to him and suitable for the public was extraordinary. Cook won from the Admiralty the permission to publish, and took his manuscript to Canon John Douglas to be edited, being careful to explain in the preface that he had ‘not had the advantage of much school education’, having been mostly at sea since his youth.

Cook was at sea again, on his third voyage, before A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, his first and only publication, appeared in 1777. He never saw it. What he was writing, however, as the journal of this third voyage was from the very first intended as a literary, publishable account of his doings, and it is the worse for it, in terms of immediacy and vitality. His premature death meant that this journal, unlike its predecessors, was never revised and rewritten, and this at least simplified Beaglehole's task of choosing his text.

What Beaglehole was able to present over the years of his labours, and what this abridged version preserves, is a majestic story of epic proportions of three expeditions to the Pacific Ocean in converted Whitby colliers, ranging from the Antarctic Circle to the Arctic Sea, which negotiated and charted for the first time ever the entire coast of New Zealand and the eastern coast of Australia, brought into view innumerable islands not previously known in the west, and provided far and away the fullest and most intimate account of the life of the inhabitants of Tahiti, the Tonga islands, New Zealand and elsewhere, besides bringing back to Europe an unrivalled access of knowledge in natural history – a sphere in which Cook saw himself as no expert.

The story in these pages is Cook's story, written in his own hand, stamped with the clumsiness of the ‘plain man’ he called himself, but radiating in every line the ambition, determination, control, courage, seamanship, knowledge and skill which enabled him to carry through an unrivalled series of explorations in dangerous waters. It is Cook's story, the story of these voyages as he wanted them to be known. He recorded what he chose to record, and he recorded it as he saw it. There are very many examples of Cook's careful revision of his accounts of awkward moments – the best-known being his reworking of the account of the fatal shooting of ‘two or three’ Maoris in Poverty Bay at the time of first contact (9 October 1769). It is important to emphasize this seemingly obvious point in an edition which does not have the space to fill in gaps and provide contrasting viewpoints from other observers. Beaglehole's full edition provides this corrective view to some extent, though it has to be said that Beaglehole's loyalty to his hero was so intense that he hardly ever saw Cook as biased or unfair or just wrong. Later generations are less reverential, and it does no harm to Cook's great qualities and achievements to recognize that he was human enough to be concerned with his image. If he ever doubted the wisdom of his judgements and decisions it does not appear from his journals. An important study by Sir James Watt published in 1979 showed that in spite of his quite admirable concern for ship hygiene, Cook constantly overemphasized the healthiness of his crews and the effectiveness of his dietary methods to combat scurvy.²

Something to remember also in reading these journals is the question of hindsight. Obviously, by the time he was revising his journal or preparing a copy for their lordships in London and whatever other audience he might have in mind, Cook knew what the consequence was of any decision he might have made, and what the outcome was of any crisis confronting him. It is different on the third voyage, of course, but there too it is clear that the journal is looking back, even though over a few days only. It would not appear that Cook ever saw the presence of a double point of view – that of immediate observation and that of subsequent knowledge – as a literary problem. The nature of the journal as he saw it demanded that things were recorded as they happened. If there is reshaping of the record after the event, it is done silently. There is only one little tell-tale sign that when he was writing up the separation of the Adventure from the Resolution in October 1773, on the second voyage, and his anxiety about her fate, he had actually heard her story and knew that she was safe.

It has been my wish in making this abridgement to try to preserve the wholeness of Cook's daily entries, with their conjunction of routine sailing matters and unusual incidents, rather than present a disconnected string of the more exciting moments. When a day's entry is abbreviated, the omission is noted with four dots (….). More substantial omissions are marked by a row of asterisks.

It will be noted that Beaglehole's text makes frequent use of square brackets, within which letters, a word, a phrase or a bearing are supplied. Beaglehole does not specify in each particular case where the supplied material comes from. Mostly (and particularly in the second voyage) he is providing names or figures from other MSS to fill gaps which Cook had left in his text. But often what Beaglehole is doing is correcting Cook's slips and mistakes. I can't help feeling that many of these ‘slips’ were not slips at all but just the way Cook wrote and spoke. We should certainly be more cautious these days about insisting on such readings as ‘load[ed]’, ‘bring[ing]’, ‘dire[c]tly’, ‘c[h]annel’ and ‘the best [of] our way’. I have only rarely overruled Beaglehole: to prefer ‘leward’ to ‘le[e]ward’, for example, and to preserve the strange ‘notwithstand’, given as ‘notwithstand[ing]’.³ It is evident that Beaglehole became less eager to interfere with Cook's ‘mistakes’ in his text of the second and third voyages. On very rare occasions I am responsible for what is supplied within the square brackets, usually to simplify a textual difficulty which has spilled over into Beaglehole's footnotes.

In order to reduce what would otherwise be a very large number of footnotes, I have provided three appendices. Firstly there is a Glossary which offers help with the sailing terms, obsolete words and foreign phrases which Cook has used. Next there is an index of persons, giving brief information about the dramatis personae of the voyages, both the ships' companies and the islanders, as well as the grandees after whom Cook named innumerable capes, bays and islands. The cross-references in this index should help to sort out the confusions which arise from Cook's attempts to transcribe what he understood to be the names of the people he had commerce with in the islands and territories he visited. Finally there is an index of places, where again the cross-references may help to clarify the complications of multiple names. There are names given by Cook, names which Cook wrongly thought were indigenous names (Tanna or Tana is a fine example), correct indigenous names and current modern names. The comparatively few footnotes which are provided generally derive from Beaglehole, but when an opinion or specialist knowledge seems to require an originator I indicate the source as [B] for Beaglehole or [E] for Edwards.

It was not feasible to reproduce the wealth of maps provided by Beaglehole. There were far too many for this compact edition, and the intricate details of the ships' tracks, combined with a lack of distinction between land and sea, often made the maps hard to read. For this edition world maps have been prepared to show in clear outline the progress of each voyage, with more detailed maps of the main centres of interest. When a territory was visited a number of times by Cook, and on different voyages, as were Tahiti, Tonga and New Zealand, only the single map is provided.

NOTES

1. J. C. Beaglehole, CMG, OM (1901–71) was born in Wellington, New Zealand, and studied at Victoria University College before coming to England for his PhD. He eventually became Professor of British Commonwealth History at Victoria University, Wellington. The conclusion of his great labours on Pacific exploration and Cook's journals was his Life of Captain James Cook, which was virtually complete at the time he died. It was published in 1974.

2. Sir James Watt, ‘Medical Aspects and Consequences of Cook's Voyages’, in Captain James Cook and his Times, eds. R. Fisher and H. Johnston (1979), 129–57.

3. It is an interesting question whether Cook's constant omission of the final -ed when he is giving the past tense of verbs ending in -d (such as load, intend, proceed) is just carelessness or indicates his speech habits.

THE FIRST VOYAGE
1768–1771

1. The First Voyage, 1768–1771: August 1768–October 1769

2. The First Voyage, 1768–1771: October 1769–July 1771

INTRODUCTION

Cook's three voyages, from 1768 to 1780, were the culmination of centuries of European interest in the Pacific. There was much more to be done, of course, by his immediate successors, Vancouver and Flinders, for example, and later generations, but Cook's work opened up vast areas that had only been tentatively probed before and charted them with extraordinary accuracy. After Magellan's daring voyage round South America and across to the Philippines (1519–21), the magnet of Pacific exploration was Terra Australis Incognita, the great southern continent supposed to lie between the Cape of Good Hope and the Straits of Magellan. Álvaro de Mendaña, the Spanish voyager, sailed from Callao in Peru in 1567 and reached the Solomon Islands. It was not until 1595 that he went back, with Pedro Fernández de Quirós, found the Marquesas and got as far as the Santa Cruz Islands. Quirós went out from Callao in 1605 with the Portuguese Luiz de Vaez de Torres and believed he had found the continent when they reached Vanuatu (the New Hebrides), which Quirós called ‘Austrialia del Espiritu Santo’ – managing a compliment to Philip III of Spain who was Archduke of Austria. Quirós and Torres now split: Quirós went north-east to California, while Torres went north-west through the strait named after him, discovering that New Guinea was an island, but failing to see Australia.

The English circumnavigations by Drake (1577–80) and Cavendish (1586–8) were not rich in discoveries. The Dutch merchant Isaac le Maire, with Willem Corneliszoon Schouten, reached the Pacific in 1615 via Cape Horn (which they named) but had no luck with the missing continent before reaching Batavia in 1616. Sailing from there, the Dutch had made several sightings of the coast of Australia, north, west and south, in the early seventeenth century, and Anthony van Diemen, governor-general of the Dutch East Indies from 1631 to 1645, was responsible for a number of expeditions, of which the most important was that of Abel Janszoon Tasman with Frans Jacobszoon Visscher, which left Batavia in August 1642. Tasmania was reached (Van Diemen's Land), then the south island of New Zealand where four men were killed, followed by the Tonga group and Fiji. Much later, another Dutch expedition, under Jacob Roggeveen, left the Netherlands in 1721 in search of the southern continent. Roggeveen went through the Strait of Le Maire and found Easter Island and Samoa before reaching Batavia after a year's voyage.

The English had now come strongly on the scene, with the expeditions of Narborough up the South American coast (1669–71), a mixed assembly of buccaneers, adventurers and privateers, including Dampier, Wafer, Cowley, Ringrose, Woodes Rogers and Shelvocke, followed by the grand naval expedition of 1740–44 under Anson. As far as discoveries go, the most important of these men was the remarkable amateur William Dampier, whose painfully assembled New Voyage Round the World (1697) set alight the imagination of eighteenth-century England. On this first voyage Dampier had touched on Australia (New Holland), ‘a very large Tract of Land’, and had thought the inhabitants ‘the miserablest People in the World’. He returned on his second voyage but was only able to make a cursory investigation of the north-western and northern coasts.

The major period of English exploration in the Pacific followed the ending of the Seven Years War with France in 1763. The Earl of Egmont, First Lord of the Admiralty from 1763 until 1766, sent out John Byron in the Dolphin in 1764, and on its return from a speedy circumnavigation in 1766, sent the ship out again under Samuel Wallis, with Philip Carteret in the Swallow as consort. Wallis and Carteret were separated. Wallis went on to find Tahiti, unknown to Europeans. He named it King George's Island and his five-week visit had an importance for Europeans and Polynesians that is hard to measure. Carteret struggled on alone, and made many important discoveries, including Pitcairn. At this very time the French expedition in La Boudeuse and L'Étoile under the great Louis-Antoine de Bougainville was making its way through the Pacific, reaching Tahiti, la nouvelle Cythère, hard on Wallis's heels.

However important these voyages were for geographical knowledge and the advancement of science – and Bougainville with his naturalist Commerson were deeply concerned with the advancement of science – all these expeditions by the competing European powers of Spain, France and Britain were undertaken for the control of new territory for commercial exploitation and strategic use. The scientific element was very much to the fore, however, in the next British expedition. The Royal Society, which in the hundred years of its existence had always regarded voyages to distant lands as a vital source of scientific information, was making plans for a voyage to the Pacific to observe the transit of Venus across the sun in 1769. The observations were needed to help establish the distance of the earth from the sun, and it was necessary for observers to be stationed at different points on the earth's surface. The planet had crossed the sun in 1761, but the observations world-wide were unsatisfactory. The phenomenon would not occur again for over a hundred years.

In 1767 the Royal Society recommended Alexander Dalrymple to lead the expedition. He was an energetic and imaginative thirty year old who had spent much time in Madras and was a keen advocate of English commercial expansion, as well as a firm believer in the possibilities of the great southern continent. He was a skilled navigator but had comparatively little experience of command at sea. His idea was that he should command the expedition and that he should have a master to sail the ship. This was Bougainville's position, and the practice was common in England in Tudor times. But the Royal Society knew that it depended on the Royal Navy to transport its observers to the Pacific and the Navy was totally opposed to a divided command. James Cook, thirty-nine years of age, a master in the Navy engaged on the survey of Newfoundland, was proposed by the Navy, and during April and May 1768 it was agreed that he should become leader of the expedition.

Cook was born on 27 October 1728 in the village of Marton-in-Cleveland in Yorkshire. His parents were humble enough, his father being a day labourer who became a farm-foreman at nearby Great Ayton. Cook got an education at the village school, and, after a time as apprentice in a shop in Staithes on the coast, at the age of seventeen became apprentice to the Quaker ship-owner and coal-shipper, John Walker of Whitby. For nine years Cook was engaged in the coal trade from Whitby, sailing in the broad-bottomed or ‘cat-built’ colliers which were later to become the ships he went round the world in. He was eventually offered his own command, but he made the rather surprising decision to transfer to the Royal Navy in 1755. Being an older, experienced and skilled seaman, he won quick promotion, first as master's mate and then after two years as master. It was in the Pembroke, and then the Northumberland, engaged in the French war in the St Lawrence, that he built up his formidable reputation as surveyor and chart-maker. He had become a good mathematician and was a skilled navigator, and after the war was engaged in a prolonged naval survey of Newfoundland – including accurate observations of a solar eclipse, and calculations of longitude, which were communicated to the Royal Society and published in Philosophical Transactions.

Cook was married in 1762 to Elizabeth Batts, and was the father of two sons and a daughter by the time the question of his appointment to the Pacific expedition arose. That appointment, considering the extraordinary commendations that Cook had received for his skill, competence and reliability, was no surprise. The decision was made, and the invitation accepted, during April 1768, and on 25 May Cook was promoted to the rank of lieutenant, and put in command of His Majesty's Bark, the Endeavour. The ship had been bought in March; she was then the Earl of Pembroke, a strong Whitby collier nearly four years old, cat-built, with a bluff rounded bow, 106 feet long overall. Much had to be done to the ship at Deptford, ‘sheathing’ her (adding an outer skin as protection against tropical worm), providing her with guns, overhauling her masts and rigging, and generally fitting her out for a long expedition. The agreed complement, including twelve marines, was eighty-five. Cook's officers were Zachary Hicks, John Gore (who had been round the world in the Dolphin with both Byron and Wallis) and Robert Molyneux (master). The master's mates included Richard Pickersgill and Charles Clerke, both of them Dolphin men; Clerke was second lieutenant on Cook's second voyage, and in command of the Discovery on the third voyage, moving to the Resolution and taking over the expedition on Cook's death. The surgeon was William Brougham Monkhouse, from Penrith in Cumberland; his brother Jonathan was one of the midshipmen. Neither of them reached home, victims of the infamous Batavia fever at the end of the voyage. John Edgcumbe was sergeant of the marines, moving to lieutenant in the second voyage. The carpenter, a man of first importance, was John Satterley, and the cook, popular and competent despite having lost his right hand was John Thompson.

First among the supernumeraries, and in the eyes of many in England first in the entire expedition, was Joseph Banks, a rich man and a Fellow of the Royal Society although only twenty-five years of age. He had shown his eagerness for the development of natural science at Oxford, and had been in Newfoundland and Labrador collecting plants and insects. He was responsible for bringing Daniel Carl Solander, Swedish pupil of Linnaeus. The assistant naturalist was another Swede, Herman Diedrich Spöring. The astronomer was Charles Green, formerly an assistant of Nevil Maskelyne, the Astronomer Royal. The two artists were Sydney Parkinson and Alexander Buchan, neither of whom survived the voyage.

A matter of first importance was settled when on 20 May Wallis returned in the Dolphin with news of the discovery of King George's Island – Tahiti, and thenceforward that was to be the station for observing the transit of Venus. Cook's instructions from the Admiralty fell into two parts. The first related to King George's Island, observing the transit, cultivating friendship with the inhabitants and charting the island. The second, marked secret, instructed him to explore for the southern continent, and ‘with the Consent of the Natives to take possession of Convenient Situations in the Country in the Name of the King of Great Britain’, or, if the country was uninhabited, to ‘take Possession for His Majesty’. If he failed to find the continent he was to make a thorough survey of New Zealand, and to chart and take possession of any hitherto undiscovered islands. The object which he was always to have in view, however, was ‘the Discovery of the Southern Continent’.

The Endeavour left Plymouth on 26 August 1768. She called at Madeira, for wine, and at Rio de Janeiro, where she was met with a suspicion and a lack of respect that deeply angered Cook. Following his instructions, Cook went into the Pacific via Cape Horn, passed through the Tuamotu Islands and reached Tahiti on 13 April 1769 – seven weeks before the transit was due. The ship was anchored in Matavai Bay and Cook immediately organized the setting up of a fort and erecting the portable observatory containing the instruments provided by the Royal Society. There was some anxiety about the observations when the time came, because a ‘dusky shade’ round the planet created difficulty over the precise moments of entry and exit. But although there was scepticism in some quarters in England about the value of the results, the observations were accurate and they played their part in the calculations which were eventually made.

Carrying out the second part of his instructions Cook made his way to New Zealand, and his brilliant mapping of the entire coast of the two islands proved conclusively that the country was not the northern tip of the undiscovered and undiscoverable continent. Cook made his own decision to return home via the unknown eastern coast of New Holland, and on 11 June 1770 the ship was trapped within the Great Barrier Reef and holed. Saving the ship, repairing her and getting her outside the reefs again must stand as Cook's greatest feat of seamanship. It is the saddest sequel to his efforts that while the ship was in dock at Batavia (Jakarta), fever broke out, and before the ship reached the Cape of Good Hope thirty men had died. On 13 July 1771, the Endeavour anchored in the Downs, off the Kent coast.

The manuscript of the journal used by Beaglehole and reprinted in abridged form here is one of several copies. It is in Cook's own hand, and is (wrote Beaglehole) ‘the product of a great deal of writing, drafting and re-drafting, summarizing and expanding, with afterthoughts both of addition and deletion’. Cook clearly had Banks's journal close at hand as he was writing, and he made use of it on a number of occasions. The manuscript is known as the Canberra MS, after its present location.

JOURNAL OF THE FIRST VOYAGE
1768–1771

REMARKABLE OCCURENCES ON BOARD HIS MAJESTYS BARK ENDEAVOUR

[1768]

FRIDAY May 27th to FRIDAY July 29th.¹ Moderate and fair weather, at 11 am hoisted the Pendant and took charge of the Ship agreeable to my Commission of the 25^th Instant, She lying in the Bason in Deptford Yard. From this day to the 21^st of July we were constantly employed in fitting the Ship takeing on board stores and Provisions &c^a when we saild from Deptford and anchor'd in Gallions reach where we remain'd until the 30^th….

SATURDAY July 30th to SUNDAY August 7th. Wiegh'd from Gallions with the wind at w and made sail down the River, the same day anchor'd at Gravesend, and the next morning wiegh'd from thence and at Noon Anchor'd at the Buoy of the Fairway. On Wednesday 3^rd of Augt Anchor'd in the Downs in 9 fathom water, Deal Castle NWBW. On Sunday the 7^th I Joined the Ship, discharged the Pilot and the next Day sail'd for Plymouth.

SUNDAY 14th. Fine breezes at NE and clear weather. At ½ past 8 pm Anchor'd in the entrance of Plym° Sound in 9 fathom water. At 4 am Weigh'd and worked into proper anchoring ground and anchor'd in 6 fathom the Mewstone SE, Mount Batten NNE½E and Draks Island NBW. Dispatched an express to London for Mr Banks and Dr Solander to join the ship, their Servants and baggage being already on board.²

TUESDAY 16th. Winds from SSE to NE. First part Moderate and hazey Middle hard Squalls with rain, the latter Moderate and fair. Received on board a Supply of Bread Beer & Water, a Serjt Corp¹ a Drummer and Nine Private Marines as part of the Compliment.

WEDNESDAY 17th. Winds SE to EBS. Little wind Easterly and hazey weather. Sent some Cordage to the Yard in order to be exchanged for smaller. Several Ship wrights and Joiners from the Yard Employ'd on board refiting the Gentlemens Cabbins and making a Platform over the Tiller &c^a.

FRIDAY 19th. Winds from NW to SW. Former part little wind with rain remainder fair weather, AM Read to the Ships Company the articles of War and the Act of Parliament, ³ they likewise were paid two Months Wages in advance. I also told them that they were not to expect any additional pay for the performance of our intended Voyage, they were well satisfied and express'd great chearfullness and readyness to prosecute the Voyage. Received on board another supply of Provisions, Rum etc^a.

FRIDAY 26th. Winds NBW, NW, WBS. Course S 21° E. Distce 23 Ml Latd in 49°30'. Longd in West from Greenwich 5°52' W. Bearings at Noon Lizard N 21° W. Dist. 23 miles. First part fresh breeze and Clowdy, remainder little wind and Clear. At 2 pm got under sail and put to sea having on board 94 persons including Officers Seamen Gentlemen and their servants, near 18 months provisions, 10 Carriage guns 12 Swivels with good store of Ammunition and stores of all kinds. At 8 the Dodman point WNW Dist^t 4 or 5 Leagues. At 6 am the Lizard bore WNW½W 5 or 6 Leagues Dist^t. At Noon sounded and had 50 fathoms Grey sand with small stones and broken shells.

[SEPTEMBER 1768]

THURSDAY 1st. Winds Westerly. Course S 70° W. Distce 20 M. Latd in 44°56'. Longd in West from Greenwich 9°9' W. Bearings at Noon Lizd N 28°15' D. 109 leagues. Very hard gales with some heavy showers of rain the most part of these 24 hours which brought us under our two courses, broke one of our Main topmast Puttock plates, Washed over board a small boat belonging to the Boatswain and drown'd between 3 and 4 Dozn of our Poultry which was worst of all, towards Noon it moderated so that we could bear our Main topsail close reef'd. At Midnight Wore and stood to the Southward.

FRIDAY 2nd. Winds WBN, West, SW, WSW. Course SBW. Distce 64 M. Latd in 43°53'. Longd in West from Greenwich 9°26' W. Bearings at Noon Lizd NNE D. 130 leagues. Fresh gales and clowdy the most part of these 24 hours. PM got up the spare Mainsail to dry it being wet by the water geting into the sail room, occassiond by the Ship being very leaky in her upper works. At 5 am loosed 2 reefs out of each topsail and saw the land which we judged to be between Cape Finister and Cape Ortegal. At 10 Tacked being about 4 Miles offshore and stood to the NW. Loosed all the reefs out and set topgt sails. At Noon Cape Ortegal bore EBS distant about 8 Leagues.

MONDAY 12th. Winds NNW. Course S 40° W. Distce in miles 102. Latd in 32°43'. Longd in West from Greenwich 15°53'. Moderate breeze and fine clear weather. At 6 AM the Island of Porto Santo bore NWBW, Distce 9 or 10 Leagues. Hauld the wind to the westward. At Noon the Desertas extending from WSW to SWBS, the body of Madiera W½S and Porto Santo NNW1D2W. Latd obser'd 32°43'N.

TUESDAY 13th. Winds N, Westerly. Moor'd in Fenchal Road, Island of Madeira. Fresh breeze and clear weather. At 8 pm anchor'd in Fenchal Road in 22 fathom water. Found here His Majestys Ship Rose and several Merchant Vessels. In the morning new birthed the Ship and Moor'd with Stream Anchr half a Cable on the best bower and a Hawser and a half on the Stream.

WEDNESDAY 14th. Winds Easterly. First part fine clear weather, remainder Clowdy with squalls from the land attended with showers of rain. In the night the bend of the Hawsers of the stream Anchor slip'd, owing to the carelesness of the person who made it fast. In the morning hove up the Anchor in the Boat and carried it out to the Southward, in heaving the Anchor out of the Boat Mr Weir Masters mate was carried over board by the Buoy-rope and to the bottom with the anchor. Hove up the anchor by the Ship as soon as possible and found his body intangled in the Buoy-rope. Moor'd the ship with the two Bowers in 22 fathom water, the Loo Rock w and the Brazen head E Saild his Majestys ship Rose. The Boats imploy'd carrying the casks ashore for Wine and the caulkers caulking the Ships sides.

THURSDAY 15th. Winds NE to SE. Squalls of Wind from the land with rain the most part of these 24 hours. Rec'd on board fresh Beef and Greens for the Ships Compney and sent on shore all our Casks for wine and Water having a shore boat employ'd for that purpose.

FRIDAY 16th. Winds Easterly. The most part fine clear weather. Punished Henry Stephens Seaman and Thos Dunister Marine with 12 lashes each for refusing to take their allowance of fresh Beef. Empd taking on board wine and water.

SATURDAY 17th. Winds Westerly. Little wind and fine clear weather. Issued to the Whole Ships Company 20 Pounds of Onions per man. Empd takeing on board Wine Water &ca.

SUNDAY 18th. Winds Southerly, ESE, SW. D° Weather. PM Ricieved on board 270 pounds of fresh Beef and a Live Bullock charg'd 613 pounds. Compleated our wine and Water having recd of the former 3032 Gallns of the latter 10 Tuns. AM unmoord and prepar'd for sailing.

TUESDAY 27th Wind NE. Course S 19° W. Distce in miles 145. Latd in 21°26’. Longd in West from Greenwich 20°14'. Bearings at Noon Do N 26° E Dt 154 leagues. The same wind and weather this day as yesterday. Served Wine to the Ships Compney, the Beer being all expended to two cask which I intend to keep some time longer as the whole has proved very good to the Very last cask. At Noon found the ship by observation 10 Miles a head of the Log, which I suppose may be owing to a Current Setting in the same diriction as the trade wind.

WEDNESDAY 28th. Winds NE, ENE. Course S 12°30' W. Distce in miles 150. Latd in 18°59’. Longd in West from Greenwich 20°48' W. Bearings at Noon Peek of Teneriff N 23°15' E Dt 204 L. A Fresh trade wind and hazey weather. The Variation of the Compass by the mean of several Azimuths taken this evening 12°46' and in the morning by the same method 12°43' W. This day Long and observed Latd agree which is not reconsilable to yesterday. Exercised the People at small Arms.

[OCTOBER 1768]

TUESDAY 25th. Winds SE to SEBE. Course S 30° W. Distce in miles 95. Latd in 0°15' South. Longd in West from Greenwich 29°30'. Bearings at Noon Do N 26° E Dt 358 leagues.⁴ A Gentle breeze and clear weather, with a moist air. Soon after sun Rise found the Variation of the Compass to be 2°24' West being the mean result of sever¹ very good Azimuths, this was just before we crossed the line in Longitude of 29°29' West from Greenwich. We also try'd the Deping Needle belonging to the Royal Society and found the North point to dep 26° below the Horizon, but this instrument cannot be used at sea to any great degree of accuracy on account of the motion of the Ship which hinders the Needle from resting; however as the Ship was pretty steady and by means of a swinging table I had made for that purpose we could be certain of the dep to two degrees at most. The observed Latd and that by account nearly agrees.

WEDNESDAY 26th. Winds SE to SSE. Course S 31° W. Distce in miles 77. Latd in 1°21' S. Longd in West from Greenwich 30°18’. Bearings at Noon Do N 25°30' E Dt 385 leagues. First part light airs and clowdy weather, the remainder a Moderate breeze and clowdy. After we had got an Observation and it was no longer doubted that we were to the southward of the Line, the Ceremony on this occassion practised by all Nations was not omitted: every one that could not prove upon a Sea Chart that he had before crossed the Line, was either to pay a bottle of Rum or be ducked in the sea, which former case was the fate of by far the greatest part on board, and as several of the Men choose to be ducked and the weather was favourable for that purpose, this ceremony was performed on about 20 or 30 to the no small deversion of the rest.

FRIDAY 28th. Winds SE to SEBE. Course S 33° W. Distce in miles 93. Latd in 3°41'. Longd in West from Greenwich 32°29’. Bearings at Noon Do. Fresh Breeze and fine clear weather. At a little past 1 AM Longd in by the three following observations (viz.) by the Moon and the * Arietis, 32°27'0”, by the moon and Pollux 32°0'15“, by D° 31°48'32”; the mean of the Whole is 32°5'16” West from Greenwich, which is 31' more westerly then the Longd by account carried on sence the last observation. The two first observation were made and computed by Mr Green and the last by my self. The * Arietis was on one side of the Moon and Pollux on the other. This day at Noon being nearly in the Latd of the Island Ferdinand Noronha⁵ to the westward of it by some charts and to the Eastward by other, was in expectation of seeing it or some of those shoals that are laid down in most charts between it and the main, but we saw neither one nor a nother. We certainly pass'd to the Eastward of the Island, and as to the shoals I do not think they exhist grounding this my opinion on the Journal of some East India Ships I have seen, who were detaind some days by contrary winds between this Island and the main and being 5 or Six Ships in compney, doubtless must have seen some of them did they lay as marked in the charts.

[NOVEMBER 1768]

SUNDAY 6th. Winds NNE, Varble, South. Course S 55° W. Distce in miles 74. Latd in 19°3'. Longd in West from Greenwich 35°50'. First and latter part Squally with heavy Showers of rain, Middle Moderate and fair. I now determined to put into Rio de Janeiro in preference to any other Port in Brazil or Faulkland Islands, for at this place I knew we could recruit our stock of Provisions, several Articles of which I found we should in time be in want of, and at the same time procure Live Stock and refreshments for the People and from the reception former Ships had met with here I doubted not but we should be well received.

TUESDAY 8th. Winds NNE, NBW, SSW to SBW. Course S 50° W. Distce in miles 140. Latd in 21°16'. Longd in West from Greenwich 37°35'. Fresh breeze and Clowdy weather. PM Variation by the mean of 12 Azimuth 5°26' East, and by an Amplitude in the morning 7°52'. At 6 AM saw the Land of Brasil bearing NW½N Distce 8 or 10 Leagues; at 8 sounded had 37 fathom Coarse sand broken shells and coral rocks. At 9 brought too and spoke with a fishing Boat who informed us that the land in sight lay to the southward of Santo Espiritu, it appears high and mountainous….

WEDNESDAY 9th. Winds SSE, SSW, South. Course S 62°15' West. Distce in miles 28 M. Latd in 21°29’. First and latter parts hazey with a Moderate breeze. Middle fresh gales with thunder Lightning and rain. At 3 pm Tack'd in 16 fathom, distance from the Shore 5 Leagues, the land extending from the NWBW to NE. At 5 took the 2^nd reef in the topsails and got down top gt yards. Stood to the SE untill midnight then Tacked, soundings from 16 to 55 fm. At 8 AM Loosed the reefs out of the topsails and got topgt yards aCross, unstowed the Anchors and bit the Cables. At Noon Latd Obserd 21°29' S, the land extending from SWBS to NNW, distant 4 Leagues. Soundings from 55 to 10 fm.

SUNDAY 13th. Winds EBN, Calm, SE. Fore and latter parts a gentle Sea breeze and clear weather, the middle calm. PM standing a long shoar for Rio de Janeiro, observed that the land on the Sea coast is high and mountainous, and the shoar forms some small Bays or Coves wherein are sandy beaches. At 8 shortend sail, the Sugr Loaf Hill at the west entrance to Rio de Janeiro, NNW dist. 4 or 5 Leagues, at the same time was abreast of two small rocky Islands that lies about 4 Miles from the shore. At 9 am sprung up a light breeze at SE at which time we made sail for the Harbour, and set the Pinnace with a Lieutt before us up to the City of Rio de Janeiro to acquaint the Vice Roy⁶ with the reasons that induced us to put in here; which was to procure Water and other refreshments; and to desire the assistance of a Pilot to bring us into proper anchoring ground. At Noon standing in for the Harbour.

MONDAY 14th. Moderate Sea and Land breezes and fine plasant weather. At 5 pm anchor'd in 5 fathom water just above the Isle of Cobras which lies before the City of Rio de Janeiro: a little before we anchor'd the Pinnace ret'd and inform'd me that the Viceroy had thought proper to detain the Officer untill I went a shore. Soon after we anchor'd a boat came on board bringing several of the Viceroys officers who asked ma[n]y questions in respect to the Ship, from whence She came, Cargo, number of men Guns &c^a all of which was answerd to their satisfaction – they told me that it was the custom of this Port to detain the first officer that came from any ship on her first Arrival untill a Boat from the Vice roy had visited her, that my officer would be sent on board as soon as they got a shore, which was accordingly done. About this time a Boat fill'd with soldiers kept rowing about the Ship, which had orders as I afterwards understood, not to suffer any one of the Officers or Gentlemen except my self to go out of the ship. In the Morning I waited upon the Viceroy and obtain'd leave to purchase Provisions, Refreshments &c^a

JAMES COOK

The Journals

CONTENTS

LIST OF MAPS

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

NOTES

FURTHER READING

THE FIRST VOYAGE
1768–1771

INTRODUCTION

JOURNAL OF THE FIRST VOYAGE
1768–1771

JAMES COOK

The Journals

CONTENTS

LIST OF MAPS

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

NOTES

FURTHER READING

THE FIRST VOYAGE1768–1771

INTRODUCTION

JOURNAL OF THE FIRST VOYAGE 1768–1771

THE FIRST VOYAGE
1768–1771

JOURNAL OF THE FIRST VOYAGE
1768–1771