Thomas Cook

“ From his boyhood Cook was a keen politician and a strong liberal. He was president of the Oxford Union in 1879 and enjoyed the reputation among his contemporaries of being an extremely accomplished and resourceful debater. After leaving Oxford he was for a time secretary of the London Society for Extension of University Teaching, and gradually found his way into journalism by means of contributions to the Pall Mall Gazette, then under the editorship of John (afterwards Viscount) Morley. In 1883 William Thomas Stead [q.v.] became editor, and shortly afterwards invited Cook to join the staff. ”

“ Cook had become a book agent. With his pretty Virginia wife his figure became familiar to every farm, in the county. He visited every house where a slave was to be found. He sold maps as well as books. He also sketched maps in secret when he reached the quiet of his home while his happy little bride sang at her work.
He carefully compiled a census of slaves at the Ferry and in the surrounding country. So sure had he become of the success of the blow when it should fall, that he begged his Chief to permit him to begin to whisper the promise of the uprising to a few chosen men among the slaves. ”

“ To this providential occurrence they owed their safety; for, had the ship foundered, the boats could not have contained the whole crew. Among many dangers, Cook pursued his course through that intricate tract of reefs and islands, which he named the Labyrinth, to the northern point of New Holland: and having now explored the whole eastern coast, from lat. 38° to 10° 30 ́, he took possession of it by the name of New South Wales. He then made sail for New Guinea, having proved that New Guinea and New Holland are separate islands, and from thence proceeded to Batavia, which he reached October 9. ”

“ Cook at first had sharply criticized Brown's selection of such a place for the scene of the Great Deed. As he stood surveying in wonder the sublimity of its scenery he muttered softly:
"The old man's a wizard!"
The rugged hills and the rush of mighty waters called the soul to great deeds. There was something electric in the air. The town, the rivers, the mountains summoned the spirit to adventure. The tall chimneys of the United States Arsenal and Rifle Works called to war. The lines of hills were made for the emplacement of guns. ”

“ Cook had reached the northern point of Heiberg Land, or Cape Thomas Hubbard; that he had gone two sleeps north of it, had then turned to the west or southwest, and returned to the northern headland of Heiberg Land, but on the west or northwest side, and had sent back one of the Eskimos to the cache left on the headland, but on the east side of the point, and remained at this new place on the west side of the point for four or five sleeps. ”

“ The fifth disciple chosen was John E. Cook, a man destined to play the most important role in the new divine mission with the poorest qualification for the task. Born of a well-to-do family in Haddon, Connecticut, he had studied law in Brooklyn and New York. He dropped his studies against the protest of his people in 1855, and, driven by the spirit of adventure, found his way into Kansas and at last led his band of twenty guerrillas into John Brown's camp. Brown's attention was riveted on him from the day they met. He was a man of pleasing personality and the finest rifle shot in Kansas. ”

“ Being elected Fellow of the Royal Society, he contributed two papers to their Transactions, published in vol. lxvi., one relating to the tides in the South Seas, the other containing an account of the methods which he had taken to preserve the health of his ship’s crew. The ravages of scurvy are now so much checked, that few know from experience how dreadfully earlier navigators suffered from that disease. It is one of Cook’s peculiar merits, that he attended to the health of his seamen with such eminent success, that during this long and painful voyage, not one man died of scurvy. ”

“ With a most praiseworthy benevolence, the ships were charged with cattle, sheep, and other useful animals, to be left, and naturalized, if possible, in New Zealand, Otaheite, and other islands. The Resolution and Discovery were fitted out for the voyage, with every attention to the health and comfort of their crews. They sailed from Plymouth July 12, 1776, and touching at New Zealand, reached the Friendly Islands so late in the spring of 1777, that Captain Cook thought it impossible to visit the Polar Seas to any purpose that year. ”

“ Perhaps no science ever received greater additions from the labour of a single man, than geography has done from those of Captain Cook. In his first voyage to the South Seas, he discovered the Society Islands; determined the insularity of New Zealand; discovered the straits which separate the two islands, and are called after his name; and made a complete survey of both. He afterward explored the eastern coast of New Holland, hitherto unknown; an extent of twenty-seven degrees of latitude, or upward of two thousand miles. ”

“ He was a man who accepted Truth as God gave it to him, not as he had theorized it ought to be; a man who had climbed from a mud cottage to the position of the greatest navigator in the world—had climbed on top of facts mastered, not {176} of schoolgirl moonshine, or study-closet theories. That man was Captain James Cook.
Cook's life presents all the contrasts of true greatness world over. Like Peter the Great, of Russia, whose word had set in motion the exploration of the northwest coast of America, Cook's character consisted of elements that invariably lead to glory or ruin ”

“ The loss to science by the demise of this excellent man and liberal patron will be long and severely felt. It will be recollected, that when it was determined to send Captain Cook on his first voyage round the globe, Sir Joseph Banks, then a young man, whose ardent mind glowed with a love of science and of ingenious enterprise, determined to accompany him. His liberal spirit and generous curiosity were regarded with admiration, and every convenience from the government was readily supplied to render the circumstances of the voyage as comfortable as possible. ”

“ After touching at Easter Island he explored the New Hebrides and discovered New Caledonia, whence he returned home by New Zealand, Cape Horn, and South Georgia, reaching Plymouth in July 1775.
Apart from the geographical discoveries, and finally setting at rest the question of a habitable southern continent, this voyage was, even more than the first, remarkable for the fact that Cook kept his crew absolutely free from scurvy, and lost only a single man during the whole of the three years. ”

“ Whether rocking on the Baltic, or waiting for the stokers to heave out coal at Liverpool, every moment not occupied by seaman's duties, Cook had filled by improving himself, by increasing his usefulness, by sharpening his brain, so that his brain could better direct his hands, by {180} studying mathematics and astronomy and geography and science and navigation. As some one has said—there are lots of people with hands and no brain; and there are lots of people with brains and no hands ”

“ With such advantages Captain Cook became a mighty discoverer both in the southern and western oceans, charted New Zealand and much else, and more important than all, in 1759 he surveyed the Saint Lawrence and piloted ships up the river, of which he had established the channel. Speaking of Cook naturally leads to the solution of the problem of the transportation of men, sailors, soldiers, and emigrants, on long voyages, thereby making population fluid. ”

“ The triumph of the navigation was naturally due to Cook, but the most important part of the knowledge which had been communicated to the empire was due to the labours of Banks. It was from his journals, that the chief details of the habits, manners, and resources of the natives were derived. The vegetable, mineral, and animal products of the Society Islands, and of New Holland, New Zealand, and New Guinea, had been explored, and a vast quantity of general intelligence was obtained relative to countries, which now form an essential portion of the British empire. ”

“ At length, on August 4, Captain Cook had the satisfaction of sailing out of Endeavour Harbour. The ship was surrounded by shoals, and he was yet in doubt whether he should beat back to the southward, or seek a passage to the north or east. He had now a most anxious time, for it was clear that there was no way to sea except through the labyrinth of shoals amid which the ship lay. The navigation of a ship among coral rocks is at all times dangerous, for the lead gives no notice of their vicinity, their sides rising up like walls from almost unfathomable depths. ”

“ A leak having been discovered, and some more ballast being required, Captain Cook put into a harbour in Ulietea, at the opposite side of the island to that he had before visited. While the ship’s company were taking in ballast and water, Mr Banks and Dr Solander went on shore, and were everywhere received with the greatest respect by the natives, who seemed conscious that their white visitors had the power, though not the desire, to do them every possible harm. Men, women, and children crowded round them, and followed them wherever they went ”

“ They all appear to be intensely fond of spirits. The traders sell them liquors of the most horrible kind, not much superior to the ‘coal oil’ or ‘kerosene’ used for lamps.” So much for natives, who, in Captain Cook’s time, were doubtless much more innocent and unsophisticated.
To resume our narrative: Cook again crossed to the northern American coast, and on August 17th reached a point encumbered with ice, which formed an impenetrable field. ”

“ Between 1768 and 1779, Captain Cook made three voyages of discovery from end to end of the great Pacific Ocean, from the impassable barrier of ice in the south to that in the north. During that time he did more to fill up the blanks on the map of the world than any man before or since. In his first voyage Captain Cook set sail in the Endeavour—a mere collier of 370 tons, but stout and strong, built for safety rather than speed, and worked by a crew of eighty-five men. ”

“ After a brief experience as a theological student, he shipped at New London as a common sailor in a vessel that was bound for the Mediterranean, and at Gibraltar enlisted in a British regiment, from which he was discharged at the request of his captain. Returning to New London by way of the West Indies at the end of a year, he soon embarked from New York for England, and arrived in London when Capt. Cook was about to sail on his third and last voyage around the world. Having procured an introduction to Cook, he was engaged for the expedition, and made corporal of marines. ”

“ Monkhouse, the surgeon, and several seamen perished. Cook himself was very ill. Every individual, in fact, of the Endeavour's crew was ill except the sailmaker, an old man between seventy and eighty years of age. Five Englishmen out of the crew were buried at Batavia, besides the two Tahitians.
From Java they sailed to the Cape of Good Hope, where they stayed for rest and refreshment, and after calling at St. Helena the Endeavour anchored in the Downs off Deal, and at that place Cook landed on 12 June, 1771, after his circumnavigation of the world, which opened a new epoch in colonial history. ”

“ To all these great qualities Captain Cook added the most amiable virtues. That it was impossible for any one to excel him in humanity, is apparent from his treatment of his men through all his voyages, and from his behaviour to the natives of the countries which were discovered by him. The health, the convenience, and, as far as it could be admitted, the enjoyment of the seamen, were the constant objects of his attention; and he was anxiously solicitous to ameliorate the condition of the inhabitants of the several islands and places which he visited. ”

“ A course was then shaped for Queen Charlotte’s Sound, in New Zealand, there to take in wood and water; the commander intending afterwards to continue his discoveries to the south and east. The next day the lofty island of Pilstart was seen. It lies thirty-two leagues south by west from the south end of Eua. On the 21st the north end of New Zealand was made, and the ships ran down the east coast for the purpose of communicating with the natives, Captain Cook being very anxious to give them seeds and animals with which to stock the country. ”

“ It will easily be supposed, that the lovers of science would, in general, be peculiarly attentive to the effects resulting from Captain Cook's discoveries. The additions he had made to the knowledge of geography, navigation, and astronomy, and the new views he had opened of the diversified state of human life and manners, could not avoid commanding their esteem, and exciting their admiration. With many persons of philosophic literature he was in the habits of intimacy and friendship; he was particularly acquainted with Sir John Pringle, at that time president of the Royal Society. ”

“ I know not how to account for the scurvy raging more in the one ship than the other, unless it was owing to the crew of the Adventure being more scorbutic when they arrived in New Zealand than we were, and to their eating few or no vegetables while they lay in Queen Charlotte's Sound, partly for want of knowing the right sorts, and partly because it was a new diet, which alone was sufficient for seamen to reject it. To introduce any new article of food among seamen, let it be ever so much for their good, requires both the example and authority of a commander ”