James Cook

Youth

James Cook is resulting from a relatively modest family, wire of James Cook, farmhand of Scottish origin and Grace, English. He was born in Marton in the North Yorkshire, city now attached to Middlesbrough. He was baptized with the local church of St Curthberts Ormesby, where its name appears in the register of the baptisms. The family, counting five children then (the Cook husbands will have nine of them), is established then with the farm Airey Holme in Great Ayton. The employer of its father financed his formation at the elementary school. At the age of 13 ans, it started to work with his father in the management of the farm.

In 1745, then old 16 years, Cook was placed in training in a draper of Staithes, village of fishermen. According to the legend, Cook felt for the first time the call of the sea while looking by the window of the store. At the end of one year and half, William Sanderson, the owner of the company, issued that Cook was not made for the trade and led it to the port of Whitby where it presented it to John and Henry Walker, Quakers making trade of the coal and owners of several ships. Cook was engaged like apprentice of the merchant navy on their fleet. It spent the following years to make Cabotage between the the Tyne and London. In parallel, he studied the Algèbre, the Trigonométrie, the Navigation and the Astronomie.

Once its three finished years of training, Cook worked on tradind ships in the Baltic. It went up quickly in rank and, in 1755, is lived to propose the command of the Friendship . He however preferred to engage in the royal Navy. The Great Britain prepared then with future War the Seven Year old and Cook thought that its career would advance more quickly in the military navy. That implied however to start again with the bottom of the hierarchy and it is as ordinary seaman whom it engaged on board the HMS Eagle, under the command of the Captain Hugh Palliser. It was quickly promoted with the rank of Master' S Mate . In 1757, after two years spent within Navy, it makes a success of its examination of control enabling him to order a ship of the royal fleet .

During the Seven Year old War, James Cook took part in the seat of the town of Quebec before the battle of the Plains of Abraham in 1759. He then showed an unquestionable talent for topography and the cartography, and charted most of the mouth of the St. Lawrence during the seat, which made it possible to the Wolfe General to launch his decisive attack on the Plains of Abraham. The following years, it establishes the charts of the New Ground coast, then the Passage of the North-West (1763 - 1764), the coast on between the peninsula of Graver and Cape Ray (1765 - 1764), then the west coast in 1767. During its five seasons spent with New Ground, it establishes the first precise charts with large scales of the coasts of the island.

At that time, he wrote that he wanted to go … further no man went before me, but also far a man can go.

Voyages

The first forwarding (1768 - 1771)

In 1768, the Royal Society load James Cook, on board HMB Endeavor, to explore the Pacific Ocean southern with for main missions the observation of Venus the Transit of the June 3rd 1769 and seeks it of a hypothetical southern continent. According to the scientists, this continent would have been in the high latitudes in the south of this ocean, but Cook will not discover it. He was skeptic as for his existence besides and, in his newspaper, confronts his explorations with the testimonys brought back by the preceding explorers.

Endeavor was a Barque of the same type of those which Cook had already ordered, solid and ideal boat in terms of storage capacity like for its weak draft, essential quality to approach the many reefs and archipelagoes the Pacific. After having passed the Cape Horn, it unloaded with Tahiti the April 13rd 1769, where it made build small extremely and a observatory in preparation for the Venus transit. The purpose of the observation, directed by Charles Green, assistant of the new royal astronomer Nevil Maskelyne, was principal to collect measurements making it possible to determine with more precision the distance separating Venus from the Sun. Once this known data, it would be possible to deduce the distance from another planets, on the basis of their Orbite.

Unfortunately, three raised measurements varied much more than the anticipated margin of error envisaged it. When one compared these measurements with those carried out at the same moment in other places, the result as precise as was not expected.

Once these consigned observations, James Cook opened the seals which contained the instructions for the second part of its voyage: to seek the signs of Terra Australis, the hypothetical one during Eurasia in the northern hemisphere. Royal Society, and particularly Alexander Dalrymple, were persuaded of its existence and intended to make well there float the Union Jack before any other European flag. For that, one chooses to resort to a boat which, by its small size, was hardly likely to wake up the suspicions, and to a mission of astronomical observation like cover.

Cook doubted however the existence even of this continent. Thanks to the assistance of Tahitien named Tupaia, which had pointed knowledge of the geography of the Pacific, Cook reached the New Zealand the October 6th 1769. The second European to unload there after Abel Tasman in 1642, it charted the entirety of the New Zealand coasts with very few errors (in particular on the Péninsule of Banks, that it took for an island, and on the island Stewart, which it wrongly attached to the island of the South). He also identified the Détroit of Cook separating the island from the South of the island of North, and that Tasman had not discovered.

He put then course at the west in direction of Van Diemen' S Land (current Tasmanie) with the intention to determine if it were about part of the southern continent. Strong winds forced forwarding however to maintain a road northern. Forwarding saw the ground in a place that Cook named Point Hicks , between the current cities of Orbost and Mallacoota in the State of the Victoria. Considering the orientation of the coast in south-west, Cook doubted that Van Diemen' S Land was connected there. They were in fact in the south-east of the Australian continent, becoming officially the first Europeans to locate his east coast. In 1843, the place accepted the name of Cape Everard , before finding its original denomination of Hicks Point at the time of the 200e anniversary of the Normandy landing.

According to the book of edge, one was then the April 19th 1770 at 6 o'clock in the morning. In fact, Cook employed the notation of the date in force in the navy and which ran from midday at midday. The day thus began 12 hours before the civil day. Moreover, the variation of longitude between the south-east of Australia and Great Britain imply an jet lag of approximately 10 hours, so that the allowed date today is the April 20th.

Cook carried on its road towards north while skirting the coast, never losing sight of the fact it to chart and name it its remarkable points. At the end of a little more than one week, they penetrated in a Fjord long but not very deep. After having wet in front of a low point preceded by sand dunes which currently bears the name of Kurnell , the crew unloaded for the first time in Australia, the April 29th. Cook first of all baptized the fjord Stingaree Bay in allusion to many the seen lines ( stingray in English). The place accepted then the name of Botanist Bay , then finally Botany Bay because of the many news species discovered by the botanists Joseph Banks, Daniel Solander and Hermann Spöring.

Great Britain was going later to choose this site to establish a first British colony there, inter alia on the councils of Joseph Banks. However, when the captain Arthur Phillip unloaded there with the head of the First Fleet in 1788, that is to say nearly 18 years later, the bay and its surroundings did not prove as ideal as its description let it hope. Phillip ordered to relocate the colony in a natural port located a few kilometers at north, that Cook had named Port Jackson without pushing some very far exploration. It is in this port, in a bay which it named Sydney Cove , which was born the colony from Sydney.

Cook met indigenous as of its first boarding. When Endeavor entered bay, the crew saw men on each coast. Around 2 p.m., they wet close to a group of six to eight houses. Two aboriginals approached the boat, being unaware of the gifts that Cook proposed to them. One drew a blow from Mousquet above their head, wounding slightly oldest which started to run towards the houses. It returned with other men and threw lances towards the white, without reaching any of it. Two additional blows completed to drive out them. All the adults had disappeared, but Cook found several children in the houses, where it left some pearls as a sign of friendship.

Forwarding again put the veils in direction of north, always while skirting the coast. The June 11th, Endeavor pursued on a bench of the Grande barrier of coral and was seriously damaged. One passed nearly seven weeks to repair on the beach (currently on the commune of Cooktown , with the mouth of the Endeavor River ). During this time, Banks, Spöring and Solander benefitted from it to collect many samples of the Australian flora. The contacts with the aboriginals were peaceful. It is at that time that the word Kangourou made its appearance in the English vocabulary, transmitted by the tribe Guugu Yimidhirr . After this episode, Cook will disadvise exploring new oceans with only one ship.

Once finished repair, forwarding took again its road, doubling the Péninsule of the course York before beginning in the Détroit of Torres separating Australia from the New Guinea. Cook unloaded on the island of the Possession the August 22nd, where he asserted the totality of the coast which he had just explored on behalf of the British Crown.

To this point of the voyage, not only one man had not succumbed to the Scorbut, made remarkable for a so long forwarding at the time. Indeed, convinced by a recommendation of Royal published in 1747, Cook had introduced food like the cabbage or the Citron into the food of its crew. It was known whereas the scurvy was caused by a poor food, but the bond with the deficiencies in Vitamine C had not been established yet. To have succeeded in preserving the health of its crew, Cook will receive the Médaille Copley in 1776.

The crossing of the strait of Torres proved definitively that Australia and New Guinea were not connected between them. Endeavor accosted then with Savu where it spent three weeks before continuing towards Batavia, capital of the the Eastern Indies Dutchwomen, to carry out some repairs there. Batavia was known to be a hearth of Malaria and before the return of forwarding in 1771, several members of the crew had succumbed to it like to other diseases such as the Dysenterie, of which Tahitien Tupaia, the botanist Hermann Spöring, the astronomer Charles Green and the illustrator Sydney Perkinson (Cook will name the island Spörring, off New Zealand, in honor with the botanist).

On the road of the return in Great Britain, Cook doubled the Cape of Good Hope and slackened with Sainte-Hélène. The June 10th 1771, Nicholas Young, which had located the first the New Zealand coasts, saw the Cape Lizard in England. Endeavor engaged in the Manche and, the June 12th, wet in front of Deal, in the Kent. The publication of the newspaper of forwarding made Cook very popular within the scientific community. Near the general public, it is rather Joseph Banks who collected the honors. This last tried to take the command of the second forwarding, but was withdrawn before the departure. Johann Reinhold Forster and its son Georg was engaged to replace it.

The second forwarding (1772 - 1775)

Little time after its return, Cook was promoted with the rank Commander before being charged by Royal Society to again go in the South Seas to the research of the southern continent. During its first voyage, Cook had shown that New Zealand was attached to no ground and estimated the size of Australia. Dalrymple, supported by other members of Society, were however always persuaded of the existence of a larger continent, which was to be more in the south.

Cook installed on board the HMS Resolution, accompanied by Tobias Furneaux with the head of the HMS Adventure. It is equipped with new a Chronomètre of the K1 type, which will allow a precise calculation of the Longitude. Forwarding went down very to the south, crossing the Polar circle the Antarctic the January 17th 1773 and reaching the latitude of southern 71°10'. Cook also discovered the South Georgia and the Sandwich islands of the South. The two boats were lost sight of the fact in the fog of the the Antarctic and put Furneaux the course on New Zealand, where it lost some of its men in a battle against the Maori before setting out again for Great Britain. During this time, Cook continued its exploration of the Antarctic zone. It passed close it unintermitting without seeing it and went up towards Tahiti to restock itself. It replongea then in the south in the hope to accost the mythical continent, without success. It had again embarked Tahitien, name of Omai, which proved less with the fact of the geography of the Pacific than Tupaia. The road of the return led it to the Tonga, with the Easter Island, the island Norfolk, in New Caledonia and with the Vanuatu. His report/ratio concludes clearly on nonthe existence from mythical the Terra Australis .

At the conclusion of this second voyage, Cook was promoted with the row of captain and Royal Society offered to him an honorary retirement as an officer of the Greenwich Hopsital . Its notoriety had exceeded the framework of admiralty: royal Society admitted it within its members and decreed to him the Médaille Copley, Nathaniel Dance-Holland carried out its portrait, the writer James Boswell invited it to his table and the House of Lords qualified it larger navigator of Europe . However, it missed the sea and it prepared a third voyage in direction of the Passage of the North-West. Of the Pacific, it sailed towards the east, hoping to join the Atlantic, while a second boat came to its meeting in opposite direction.

The third forwarding (1776 - 1779)

For its last forwarding, Cook ordered the HMS Resolution again while the captain Charles Clerke took the head of the HMS Discovery. Officially, the goal of the voyage was to bring back Omai to Tahiti, which caused greatest curiosity in London. Forwarding explored first of all the islands Kerguelen where it accosted the day of Christmas 1776, then made stopover in New Zealand. Once Omai returned to his, Cook put the course at north and was the first European to accost in the islands Hawaii in 1778.

Sailing then along the American continent, Cook described in its newspaper the Indian tribes of the Vancouver Island, of the coasts of the Alaska, the Aleutian Islands and two banks of the Bering Strait.

In spite of several attempts, the Bering Strait appeared insuperable because of the ices which blocked it even in August. Accumulating frustrations in front of this failure, and perhaps suffering from an affection of the stomach, Cook started to show an irrational behavior, forcing for example its crew to consume meat of Morse, that the men refused.

Forwarding went back to Hawaii the following year. After eight past weeks to explore the archipelago, Cook lands in Kealakekua Bay on current Grande Island where it remained one month. Shortly after its departure, a damage of the foremast the constrained one to turn back to repair. During this second stopover, tensions were felt between the natives and the British and several brawls burst. The February 14th, of Hawaiiens stole a launch. The flights being current at the time of the stopovers, Cook had as a practice to retain some hostages until the stolen goods are restored. This time, it envisaged to take as an hostage the chief of Hawaii, Kalaniopu' U. A dispute burst however with the inhabitants who attacked using stones and of lances. The British drew some shots but had to fold up themselves towards the beach. Cook was reached with the head and collapsed. Hawaiiens beat it with dead then removed its body.

Cook enjoyed despite everything the regard the inhabitants Hawaii and the chiefs preserved his body (discussed assumptions give a report on a possible human consumption). The crew could however recover some remainders at sea to bury them with the military honors.

Clerke took the command of forwarding. It benefitted from the hospitality of a Russian port of the Kamchatka to try last once, without success, to cross the Bering Strait. Clerke died of Tuberculose (then called phthisis ) in August 1779 and lieutenant Gore took his succession for the road of the return by the Asian coasts, as envisaged by Cook. In December, the log books were confiscated at the stopover with Macao and Canton because of the war of independence of the United States. Gore arrived however in hiding a specimen. The Resolution and Discovery arrived to Great Britain the October 4th 1780. The report/ratio of Cook was supplemented by the captain James King.

Among the councils and lesson of this voyage, Cook and its officers as a second validated their ideas on the food to avoid the Scorbut, as well as the use of “bark of Peru”, an equivalent of the Quinine.

Sailors trained by Cook

Several young officers who were used under the orders as Cook also left their name in the history.

William Bligh took the command of the HMS Bounty in 1787, with for mission of bringing back seedlings of Breadfruit tree of them. This voyage was the theater of the most famous mutiny and Bligh was unloaded by its men on the open sea. He became later governor of News-Wales of the South.
George Vancouver ordered a forwarding along the west coast of the North America of 1791 with 1794.
George Dixon, which took part in the third forwarding of Cook before ordering some from its turn.

Heritage

The twelve years that Cook devoted to sail in the Pacific enormously brought knowledge of the area to Europeans. He discovered several islands and charted with precision of broad portions of coast. As of its first voyage, it was able to calculate its longitude precisely, which was not at all obvious at the time because that requires to know the hour with exactitude. Cook profited from the assistance of the astronomer Charles Green and employed the new tables of the nautical almanac, being based on the angle separating the the Moon from the Sun (of day) or from the one of the eight most brilliant stars (of night) to determine the hour with the royal Observatoire of Greenwich, which it compared with the local time determined thanks to the altitude of the sun, the moon or stars. During its second voyage, it embarked a stop watch KT designed by Larcum Kendal. It was about a copy of the H4 watch manufactured by John Harrison, first instrument able at sea to give accurately the hour and which had been embarked on Deptford in 1761.

Cook was accompanied painters (Sydney Parkinson carried out 264 drawings before his death at the end of the first voyage, William Hodges represented many landscapes of Tahiti and the Easter Island) and scientists by reputation. Joseph Banks (which discovered the Banksia ) and Daniel Solander collected: 3000 species of plants.

Cook was the first European to establish a close contact with several people of the Pacific. He concludes, with reason, with the existence of a bond between them, in spite of the thousands of miles of ocean which separated them sometimes.

The place or Cook was killed in the islands of Hawaii is marked by white obelisk and is separated from the remainder of the island: the place was yielded to the United Kingdom and forms officially part of its territory. The portrait of Cook appears on a part of the United States, the half dollar of 1928 of the sesquicentenaire of Hawaii. It was manufactured at the time of the sesquicentenaire discovery of the islands, with a weak pulling (: 10008), which makes this part of commemoration a rare and expensive object for the collectors.

Places named in homage to Cook

Several geographical sites bear in its honor the name of the Cook captain, in particular:

the Islands Cook, state of Oceania associated with the New Zealand.
the Mount Cook, culminating point (3754 m) of the New Zealand.
the Strait of Cook between the two principal islands of New Zealand.
the Glacier Cook, principal glacier of the Islands Kerguelen.
the " ville" of Captain Cook on the island of Hawaii, close to the bay where it found death
the bay of Cook with Moorea, French Polynésie

The Space shuttle Endeavor and the Space shuttle Discovery were named according to ships of Cook (respectively of its first and its third forwarding).

Family

Cook married Elisabeth Bates in 1762 and had six children of which none arrived at the adulthood. His/her Jospeh son died in the birth in 1768, his/her daughter died 1771 at age the four years and George died in low age in 1772 (during the first voyage in the Pacific). His/her Nathaniel son died in 1780 in a hurricane and Hugh died in 1793 whereas he studied in Cambridge. The groin, James, born in 1763, drowned in 1794. Mrs Cook received Admiralty a pension of 200 pounds per annum; she died in 1823 with 93 years lâge.

Sources

James Cook, Relations of voyages around the world , 1768-1779; choice, introduction and notes of Christopher Lloyd; French translation by Gabrielle Banks, edition the Discovery, collection Pocket Literature and voyages, 1977, rééd., 1998. The account of the third voyage is followed of an extract of that of the King captain from January 17th to February 20th.
John Robson, Captain Cook' S World , 1st edition at Random House, New Zealand, 2000; ED. British, Chatham Publishing, 2001. In English, this atlas of charts and plans take again the voyages of Cook since its youth until explorations of the Pacific Ocean.

Cinema

In 1987, the voyages of James Cook were put in image in a film australo-German, under the title Captain James Cook .

External bond

biographical Dictionary of Canada in line

Simple: James Cook Zh-yue: 庫克船長

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