First voyage of James Cook

Earl of Pembroke, later HMS Endeavour, leaving Whitby Harbour in 1768. By Thomas Luny, dated 1790

The vessel chosen by the Admiralty for the voyage was a merchant collier named Earl of Pembroke, launched in June 1764 from the coal and whaling port of Whitby in North Yorkshire.[11] She was ship-rigged and sturdily built with a broad, flat bow, a square stern and a long box-like body with a deep hold.[12] A flat-bottomed design made her well-suited to sailing in shallow waters and allowed her to be beached for loading and unloading of cargo and for basic repairs without requiring a dry dock. Her length was 106 feet (32 m), with a beam of 29 feet 3 inches (8.92 m), and measuring 368​⁷¹⁄₉₄ tons burthen[11][13]

Earl of Pembroke was purchased by the Admiralty in May 1768 for £2,840 10s 11d[14]^[a] and sailed to Deptford on the River Thames to be prepared for the voyage. Her hull was sheathed and caulked, and a third internal deck installed to provide cabins, a powder magazine and storerooms.[15] A longboat, pinnace and yawl were provided as ship's boats, as well as a set of 28 ft (8.5 m) sweeps to allow the ship to be rowed if becalmed or demasted.[16] After commissioning into the Royal Navy as His Majesty's Bark the Endeavour, the ship was supplied with ten 4-pounder cannons and twelve swivel guns, for defence against native attack while in the Pacific.[17]

Provisions loaded at the outset of the voyage included 6,000 pieces of pork and 4,000 of beef, nine tons of bread, five tons of flour, three tons of sauerkraut, one ton of raisins and sundry quantities of cheese, salt, peas, oil, sugar and oatmeal. Alcohol supplies consisted of 250 barrels of beer, 44 barrels of brandy and 17 barrels of rum.[18]

The Admiralty's Instructions to Cook were divided into two sections, both marked "Secret"[19] The first document dealt with the voyage to Tahiti, while the second dealt with the post-transit agenda. After Tahiti, Cook was instructed to sail directly south in search of the long-imagined sixth continent, referred to as the 'Southern Continent'. Next, he was to turn west to New Zealand, from where he was free to choose his homeward route. The Admiralty's Instructions do not mention the half-mapped fifth continent of New Holland (as Australia was known in the eighteenth century).[20]

On 30 July 1768 the Admiralty authorised a ship's company for the voyage, of 73 sailors and 12 Royal Marines.[21] The voyage was commanded by 40-year-old Lieutenant James Cook. His second lieutenant was Zachary Hicks, a 29-year-old from Stepney with experience as acting commander of the Hornet, a 16-gun cutter.[22] The third lieutenant was John Gore, a 16-year Naval veteran who had served as master's mate aboard HMS Dolphin during its circumnavigation of the world in 1766.[23]

Other notable people on the expedition include the official astronomer, Charles Green, then assistant to the Astronomer Royal, Nevil Maskelyne. Joseph Banks had been appointed to the voyage as the official botanist. Banks funded seven others to join him: a Swedish naturalist Daniel Solander, a Finnish naturalist Herman Spöring, two artists, a scientific secretary, and two black servants from his estate.[24]

A view of the Endeavour's watering place in the Bay of Good Success, Tierra del Fuego, with natives. January 1769.

Cook departed from Plymouth on 26 August 1768, carrying 94 people and 18 months of provisions.[25] On 15 November, Endeavour reached Rio de Janeiro and stayed there until 2 December, re-provisioning and making repairs. The Viceroy, the Marques de Azambuja, had been warned by his home government that Britain was seeking to extend its overseas power and influence following its victory in the Seven Years' War, and therefore suspected that the observation of the transit of Venus and study of natural history that Cook told him were the aims of his voyage were not its only or main objectives. Cook took offence at the Viceroy's suspicious attitude.[26] In his journal, he described Guanabara Bay, including its defensive fortifications, and noted that the city could be taken by a force of six ships of the line.[27] The ship rounded Cape Horn and continued westward across the Pacific to arrive at Matavai Bay, Tahiti on 13 April 1769, where the observations were to be made. The transit was scheduled to occur on 3 June, and in the meantime Cook commissioned the building of a small fort and observatory at what is now known as Point Venus.[28]

The astronomer appointed to the task was Charles Green, assistant to the recently appointed Astronomer Royal, Nevil Maskelyne. The primary purpose of the observation was to obtain measurements that could be used to calculate more accurately the distance of Venus from the Sun. If this could be achieved, then the distances of the other planets could be worked out, and eventually the distance between any two points on Earth, thus solving the problem of accurately establishing longitude.[29][30] On the day of the transit observation, Cook recorded:

Saturday 3^rd This day prov'd as favourable to our purpose as we could wish, not a Clowd was to be seen the Whole day and the Air was perfectly clear, so that we had every advantage we could desire in Observing the whole of the passage of the Planet Venus over the Suns disk: we very distinctly saw an Atmosphere or dusky shade round the body of the Planet which very much disturbed the times of the contacts particularly the two internal ones. D ^r Solander observed as well as M^r Green and my self, and we differ'd from one another in observeing the times of the Contacts much more than could be expected.[31]

Disappointingly, the separate measurements of Green, Cook and Solander varied by more than the anticipated margin of error. Their instrumentation was adequate by the standards of the time, but the resolution still could not eliminate the errors. When their results were later compared to those of the other observations of the same event made elsewhere for the exercise, the net result was not as conclusive or accurate as had been hoped. The difficulties are today thought to relate to various optical phenomena (including the Black drop effect), that precluded accurate measurement – particularly with the instruments used by Cook, Green and Solander.[32][33]

Once the observations were completed, Cook opened the sealed orders for the second part of his voyage: to search the south Pacific for signs of the postulated southern continent of Terra Australis.[34] The Royal Society, and especially Alexander Dalrymple, believed that Terra Australis must exist, and that Britain's best chance of discovering and claiming it before any rival European power would be by using Cook's Transit of Venus mission.[35]

Cook, however, decided to first explore the other nearby islands. A local priest and mariner named Tupaia volunteered to join him, and was to prove invaluable as a pilot, interpreter and intermediary between the crew of the Endeavour and local inhabitants.[36] The Endeavour left Tahiti on 13 July and entered the harbour of the nearby island of Raiatea on 16 July. There Cook raised the flag and claimed Raiatea-Tahaa and “the adjacent” islands of Huahine, Borabora, Tupai (Motu Iti) and Maurua (Maupiti) for Great Britain, naming them the Society islands.[1]

On 9 August, Cook weighed anchor and, following Admiralty instructions, sailed south in search of the southern continent. In early September, after a journey of some 2400 kilometres, the Endeavour reached the latitude of 40 degrees south without sighting the supposed continent.[37] In accordance with his instructions, Cook then turned west and headed towards New Zealand, keeping a course between a latitude of approximately 29 degrees and 40 degrees south.[38]

Cook reached New Zealand on 6 October 1769, leading only the second group of Europeans known to do so (after Abel Tasman over a century earlier, in 1642). Cook and a landing party arrived onshore on 7 October at Poverty Bay in the north-east of North Island. Over the first two days of arriving onshore, the first encounters with Māori resulted in the death of four or five locals.[39] Three more Māori were killed in an encounter farther south off Cape Kidnappers on 15 October.[40] Cook's journal entries reflect regret as he had failed his instructions to avoid hostilities with the Indigenous people of any nations encountered.[41] Further encounters with Māori at Anaura Bay and Tolaga Bay were more peaceful, with Tupaia (who understood the Māori  language) playing an important role as interpreter and mediator between the parties. The Māori  traded freely with the Europeans and allowed them to gather water, wild celery and scurvy grass.[42][43]

Sailing north, the Endeavor next anchored at Mercury Bay where Cook observed the transit of Mercury on 9 November. Relations with the Māori were generally peaceful, although one local was killed in a trading dispute. This was the last recorded death of a Māori at the hands of Cook’s crew. After raising the flag and formally claiming possession of Mercury Bay for Great Britain, Cook sailed the Endeavour out of the bay on 15 November.[44][45]

Continuing north, Cook anchored at Bream Head and then the Bay of Islands, before rounding North Cape in the face of strong gales, narrowly missing an encounter with Surville’s French expedition in the St Jean Baptiste, which was rounding the cape at the same time in the opposite direction.[46] On 6 January 1770, the gales abated and Cook was able to make good progress down the west coast of the North Island without landing onshore. By mid-January, Cook arrived in Queen Charlotte Sound, on the north coast of New Zealand’s South Island, a location he would favour in his second and third voyages.[47]

Cook led an excursion to nearby Arapawa Island on 22 January, where he climbed Kaitapeha peak and saw the strait (which he named Cook Strait) separating the North Island of New Zealand from the South Island. The existence of the strait proved that North Island was not part of the supposed southern continent.[48][49]

On 31 January, Cook claimed possession of Queen Charlotte Sound “and the adjacent lands” in the name of King George III. This was the last time Cook would claim possession of any part of New Zealand of behalf of Great Britain. The Endeavour sailed out of the sound on 5 February, and passing through Cook Strait, turned north, allowing Cook to chart the coast from Cape Palliser to Cape Turnagain. This completed the circumnavigation of North island.[50]

Turning south, Cook sailed down the east coast of South Island, charting the coast and continuing the search for the southern continent. The Endeavour rounded South Cape on 10 March, proving, even to southern continent enthusiasts such as Banks, that South Island was not the sought-after sixth continent.[51][52]

Cook continued north along the west coast of South Island without landing, before re-entering Cook Strait and turning into Admiralty Bay on 27 March. The circumnavigation of southern New Zealand had been completed.[53]

With patience Cook had mapped a land almost as large as Italy, making only two major mapping errors, both in the South Island. Through lack of time, he mistakenly thought that Banks Peninsula was an island and he thought Stewart Island, at the very south, was a peninsula.[54]

Margaret Cameron-Ash claims Cook knew that a strait separated Stewart Island from the mainland, but hid his discovery for reasons of military and colonial policy.[55] Mawer, however, agrees with Blainey that it is more likely that Cook simply made an error, as his focus was on finding the southern extent of New Zealand, and conditions were unfavourable for more closely exploring the possible strait.[56]

Cook wrote in his Journal on 31 March 1770 that Endeavour's voyage "must be allowed to have set aside the most, if not all, the Arguments and proofs that have been advanced by different Authors to prove that there must be a Southern Continent; I mean to the Northward of 40 degrees South, for what may lie to the Southward of that Latitude I know not".[57]

On the same day he recorded his decision to set a course to return home by way of the yet unknown east coast of New Holland (as Australia was then called):

being now resolv'd [sic] to quit this Country altogether, and to bend my thought towards returning home by such a rout as might Conduce most to the Advantage of the Service I am upon, I consulted with the Officers upon the most Eligible way of putting this in Execution. To return by the way of Cape Horn was what I most wished because by this route we should have been able to prove the Existance [sic] or Non-Existance [sic] of a Southern Continent, which yet remains Doubtfull [sic]; but in order to Ascertain this we must have kept in a higher Latitude in the very Depth of Winter, but the Condition of the Ship, in every respect, was not thought sufficient for such an undertaking. For the same reason, the thoughts of proceeding directly to the Cape of Good Hope was laid aside, especially as no discovery of any Moment could be hoped for in that rout. It was therefore resolved to return by way of the East Indies by the following rout: upon Leaving this Coast to steer to the Westward until we fall in with the East Coast of New Holland, and then to follow the direction of that Coast to the Northward, or what other direction it might take us until we arrive at its Northern extremity; and if this should be found impracticable, then to Endeavour [sic] to fall in with the Land or Islands discovered by Quiros.[58]

A voyage to explore the east coast of New Holland, with a view to the British colonization of the country, had been recommended in John Campbell's editions of John Harris's Navigantium atque Itinerantium Bibliotheca, or Voyages and Travels (1744–1748, and 1764), a book which Cook had with him on Endeavour:

The first Point, with respect to a Discovery, would be, to send a small Squadron on the Coast of Van Diemen's Land, and from thence round, in the same course taken by Captain Tasman, by the Coast of New Guiney; which might enable the Nations that attempted it, to come to an absolute Certainty with regard to its Commodities and Commerce... By this means all the back Coast of New Holland, and New Guiney, might be roughly examined; and we might know as well, and as certainly, as the Dutch, how far a Colony settled there might answer our Expectations.[59]

E. Phillips Fox, Landing of Captain Cook at Botany Bay, 1770, 1902

Endeavour continued northwards along the coastline, keeping the land in sight with Cook charting and naming landmarks as he went. A little over a week later, they came across an extensive but shallow inlet, and upon entering it moored off a low headland fronted by sand dunes. James Cook and crew made their first landing on the continent, at a place now known as Botany Bay, on Kurnell Peninsula and made contact of a hostile nature with the Gweagal Aborigines, on 29 April.^[b] At first Cook bestowed the name "Sting-Ray Harbour"[66] to the inlet after the many such creatures found there; this was later changed to "Botanist Bay"[66] and finally Botany Bay after the unique specimens retrieved by the botanists Joseph Banks, Daniel Solander and Herman Spöring.

Captain Cook landing place plaque

This first landing site was later to be promoted (particularly by Joseph Banks) as a suitable candidate for situating a settlement and British colonial outpost. However, almost 18 years later, when Captain Arthur Phillip and the First Fleet arrived in early 1788 to establish an outpost and penal colony, they found that the bay and surrounds did not live up to the promising picture that had been painted. Instead, Phillip gave orders to relocate to a harbour a few kilometres to the north, which Cook had named Port Jackson but had not further explored. It was in this harbour, at a place Phillip named Sydney Cove, that the settlement of Sydney was established. The settlement was for some time afterwards still referred to generally as Botany Bay. The expedition's scientific members commenced the first European scientific documentation of Australian fauna and flora.

At Cook's original landing contact was made with the local Australian Aboriginal inhabitants. As the ship sailed into the harbour, they noticed Aborigines on both of the headlands. At about 2 pm they put the anchor down near a group of six to eight huts. Two Aborigines, a younger and an older man, came down to the boat.[67] They did not accept the offer of gifts from Cook, whose lack of knowledge of Aboriginal custom may have prevented him from behaving acceptably in such exchanges. A musket was fired over their heads, which wounded the older man slightly, and he ran towards the huts. He came back with other men and threw spears at Cook's men, although they did no harm. They were chased off after two more rounds were fired.[67] The adults had left, but Cook found several Aboriginal children in the huts, and left some beads with them as a gesture of friendship.[67]

On 6 May 1770, the Endeavour left Botany Bay and sailed north past an inlet "wherein there appeared to be safe anchorage". Cook named it Port Jackson, today generally known as Sydney Harbour.[68] No-one on the ship recorded seeing any of the Harbour's many islands, because their line of sight was blocked by the high promontories of South Head and Bradleys Head that shape its dog-leg entrance. However, these islands were possibly known to Captain Arthur Phillip, the First Fleet commander, before he departed England in 1787.[69]

This kangaroo was seen at Endeavour River on 23 June 1770, painted by Sydney Parkinson

Cook continued northwards, charting along the coastline. He stopped at Bustard Bay (now known as Seventeen Seventy) at 8 o'clock on 23 May 1770 in 5 fathoms water on a sandy bottom at the South point of the Bay. Cook recounted that his clerk, Orton, had been molested while dead drunk that night, the perpetrators cutting off not only his clothes but also parts of his ears. Cook suspended and sent below the suspect Magra.[70] On 24 May Cook and Banks and others went ashore. He sounded the channel (now known as Round Hill Creek) and found a freshwater stream, noting there was room for a few ships to safely anchor. He noted a great deal of smoke on the hills and inspected one of the closest group of 10 fires around which were scattered cockle shells and other evidence of aboriginal occupation.[70]

Captain James Cook Commander, H.M.B. "Endeavour" which was beached and repaired near this site 17 June – 4 August 1770

A mishap occurred when Endeavour ran aground on a shoal of the Great Barrier Reef, on 11 June 1770. The ship was seriously damaged and his voyage was delayed almost seven weeks while repairs were carried out on the beach (near the docks of modern Cooktown, at the mouth of the Endeavour River). While there, Joseph Banks, Herman Spöring and Daniel Solander made their first major collections of Australian flora.

The crew's encounters with the local Aboriginal people were mainly peaceable; from the group encountered here the name "kangaroo" entered the English language, coming from the local Guugu Yimidhirr word for a kind of grey kangaroo, gangurru (pronounced [ɡ̊aŋuru]).[71]

Once repairs were completed, the voyage continued and at about midday on 22 August 1770, Cook reached the northernmost tip of the coast. Without leaving the ship, he named it York Cape (now Cape York) and departed the east coast.[72] Turning west, he nursed the battered ship through the dangerously shallow waters of Torres Strait, earlier navigated by Luis Váez de Torres in 1606. Searching for a high vantage point, Cook saw a steep hill on a nearby island from the top of which he hoped to see "a passage into the Indian Seas". Cook named the island Possession Island, where he claimed the entire eastern coastline that he had just explored as British territory.[73]

In negotiating the Torres Strait past Cape York, Cook also put an end to the speculation that New Holland and New Guinea were part of the same land mass.[74]

At that point in the voyage Cook had lost not a single man to scurvy, a remarkable and practically unheard-of achievement in 18th-century long-distance seafaring. Adhering to Royal Navy policy introduced in 1747, Cook persuaded his men to eat foods such as citrus fruits and sauerkraut. At that time it was known that poor diet caused scurvy but not specifically that a vitamin C deficiency was the culprit.

Sailors of the day were notoriously against innovation, and at first the men would not eat the sauerkraut. Cook used a "method I never once knew to fail with seamen."[75] He ordered it served to himself and the officers, and left an option for crew who wanted some. Within a week of seeing their superiors set a value on it the demand was so great a ration had to be instituted.[75] In other cases, however, Cook resorted to traditional naval discipline. "Punished Henry Stephens, Seaman, and Thomas Dunster, Marine, with twelve lashes each for refusing to take their allowance of fresh beef."[76]

Cook's general approach was essentially empirical, encouraging as broad a diet as circumstances permitted, and collecting such greens as could be had when making landfall. All onboard ate the same food, with Cook specifically dividing equally anything that could be divided (and indeed recommending that practice to any commander – journal 4 August 1770).

Two cases of scurvy did occur on board, astronomer Charles Green and a Tahiti navigator Tupaia were treated, but Cook was able to proudly record that upon reaching Batavia he had "not one man upon the sick list" (journal 15 October 1770), unlike so many voyages that reached that port with much of the crew suffering illness.

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