BOOK REVIEW: It is one of maritime history’s most abiding mysteries: after twice circumnavigating the globe and brilliantly charting some of its remotest territories, and after being accorded royal recognition and a pensioned retirement, why did explorer Captain James Cook agree to do it all again, and more, under even harsher conditions?
These are among the questions seeking answers in The Wide Wide Sea by New Mexico-based writer Hampton Sides, a New York Times-bestselling author.
In an introductory overview, Sides presents a more balanced assessment of his unique achievements and frailties than the picture of Cook some put forward during the 1769-2019 sesquicentennial commemorations. His “… interest was more inquisitive than acquisitive, more empirical than imperial”, Sides writes.
So, why did James Cook agree to sail once again?
Sides gives full consideration to this question and concludes that Cook, the English patriot, was unable to resist the voyage’s formidable challenges. And he had already found “lubberly” life ashore dull. Also, the financial incentive was tempting. The government had promised a reward of £20,000 – a staggering sum in 1776 – for the commander and crew who discovered a passage from the North Pacific Ocean through to the North Atlantic.
The ostensible motive for a third voyage was to return Mai to his homeland of Raiatea in French Polynesia. He had been brought to England aboard HMS Adventure in 1774 and, as the first Polynesian to visit Britain, had become a celebrity. Mai yearned to return and avenge the invasion of his home island by warriors from Bora Bora.
The most compelling motive for the third voyage, however, was for Cook to seek and chart that passage between the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans. This would markedly shorten the voyage between the two and bring immeasurable new trade wealth to Britain. Cook’s “secret instructions” told him to discover such a passage.
When the expedition left Plymouth in 1776, Cook was nearly 48, already elderly for a long-haul voyager. On the second voyage he had been unwell. Would he be able to withstand the rigours of the frigid Arctic region?
Cook set forth on his third world voyage in HMS Resolution in July 1776. Things did not begin well. Charles Clerke, commander of the consort vessel, HMS Discovery, was incarcerated in debtors’ prison in London and the two ships were not reunited until November, in Cape Town. There were other problems. Resolution was found to be poorly caulked and leaked badly during the voyage south. Cook was livid at this negligence.
After Cape Town, the two ships plunged deep into the Southern Ocean, calling at barren Kerguelen Island, then Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania). The account of the English crews’ time at Adventure Bay, particularly their meetings with the Palawa, the indigenous people of the area, is absorbing.
The vessels next provisioned at Ship Cove, in Queen Charlotte Sound. There, Māori and Cook’s crew were astonished that the commander declined to carry out utu for the 1773 massacre of 11 English sailors by a party of Māori, led by a chief, Kahura. This extraordinary episode has been well covered by Anne Salmond in her 2004 book Trial of the Cannibal Dog. Sides stresses that Cook’s mana suffered as a consequence of his inaction.
The islands of Tonga, then Tahiti, were called at before Mai was taken to Huahine and set up with a house built by the ships’ carpenters. But by now Cook’s mental and physical health were showing more signs of deterioration. On Tongatapu, then Moorea, he inflicted harshly disproportionate punishments on the locals, acts that would have been unthinkable during his two earlier voyages.
At last, in January 1778, Cook made his greatest “discovery”, the islands of the volcanic Hawai’ian archipelago, although, as Sides points out, Polynesian people had been living there for many generations. And from Hawai’i to the Northern Pacific, where the expedition’s achievements were considerable. The fretworked northwest coast of America was charted, then Cook became the first person to traverse both the Antarctic Circle (in 1773) and now the Arctic Circle (1778), an unparalleled feat.
Most readers will also be aware that the renowned commander was heading inexorably towards a violent death, on the rocky shore of Hawai’i’s Kealakekua Bay, on February 14, 1779. At first considered by the Hawai’ians to be Lono, a revered visiting god, Cook was subsequently revealed to be only too human.
Sides writes in an authoritative yet lively style. As well as drawing on Cook’s faithful, impassive journals, he enlists the aid of several of the most literate of Cook’s fellow voyagers and adds their comments at crucial junctures. These provide enlivening additions to an already enthralling narrative. Among the insightful commentators are Surgeon’s Mate David Samwell, Marine Corporal John Ledyard and the singularly articulate Lieutenant James King.
Although the facts of Cook’s 1776-1780 voyage are well known and have been already widely documented, they are so dramatic and Earth-changing in their consequences that they are well worth a retelling.
Graeme Lay is the author of several works of fiction and non-fiction based on the life of Captain James Cook.
The Wide Wide Sea: The Final, Fatal Adventure of Captain Cook by Hampton Side (Michael Joseph, $40) is out now.
