Expeditions of James Cook - Essay Example

Lecturer: Topic: Introduction James Cook who emerged one of the greatest explorers of the 18th century was born in a small village in Yorkshire in the year 1728 to an agricultural Scotsman. By the time he was 17 he was working for a shopkeeper in Staithes near Whitby and it was while working here that he decided that a life at the sea was what he wanted. He went ahead and became apprenticed to a firm of Whitby coal shippers. He worked hard at mathematics and astronomy which are significant for navigators and soon he was offered command of a merchant ship but instead he chose to join the navy as a seaman instead, (Simmons, 11). Cook managed to rise through ranks from seaman, soon became a mate and within four years became a master but it was not until 1759, that he was given the capacity to command the Mercury and he managed to sail to Canada up to the St Lawrence River, where he assisted in the survey of the river channel. At this point, Cook was made responsible and managed to successfully pilot the fleet, and they took over took Quebec. For his expeditions, Cook choice of vessel was precise. He went for sturdy and practical vessels, preferably the one that could hold lots of provision as well as be able to be managed by a small crew if need be. Among his crew members was, Dr Green who was responsible for the scientific instruments that were used for observations used in the expedition. In his lifetime Cook went for three major voyages across the pacific, each voyage however a different purpose had and was directed to different parts of the world. According to Simmons, (41), James Cook was only twenty-nine years old when he set for the voyage with the chilling experience. A few years to come, he was to achieve recognition for his success in preventing the loss of the men under his command to scurvy, in. It marked as one of the most outstanding accomplishment he managed to attain during his voyages and exploration around the world. Cook was always cautious; he paid close attention to the health of the ship’s company on those voyages as he had not witnessed the terrible suffering aboard Pembroke. When Cook arrived in Halifax outbreaks of scurvy were not uncommon in the city itself maybe due to lack of property rights discouraged settlers from erecting fences and cultivating home gardens and this made fresh vegetables be scarce. On June 19th the British started bombarding the fortress with heavy artillery and two days later the French vessel célèbre was hit by gun fire and burst into flames. They put a strong resistance against the British onslaught which caused the siege to last until July 26 when two of their vessels were captured. When the siege was over and Louisburg surrendered, James Cook was to make an important meeting in his career. At the shore James met with Samuel Holland, whose works he admired and also took keen interest in as it was vital as a navigator and sailor. After conversing , Samuel agreed to teach him how to use the plane table as it was clear to him the device would make the drawing harbor and coastal plans easier with precision. His three years aboard Northumberland, Cook did a survey of the harbor himself and as a result he drafted two manuscript charts. These charts led to rising of a number of questions on the reason as to why he would survey the harbor in the first place. There was the Morris’s chart which he could have made improvement on. His first manuscript had two curious omissions, it didn’t show any buoyage which were certainly in place when he drew the chart. One recompose for James Cook which made his time in Halifax more tolerable was on January 19, 1761 when Colvill ordered the store keeper at the navy yard to pay him fifty Euros. This was equal to eight month’s pay and he earned it for his hard work and diligence. During this period he was responsible for the care and safety of the ship and this is when he immersed in the study of mathematics .astronomy and navigation since idleness was not in his nature. As opposed to journals Cook kept his records in his official masters log book which give a detailed picture of the daily winds and weather on hourly basis. Hallett, (9) asserts that from time to time the ship’s monotony was broken by minor drama for instance in January during strong gales and heavy squalls the merchant ship Elizabeth parted and was driven ashore on George Island. Northumberland’s were sent to assistance was provided the following day together with its men to help in the process of refloating the ship. In March, twenty-two men of Northumberland’s men returned from hospital and the crew were employed in getting the ship ready for sea The first Voyage was with the Endeavour whose mission given in secrecy was to search for the terra Australia incognata, also known as the unknown southern land. They set off from Plymouth and sailed around Cape town and into the pacific anchoring by the island of Tahiti where they encountered the islanders who were recipient of them and were kind also kind to them. They also showed great interest in the crew and all they did. Some difference emerged between the crew and islanders due to the different views on property. The islanders considered all property as communal contrary to the belief of the crew but Cook however was less harsh with regard to small thefts and even went ahead to encourage his crew to do so though not many listened to him. The interaction with the islanders led to emergence of tattooing among the sailors as depicted in the islanders’ custom of decorating themselves of pricking their skin as well as dyeing it. Cook had rediscovered New Zealand and but he still spent several months circling and surveying North Island and South Island with the aim of proving they were Islands as opposed to earlier views that they were continents. As the Endeavour continued on its voyage towards Tsamania and east coast of Australia, it was nearly wrecked on the coral reefs to the north but repairs were made and it managed to travel northwards towards Batavia the modern Jakarta. Some of the crew had died of fever, Cook however managed to scurvy which was more serious a threat to the sailors and he made sure that high standards of cleanliness were observed on board ship as he made them scrub their hammocks as well as wash and clean the ship using vinegar. This practice was common when there was any suspicion of a contagious disease. He also ensured that the crew ate as many fresh vegetables as possible despite the fact it was a rare commodity. The second voyage was in an attempt to look for the southern continent after he had stayed a whole year at home. He took two Whitby colliers this time –the Resolution and Adventure. Dr. Bank a botanist who always accompanied him wanted to join the expedition but could not. This was so as Cook was strict and could not allow him to bring in an extra deck in the ship. On this expedition Cook wanted to test a copy of a time keeper, or sea clock which had been previously designed by John Harrison. He intended to test its successful performance and if it worked out well it would meat that cook and all future navigators would able to fix longitude more accurately than before; the resolution and the Adventure lost contact but the latter found its way back home to England and became the first vessel to have successfully circumnavigated the world from east to west. Cook who was commanding the Resolution and his crew however crossed the Antarctic Circle, stopped at Easter Island and Tonga and exploited New Hebrides, New Caledonia and Norfolk Island; they successfully cut across the South pacific through the Rounded Cape Horn Crossed the South Atlantic and landed at the Cape of Good Hope. Later they sailed north reaching England months after the Adventure. The voyage made Cook come to a conclusion that there was no greater continent which existed in the temperate regions of the pacific and beyond. However, he concluded that Antarctic indeed was a continent on its own and as a result of his successful expeditions he was elected a member of the royal society, (Lockett, 24). On his third and last voyage Cook wanted to find out the North passage that connected the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean and his vessel of choice was the Resolution and another white collier named the Discovery. In his exploration he come to a wall of ice in the arctic which made him turn south and explored the island of Hawaii and to his amazement he found that the islanders treated him like a god. The stay at the island was not for long and soon Cook and his ship took off only to return a few days later since the Resolution needed repair to her mast which had broken. When Cook tried to take the King hostage after the theft of a ship’s boat the islanders were enraged and during the struggle Cook was stabbed and killed on the 14th of February 1779 paving way for Captain Clerke to command the ships who also died along the way leaving Lieutenant Gore in-charge to bring the ships home. The upheavals over Cook from Iceland and the problem of possession to the actual nature of Cooks death and his role in the pacific mark contemporary scholarship in such an aggressive way because they signal the expected fact that cook was unknowable and subservient ,rather than known and dominant. Cooks subjectivity appears more like ice islands that thrilled him should perhaps should not be surprising, however his peculiar entries about the absent southern continent resonate across the scripted landscape of British poetry. Cook’s notes, with regard to the Ice Mountains he encounters, that daylight is more frightening, much as Foucault observes that visibility is a trap which makes British poets reflect Conclusion James Cook in his explorations brought negatives and positives one among them being solving of mysteries of the areas around the Pacific Ocean. As well as opening the northwest American coast to trade and colonization. As a captain he handled the ships as well as its crew extraordinarily well, managed to avoid scurvy and conducted all his exploration in a remarkably peaceful fashion. Works Cited Hallett, Nicky. Lives of Spirit: English Carmelite Self-Writing of the Early Modern Period. Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2007. Internet resource. Lockett, Jerry. Captain James Cook in Atlantic Canada: The Adventurer & Map Makers Formative Years.Halifax: Formac Pub, 2010. Print. Simmons, Thomas. Imperial Affliction: Eighteenth-century British Poets and Their Twentieth- Century Lives. New York: P. Lang, 2010. Internet resource Simmons, Thomas. Imperial Affliction: Eighteenth-century British Poets and Their Twentieth- Century Lives. New York: Lang, Peter, Pub, 2011. Internet resource. Read More

 

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