Captain Cook's Journal During His First Voyage Round the World: Made in H. M. Bark "Endeavour", 1768-71 — John Shaqi
Captain Cook's Journal During His First Voyage Round the World: Made in H. M. Bark "Endeavour", 1768-71Cook, James
History
Captain Cook's Journal During His First Voyage Round the World: Made in H. M. Bark "Endeavour", 1768-71
Cook, James
Oceania -- Discovery and exploration -- Early works to 1800; Voyages around the world -- Early works to 1800
unavoidably occurred, and were looked for by us with a longing that
persons who have experienced the fatigues of service will readily excuse,
were submitted to by him with a certain impatience whenever they could
not be employed in making further provision for the more effectual
prosecution of his designs."
This is a pretty complete picture, and of a great man; a man who had
before him continually his duty, and who had in an eminent degree the
capacity to carry it out.
Though, under his determination to do this, he drove his people hard;
though he tried them with his irascibility; their conviction of his
greatness, their confidence in his leadership and in his justice, led
them to love him. He had no sympathy with the ordinary foibles and
weaknesses of his men. The charms of Tahiti, the paradise of the sailor,
were no charms for him; he hardly notices the attractive ladies of that
island; the attractions of the place to him were the abundance of
provisions, as a means of fitting his expedition for further exploration
and hardship. The strongest proof of his capacity as a commander is the
devotion of his officers. Those who know the Navy know how difficult it
is for any man who rises from the ranks to be successful in command. But
Cook was a gentleman born; he had the intuition of great minds for
fitting themselves to every position to which they may rise, and there is
never a whisper of disinclination to submit to the rule of the once
collier boy, the son of a labourer.
His intelligence is remarkably shown in his greatest triumph, the
suppression of scurvy. That it should be left to a man of little
education to discern the combination of means by which this enemy of long
voyages could be conquered, is the most remarkable thing about this
remarkable man. He himself notices the disinclination of the sailor to
any new article of food, especially when not particularly palatable; but
he soon found the means to induce them to understand that their lives
greatly depended upon these rather nasty messes. Sour krout; the
unsavoury portable soups of that day; the strange greens that Cook
insisted on hunting up at every land he visited, and boiling with their
ordinary food; the constant washing between decks; the drying below with
stoves, even in the hottest weather; the personal baths; the change of
wet clothing; the airing of bedding, were all foreign and repugnant to
the notions of the seamen of the day, and it required constant
supervision and wise management to enforce the adoption of these odd
foods and customs.
It is evident that it is to Cook's personal action the success was due.
Wallis and Byron had anti-scorbutics, but they suffered from scurvy;
Furneaux, sailing with Cook in the second voyage, under precisely similar
circumstances, suffered from scurvy. It was only in Cook's ships, and in
the Discovery, commanded and officered by men who had sailed with Cook,
and seen his methods, that exemption occurred.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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