The Three Voyages of Captain Cook Round the World, Vol. III. Being the First of the Second VoyageCook, James
History
The Three Voyages of Captain Cook Round the World, Vol. III. Being the First of the Second Voyage
Cook, James
Cook, James, 1728-1779 -- Travel; Explorers -- Great Britain -- Biography; Voyages around the world -- History -- 18th century
I know not how to account for the scurvy raging more in the one ship
than the other, unless it was owing to the crew of the Adventure being
more scorbutic when they arrived in New Zealand than we were, and to
their eating few or no vegetables while they lay in Queen Charlotte’s
Sound, partly for want of knowing the right sorts, and partly because it
was a new diet, which alone was sufficient for seamen to reject it. To
introduce any new article of food among seamen, let it be ever so much
for their good, requires both the example and authority of a commander;
without both of which, it will be dropped before the people are sensible
of the benefits resulting from it: were it necessary, I could name fifty
instances in support of this remark. Many of my people, officers as well
as seamen, at first disliked celery, scurvy-grass, &c., being boiled in
the peas and wheat; and some refused to eat it; but as this had no
effect on my conduct, this obstinate kind of prejudice, by little and
little, wore off; they began to like it as well as the others, and now,
I believe, there was hardly a man in the ship that did not attribute our
being so free from the scurvy, to the beer and vegetables we made use of
at New Zealand; after this, I seldom found it necessary to order any of
my people to gather vegetables, whenever we came where any were to be
got, and if scarce, happy was he who could lay hold on them first. I
appointed one of my seamen to be cook of the Adventure, and wrote to
Captain Furneaux, desiring him to make use of every method in his power
to stop the spreading of the disease amongst his people, and proposing
such as I thought might tend towards it; but I afterwards found all this
unnecessary, as every method had been used they could think of.
The wind continued in the N. W. quarter, and blew fresh, at times,
attended with rain; with which we stood to the N. E. On the 1st of
August, at noon, we were in the latitude of 25° 1ʹ, longitude 134° 6ʹ
west, and had a great hollow swell from N. W. The situation we were now
in, was nearly the same that Captain Cartaret assigns for Pitcairn’s
Island, discovered by him in 1767. We therefore looked well out for it;
but saw nothing. According to the longitude in which he has placed it,
we must have passed about fifteen leagues to the west of it. But as this
was uncertain, I did not think it prudent, considering the situation of
the Adventure’s people, to lose any time in looking for it. A sight of
it would, however, have been of use in verifying or correcting, not only
the longitude of this isle, but of the others that Captain Cartaret
discovered in this neighbourhood; his longitude not being confirmed, I
think, by astronomical observations, and therefore liable to errors,
which he could have no method to correct.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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