Three voyages, one method
James Cook made three major voyages to the Pacific for the Royal Navy, in 1768 to 1771, 1772 to 1775 and 1776 to 1780. He did not complete the last one: he was killed in a clash with islanders at Kealakekua Bay in Hawaii in February 1779, and his ships returned under other officers. Together the voyages filled in large parts of the map of the Pacific, and they set standards for how an exploring ship was run.
The purposes changed from voyage to voyage. The first was officially an astronomical mission with a secret second task, the search for a great southern continent. The second tested whether such a continent existed at all. The third looked for a sea passage across the top of North America from the Pacific side.
The first voyage and the Endeavour
The ship was HM Bark Endeavour, a Whitby-built collier bought by the Navy and fitted out for the voyage. Colliers were broad, shallow-draught, sturdy vessels, which suited a ship that had to survey unfamiliar coasts, run into shoal water and be beached for repairs. The Whitby type had a flat floor and a roomy hold, useful for stores and specimens.
The Royal Society wanted observations of the transit of Venus in June 1769, to be made from Tahiti. The astronomer Charles Green and Cook himself took part. The naturalist Joseph Banks joined at his own expense with a party that included artists and a second naturalist, Daniel Solander.
After Tahiti, Cook sailed south and then west. He mapped the coast of New Zealand in detail, showing that it was made up of two main islands, and in April 1770 reached the east coast of Australia. Endeavour ran onto a reef off what is now Queensland in June 1770 and was repaired on shore at the mouth of a river before continuing. The ship returned to England in July 1771.
The second voyage
For the second expedition Cook took two ships, Resolution and Adventure, also converted Whitby colliers. Adventure was commanded by Tobias Furneaux. The aim was to sail far south and see whether a large habitable southern land existed.
In January 1773 Resolution crossed the Antarctic Circle, among the first ships known to have done so, and she crossed it again in later seasons. Cook never sighted the Antarctic continent, but his findings made clear that any southern land lay in extreme cold and was unlikely to be useful for settlement. Between the southern forays the ships spent time in Tahiti, Tonga, New Zealand and Easter Island, where Cook recorded the famous statues.
This voyage also tested the marine chronometer. Cook carried a copy of John Harrison’s watch made by Larcum Kendall, and its reliability in the long run helped establish accurate longitude at sea. Alongside it, officers still took lunar distances and used the marine sextant for latitude and the angles needed for survey.
The third voyage
Resolution sailed again in 1776, this time with Discovery under Charles Clerke. Cook crossed the Pacific, visited Tahiti and Tonga, and in 1778 became the first European known to reach the Hawaiian Islands. He then followed the coast of North America north, passing through the Bering Strait and meeting pack ice that blocked any further progress.
After Cook’s death, Clerke took command and attempted another northern search, but he died of illness in 1779. John Gore and James King completed the voyage, and the ships returned in 1780. The third voyage helped draw the northwest coast of North America and also opened the fur trade there, an effect Cook could not have intended.
Survey methods
Cook’s charts were made by combining several techniques. Astronomical observations fixed latitude, and chronometer and lunar readings fixed longitude. Along the coast, boats took soundings and measured bearings, and the ship’s master and mates sketched headlands and coastal views for sailors to recognise. Cook often took small boats inshore himself while the larger ship stood off.
His results were accurate enough that some of his charts of New Zealand and eastern Australia were still consulted well into the next century. This approach to maritime navigation history is part of why later survey ships, including those of the Beagle survey voyages, followed a similar pattern of careful coastal measurement.
Crew and health
A Cook ship typically carried around a hundred men, with marines, craftsmen, officers and scientists. On the second voyage Resolution had a crew of roughly 110, while Adventure was smaller.
Cook took a keen interest in diet. He insisted on fresh food whenever possible, and the voyages carried items such as sauerkraut and malt, with greens gathered ashore. Opinions at the time on what prevented scurvy at sea were mixed, and historians continue to debate which measures worked best, but Cook’s low scurvy losses were widely noted and contributed to his reputation. Shipboard provisions, discipline and cleanliness were all part of the regime.
Meetings with Pacific peoples
The ships also met a world with its own long navigational tradition. Pacific islanders had settled remote islands by sailing, and Polynesian voyaging was highly developed. On the first voyage a Tahitian priest and navigator named Tupaia joined Endeavour and helped with communication and local geography, though he died in Batavia before the return. His knowledge of islands across the region is often noted by historians.
Contacts with islanders varied from friendly trade to violent conflict, and modern writing treats the voyages as part of a history of encounter that was not always peaceful and had lasting consequences for Pacific communities.
Legacy
The Cook voyages made the Pacific a known ocean to European mapmakers and turned scientific observation into a normal part of naval exploration. Endeavour herself is thought to have ended her days as a transport and then a hulk in Rhode Island in the 1770s, and the exact location of her remains is still debated.