[Illustration: The Crowning of Drake in California.]
To avert disaster for the sacrilege of the sacred touch of healing, Drake added to his prayers strong lotions and good ginger plasters. Sometime in the next five weeks, Drake travelled inland with the Indians, and because of patriotism to his native land and the resemblance of the white sand cliffs to that land, called the region "New Albion." "New Albion" would be an offset to "New Spain." Drake saw himself a second Cortés, and nailed to a tree a brass plate on which was graven the Queen's name, the year, the free surrender of the country to the {165} Queen, and Drake's own name; for, says the chaplain, quite ignorant of Spanish voyages, "the Spaniards never had any dealing, or so much as set a foot in this country, the utmost of their discoveries reaching only many degrees Southward of this place."
Drake's misunderstanding of the Indian ceremony would be comical if it were not that later historians have solemnly argued whether an act of possession by a pirate should hold good in international law.
On the 23d of July the English pirate bade farewell to the Indians. As he looked back from the sea, they were running along the hilltops burning more of the fires which he thought were sacrifices.
Following the chart taken from the Spanish ship, Drake steered for the Philippines, thence southward through the East Indies to the Indian Ocean, and past Good Hope, back to Plymouth, where he came to anchor on September 26, 1580. Bells were set ringing. Post went spurring to London with word that Drake, the corsair, who had turned the Spanish world upside down, had come home. For a week the little world of England gave itself up to feasting. Ballads rang with the fame of Drake. His name was on every tongue. One of his first acts was to visit his old parents. Then he took the Golden Hind round the Channel to be dry-docked in Deptford.
For the once, the tactful Queen was in a quandary. Complaints were pouring in from Spain. The {166} Spanish ambassador was furious, and presented bills of sequestration against Drake, but as the amount sequestered, pending investigation, was only fifty-six thousand pounds, one may suspect that Elizabeth let Drake protect in his own way what he had taken in his own way. For six months, while the world resounded with his fame, the court withheld approval. Jealous courtiers "deemed Drake the master thief of the unknown world," till Elizabeth cut the Gordian knot by one of her defiant strokes. On April 4 she went in state to dine on the Golden Hind, to the music of those stringed instruments that had harped away Drake's fear of death or devil as he ploughed an English keel round the world. After the dinner, she bade him fall to his knees and with a light touch of the sword gave him the title that was seal of the court's approval. The Golden Hind was kept as a public relic till it fell to pieces on the Thames, and the wood was made into a memorial chair for Oxford.
[Illustration: The Silver Map of the World. Both sides of a medal struck off at the time of Drake's return to England, commemorating his voyage around the world. The faint dotted line shows the course sailed by him in the Golden Hind.]
After all the perils Drake saw in the subsequent war—Cadiz and the Armada—it seems strange that he should return to the scene of his past exploits to die. He was with Hawkins in the campaign of 1595 against Spain in the New World. Things had not gone well. He had not approved of Hawkins's plans of attack, and the venture was being bungled. Sick of the equatorial fever, or of chagrin from failure, Drake died off Porto Bello in the fifty-first year of his age. His body {167} was placed in a leaden coffin, and solemnly committed to that sea where he had won his first glory.[11]
[1] This is but a brief epitome of the Spaniard's swelling words. Only the Heavens above were omitted from Spain's claim.
[2] The exact position of the English towards the port is hard to give, at the site of Vera Cruz has been changed three times.
[3] This halfway station was known as Venta Cruz. Seven of the traders lost their lives in Drake's attack.
[4] The Hakluyt Society Proceedings, 1854, give all details of this terrible crime. Fletcher, the chaplain, thought Doughty innocent; but Drake considered the chaplain "the falsest knave that liveth."
[5] Don Francisco de Zarate, commander of a Spanish ship scuttled by Drake off Guatalco, gives this description to the Spanish government of the Englishman's equipage: "The general of the Englishmen is the same who five years ago took Nombre de Dios, about thirty-five years old, short, with a ruddy beard, one of the greatest mariners there are on the sea, alike for his skill and power of command. His ship is a galleon of four hundred tons, a very fast sailer, and there are aboard her, one hundred men, all skilled hands and of warlike age, and all so well trained that they might be old soldiers—they keep their harquebusses clean. He treats them with affection, they him with respect. He carries with him nine or ten gentlemen cadets of high families in England. These are his council. He calls them together, tho' he takes counsel of no one. He has no favorite. These are admitted to his table, as well as a Portuguese pilot whom he brought from England. (?) He is served with much plate with gilt borders engraved with his arms and has all possible kinds of delicacies and scents, which … the Queen gave him. (?) None of the gentlemen sit or cover in his presence without first being ordered once or even several times. The galleon carries thirty pieces of heavy ordnance, fireworks and ammunition. They dine and sup to the music of violins. He carries carpenters, caulkers, careeners. The ship is sheathed. The men are paid and not regular pirates. No one takes plunder and the slightest fault is punished." The don goes on to say that what troubled him most was that Drake captured Spanish charts of the Pacific, which would guide other intruders on the Pacific.
[6] The eight castaways in the shallop succeeded in passing back through the straits. At Plata they were attacked by the Indians; four, wounded, succeeded in escaping. The others were captured. Reaching islands off the coast of Patagonia, two of the wounded died. The remaining two suffered shipwreck on a barren island, where the only food was fruit; the only drink, the juice of the fruits. Making a raft of floating planks ten feet long, the two committed themselves to God and steered for the mainland. Here Pilcher died two hours after they had landed from drinking too much water. The survivor, Peter Carder, lived among the savages of Brazil for eight years before he escaped and got passage to England, where he related his adventures to Queen Elizabeth. The Queen gave him twenty-two angels and sent him to Admiral Howard for employment. Purchas' Pilgrims, Vol. IV.
[7] The plunder of this port was 60,000 pesos of gold, jewels, and goods (pesos about 8 shillings, $2); 1770 jars of wine, together with the silver of the chapel altar, which was given to Fletcher.
[8] The captain was a Biscayan, one Juan de Anton.
[9] Nuno Silva is the name of this pilot. It is from his story that many of the details of this part of the voyage are obtained.
[10] See Professor George Davidson's pamphlet on Drake.
[11] To give even a brief account of Drake's life would fill a small encyclopaedia. The story of his first ruin off Vera Cruz, of his campaign of vengeance, of his piratical voyage to the Pacific, of his doings with the California Indians, of his fight in the Armada—any one of these would fill an ordinary volume. Only that part of his life bearing on American exploration has been given here, and that sacrificed in detail to keep from cumbering the sweep of his adventure. No attempt has been made to pass judgment on Drake's character. Like Baranof of a later day, he was a curious mixture of the supremely selfish egoist, and of the religious enthusiast, alternately using his egoism as a support for his religion, and his religion as a support for his egoism; and each reader will probably pass judgment on Drake according as the reader's ideal of manhood is the altruist or the egoist, the Christ-type or "the great blond beast" of modern philosophic thought, the man supremely indifferent to all but self, glorying in triumph though it be knee-deep in blood. Nor must we moderns pass too hypocritical judgment on the hero of the Drake type. Drake had invested capital in his venture. He had the blessing of Church and State on what he was about to do, and what he did was to take what he had strength and dexterity to take independent of the Ten Commandments, which is not so far different from many commercial methods of to-day. We may appear as unmoral in our methods to future judges as Drake appears to us. Just as no attempt has been made to analyze Drake's character—to balance his lack of morals with his courage—so minor details, that would have led off from the main current of events, have been omitted. For instance, Drake spilled very little Spanish blood and was Christian in his treatment of the Indians; but are these credit marks offset by his brutality toward the black servants whom the pirates picked up among the Spaniards, of whom one poor colored girl was marooned on a Pacific island to live or die or rot? To be sure, the Portuguese pilot taken from a scuttled caravel off the west coast of Africa on the way out, and forced to pilot Drake to the Pacific, was well treated on the voyage. At least, there is no mention to the contrary; but when Drake had finished with the fellow, though the English might have known very well what terrible vengeance Spain would take, the pilot was dumped off on the coast of New Spain, where, one old record states, he was tortured, almost torn to pieces, for having guided Drake.
The great, indeed, primary and only authorities for Drake's adventures are, of course, Hakluyt, Vol. III; for the fate of the lost crews, Purchas' Pilgrims, Vol. III and Vol. I, Book II, and Vol. IV; and the Hakluyt Society Proceedings, 1854, which are really a reprint of The World Encompassed, by Francis Fletcher, the chaplain, in 1628, with the addition of documents contemporary with Fletcher's by unknown writers. The title-page of The World Encompassed reads almost like an old ballad—"for the stirring up of heroick spirits to benefit their countries, and eternize their names by like {168} attempts." Kohl and Davidson's Reports of the Coast and Geodetic Survey, 1884 and 1886, are also invaluable as establishing Drake's land-fall in California. Miller Christy's Silver Map of the World gives a splendid facsimile of the medal issued to commemorate Drake's return, of which the original is in the British Museum. Among biographers, Corbett's Drake, and Barrow's Life of Sir Francis Drake, give full details of his early and personal life, including, of course, his great services in the Armada.
Furious controversy has waged over Drake on two points: Did he murder Doughty? Did he go as far north on the west coast of America as 48 degrees? Hakluyt's account says 43 degrees; The World Encompassed, by Fletcher, the chaplain, says 48 degrees, though all accounts agree it was at 38 degrees he made harbor. I have not dealt with either dispute, stating the bare facts, leaving each reader to draw his own conclusions, though it seems to me a little foolish to contend that the claim of the 48th degree was an afterthought interpolated by the writer to stretch British possessions over a broader swath; for even two hundred years after the issue of the Silver Map of the World, when Cook was on this coast, so little was known of the west shores of America by Englishmen that men were still looking out for a Gamaland, or imaginary continent in the middle of the Pacific.
The words of the narrative bearing on America are: "We came to 42 degree of North latitude, where on the night following (June 3) we found such alterations of heat, into extreme and nipping cold, that our men in general did grievously complain thereof, some of them feeling their health much impaired thereby; neither was it that this chanced in the night alone, but the day following carried with it not only the markes, but the stings and force of the night …; besides that the pinching and biting air was nothing altered, the very ropes of our ship were stiffe, and the rain which fell was an unnatural congealed and frozen substance so that we seemed to be rather in the frozen Zone than any where so neere unto the sun or these hotter climates … it came to that extremity in sayling but two degrees farther to the northward in our course, that though seamen lack not good stomachs … it was a question whether hands should feed their mouths, or rather keepe from the pinching cold that did benumme them … our meate as soone as it was remooved from the fire, would presently in a manner be frozen up, and our ropes and tackling in a few days were growne to that stiffnesse … yet would not our general be discouraged but as well by comfortable speeches, of the divine providence, and of God's loving care over his children, out of the Scriptures … the land in that part of America, beares farther out into the West than we before imagined, we were neerer on it than we were aware; yet the neerer still we came unto it, the more extremity of cold did sease upon us. The fifth day of June, we were forced by contrary windes to runne in with the shoare, which we then first descried, and to cast anchor in a bad bay, the best roade we could for the present meete with, where we were not without some danger by reason of the many extreme gusts and flawes that beate upon us, which if they ceased, and were still at any time … there followed most vile, thicke and stinking fogges against which the sea prevailed nothing {169} … to go further North, the extremity of the cold would not permit us and the winds directly bent against us, having once gotten us under sayle againe, commanded us to the Southward whether we would or no.
"From the height of 48 degrees in which now we were to 38, we found the land by coasting alongst it, to be but low and plaine—every hill whereof we saw many but none were high, though it were in June, and the sunne in his nearest approach … being covered with snow.… In 38 deg. 30 min. we fell with a convenient and fit harborough and June 17 came to anchor therein, where we continued till the 23rd day of July following … neither could we at any time in whole fourteen days together find the aire so cleare as to be able to take the height of sunne or starre … after our departure from the heate we always found our bodies, not as sponges, but strong and hardened, more able to beare out cold, though we came out of the excesse of heate, then chamber champions could hae beene, who lye in their feather beds till they go to sea.
"… Trees without leaves, and the ground without greennes in these months of June and July … as for the cause of this extremity, they seem … chiefest we conceive to be the large spreading of the Asian and American continent, which (somewhat Northward of these parts) if they be not fully joyned, yet seeme they to come very neere one to the other. From whose high and snow-covered mountains, the North and Northwest winds (the constant visitants of those coasts) send abroad their frozen nimphes, to the infecting of the whole aire with this insufferable sharpnesse.… Hence comes the generall squalidnesse and barrennesse of the countrie, hence comes it that in the midst of their summer, the snow hardly departeth … from their hils at all, hence come those thicke mists and most stinking fogges, which increase so much the more, by how much higher the pole is raised … also from these reasons we coniecture that either there is no passage at all through these Northern coasts which is most likely or if there be, that yet it is unnavigable.… Add here unto, that though we searched the coast diligently, even unto the 48 degree, yet found we not the land to trend so much as one point in any place towards the East, but rather running on continually Northwest, as if it went directly to meet with Asia; and even in that height, when we had a franke winde to have carried us through, had there been a passage, yet we had a smoothe and calme sea, with ordinary flowing and renewing, which could not have beene had there been a frete; of which we rather infallibly concluded, then coniectured, that there was none.
"The next day, after coming to anchor in the aforesaid harbour, the people of the countrey showed themselves, sending off a man with great expedition to us in a canow, who being yet but a little from the shoare, and a great way from our ship, spake to us continually as he came rowing in. And at last at a reasonable distance, staying himself, he began more solemnly a long and tedious oration, after his manner, using in the deliverie thereof, many gestures and signes, mouing his hands, turning his head and body many wayes, and after his oration ended, with great show and reverence and submission returned backe to shoare again. He shortly came againe the second time in like manner, {170} and so the third time, when he brought with him (as a present from the rest) a bunch of feathers, much like the feathers of a blacke crowe, very neatly and artificially gathered upon a string, and drawne together into a round bundle, being verie cleane and finely cut, and bearing in length an equall proportion one with another a special cognizance (as we afterwards observed) which they … weare on their heads. With this also he brought a little basket made of rushes, and filled with an herbe which they called Tobah. Both which being tyed to a short rodde, he cast into our boate. Our generall intended to have recompenced him immediately with many good things he would have bestowed on him; but entering into the boate to deliver the same, he could not be drawne to receive them by any meanes, save one hat, which being cast into the water out of the ship, he took up (refusing utterly to meddle with any other thing) though it were upon a board put off unto him, and so presently made his returne. After which time our boate could row no way, but wondering at us as at gods, they would follow the same with admiration.…
"The third day following, viz., the 21, our ship having received a leake at sea, was brought to anchor neerer the shoare, that her goods being landed she might be repaired; but for that we were to prevent any danger that might chance against our safety, our Generall first of all landed his men, with all necessary provision, to build tents and make a fort for the defence of ourselves and our goods … which when the people of the country perceived us doing, as men set on fire to war in defence of their countrie, in great hast and companee, with such weapons as they had, they came down unto us, and yet with no hostile meaning or intent to hurt us: standing when they drew neerer, as men ravished in their mindes, with the sight of such things, as they never had scene or heard of before that time: their errand being rather with submission and feare to worship us as Gods, than to have warre with us as mortall men: which thing, as it did partly show itselfe at that instant, so did it more and more manifest itself afterwards, during the whole time of our abode amongst them. At this time, being veilled by signs to lay from them their bowes and arrowes, they did as they were directed and so did all the rest, as they came more and more by companies unto him, growing in a little while to a great number, both of men and women.
"… Our Generall, with all his company, used all meanes possible gently to intreate them, bestowing upon each of them liberally good and necessary things to cover their nakedness, withall signifying unto them we were no Gods but men, and had need of such things to cover our owne shame, teaching them to use them to the same ends, for which cause also we did eate and drinke in their presence, … they bestowed upon our Generall and diverse of our company, diverse things as feathers, cawles of networke, the quivers of their arrowes, made of faune skins, and the very skins of beasts that their women wore upon their bodies … they departed with joy to their houses, which houses are digged round within the earth, and have from the uppermost brimmes of the circle, clefts of wood set up, and joyned close together at the top, like our spires on the steeple of a church, which being covered with earth, … are very warme; the doore {171} in the most of them performs the office also of a chimney to let out the smoake; it's made in bignesse and fashion like to an ordinary scuttle in a ship, and standing slope-wise; the beds are the hard ground, onely with rushes strewed upon it and lying round about the house, have their fire in the middest, … with all expedition we set up our tents, and intrenched ourselves with walls of stone.… Against the end of two daies, there was gathered together a great assembly of men, women and children, bringing with them as they had before done, feathers and bagges of Tobah for present, or rather for sacrifices upon this persuasion that we were Gods.
"When they came to the top of the hill at the bottom whereof we had built our fort, they made a stand;" … "this bloodie sacrifice (against our wils) being thus performed, our generall, with his companie, in the presence of those strangers, fell to prayers; and by signes in lifting up our eyes and hands to heaven, signified unto them that that God whom we did serve and whom they ought to worship, was above: beseeching God, if it were his good pleasure, to open by some meanes their blinded eyes, that they might in due time be called to the knowledge of Him, the true and everliving God, and of Jesus Christ, whom he hath sent, the salvation of the Gentiles. In the time of which prayers, singing of Psalmes, and reading of certaine Chapters in the Bible, they sate very attentively, and observing the end of every pause, with one voice still cried 'oh' greatly rejoicing in our exercises."
"Our generall caused to be set up a monument of our being there, as also of her majesties and successors right and title to that kingdom, namely a plate of brasse, fast nailed to a great and firme poste; whereon is engraven her graces' name, and the day and year of our arrival there, and of the free giving up of the province and kingdom, both by the king and people, unto her majesties' hands: together with her highnesse picture and arms, in a piece of sixpence current English monie, shewing itselfe by a hole made of purpose through the plate; underneath was likewise engraven the name of our Generall.…
"The Spaniards never had any dealings, or so much as set a foote in this country, the utmost of their discoveries reaching onely to many degrees Southward of this place."
The Spanish version of Drake's burial is, that the body was weighted with shot at the heels and heaved over into the sea, without coffin or ceremony.
CHAPTER VII
1728-1779
CAPTAIN COOK IN AMERICA
The English Navigator sent Two Hundred Years later to find the New Albion of Drake's Discoveries—He misses both the Straits of Fuca and the Mouth of the Columbia, but anchors at Nootka, the Rendezvous of Future Traders—No Northeast Passage found through Alaska—The True Cause of Cook's Murder in Hawaii told by Ledyard—Russia becomes Jealous of his Explorations
It seems impossible that after all his arduous labors and death, to prove his convictions, Bering's conclusions should have been rejected by the world of learning. Surely his coasting westward, southwestward, abreast the long arm of Alaska's peninsula for a thousand miles, should have proved that no open sea—no Northeast Passage—was here, between Asia and America. But no! the world of learning said fog had obscured Bering's observations. What he took for the mainland of America had been only a chain of islands. Northward of those islands was open sea between Asia and Europe, which might afford direct passage between East and West without circumnavigating the globe. In fact, said Dr. Campbell, {173} one of the most learned English writers of the day, "Nothing is plainer than that his (Bering's) discovery does not warrant any such supposition as that he touched the great continent making part of North America."
The moonshine of the learned men in France and Russia was even wilder. They had definitely proved, even if there were no Gamaland—as Bering's voyage had shown—then there must be a southern continent somewhere, to keep the balance between the northern and southern hemispheres; else the world would turn upside down. And there must also be an ocean between northern Europe and northern Asia, else the world would be top-heavy and turn upside down. It was an age when the world accepted creeds for piety, and learned moonshine instead of scientific data; when, in a word, men refused to bow to fact!
All sorts of wild rumors were current. There was a vast continent in the south. There was a vast sea in the north. Somewhere was the New Albion, which Francis Drake had found north of New Spain. Just north of the Spanish possessions in America was a wide inlet leading straight through from the Pacific to the Atlantic, which an old Greek pilot—named Juan de Fuca—said he had traversed for the viceroy of New Spain.
Even stolid-going England was infected by the rage for imaginary oceans and continents. The Hudson's Bay Fur Company was threatened with a withdrawal {174} of its charter because it had failed to find a Northwest Passage from Atlantic to Pacific. Only four years after the death of Bering, an act of Parliament offered a reward of twenty thousand pounds to the officers and crew of any ships discovering a passage between Atlantic and Pacific north of 52 degrees. There were even ingenious fellows with the letters of the Royal Society behind their names, who affected to think that the great Athabasca Lake, which Hearne had found, when he tramped inland from the Arctic and Coppermine River, was a strait leading to the Pacific. Athabasca Lake might be the imaginary strait of the Greek pilot, Juan de Fuca. To be sure, two Hudson's Bay Company ships' crews—those under Knight and Barlow—had been totally lost fifty years before Hearne's tramp inland in 1771, trying to find that same mythical strait of Juan de Fuca westward of Hudson Bay.
But so furious did public opinion wax over a Northwest Passage at the very time poor Bering was dying in the North Pacific, that Captain Middleton was sent to Hudson Bay in 1741-1742 to find a way to the Pacific. And when Middleton failed to find water where the Creator had placed land, Dobbs, the patron of the expedition and champion of a Northwest Passage at once roused the public to send out two more ships—the Dobbs and California. Failure again! Theories never yet made Fact, never so much as added a hair's weight to Fact! Ellis, who was on board, affected to think that Chesterfield Inlet—a great arm of the sea, {175} westward of Hudson Bay—might lead to the Pacific. This supposition was promptly exploded by the Hudson's Bay Fur Company sending Captain Christopher and Moses Norton, the local governor of the company, up Chesterfield inlet for two hundred miles, where they found, not the Pacific, but a narrow river. Then the hue and cry of the learned theorists was—the Northwest Passage lay northward of Hudson Bay. Hearne was sent tramping inland to find—not sea, but land; and when he returned with the report of the great Athabasca Lake of Mackenzie River region, the lake was actually seized on as proof that there was a waterway to the Pacific. Then the brilliant plan was conceived to send ships by both the Atlantic and the Pacific to find this mythical passage from Europe to Asia. Pickersgill, who had been on the Pacific, was to go out north of Hudson Bay and work westward. To work eastward from the Pacific to the Atlantic was chosen a man who had already proved there was no great continental mass on the south, and that the world did not turn upside down, and who was destined to prove there was no great open ocean on the north, and still the world did not turn upside down. He was a man whose whole life had been based and built upon Fact, not Theory. He was a man who accepted Truth as God gave it to him, not as he had theorized it ought to be; a man who had climbed from a mud cottage to the position of the greatest navigator in the world—had climbed on top of facts mastered, not {176} of schoolgirl moonshine, or study-closet theories. That man was Captain James Cook.
Cook's life presents all the contrasts of true greatness world over. Like Peter the Great, of Russia, whose word had set in motion the exploration of the northwest coast of America, Cook's character consisted of elements that invariably lead to glory or ruin; often, both. The word "impossible" was not in his vocabulary. He simply did not recognize any limitations to what a man might do, could do, would do, if he tried; and that means, that under stress of risk or temptation, or opposition, a man's caution goes to the winds. With Cook, it was risk that caused ruin. With the Czar of Russia, it was temptation.
Born at Marton, a small parish of a north riding in the county of York, October 27, 1728, James Cook was the son of a day-laborer in an age when manual toil was paid at the rate of a few pennies a day. There were nine of a family. The home was a thatch-roofed mud cottage. Two years after Cook's birth, the father was appointed bailiff, which slightly improved family finances; but James was thirteen years of age before it was possible to send him to school. There, the progress of his learning was a gallop. He had a wizard-genius for figures. In three short years he had mastered all the Ayton school could teach him. At sixteen, his schooling was over. The father's highest ambition seems to have been for the son to become a successful shopkeeper in one of the small towns. The future {177} navigator was apprenticed to the village shop; but Cook's ambitions were not to be caged behind a counter.
Eastward rolled the North Sea. Down at Hull were heard seamen's yarns to make the blood of a boy jump. It was 1746. The world was ringing with tales of Bering on the Pacific, of a southern continent, which didn't exist, of the Hudson's Bay Fur Company's illimitable domain in the north, of La Vérendrye's wonderful discoveries of an almost boundless region westward of New France toward the uncharted Western Sea. In a year and a half, Cook had his fill of shopkeeping. Whether he ran away, or had served his master so well that the latter willingly remitted the three years' articles of apprenticeship, Cook now followed his destiny to the sea. According to the world's standards, the change seemed progress backward. He was articled to a ship-owner of Whitby as a common seaman on a coaler sailing between Newcastle and London. One can see such coalers any day—black as smut, grimed from prow to stern, with workmen almost black shovelling coal or hoisting tackling—pushing in and out among the statelier craft of any seaport. It is this stage in a great man's career which is the test. Is the man sure enough of himself to leave everything behind, and jump over the precipice into the unknown? If ever he wishes to return to what he has left, he will have just the height of this jump to climb back to the old place. The old place is a certainty. The unknown may engulf in failure. He {178} must chance that, and all for the sake of a faith in himself, which has not yet been justified; for the sake of a vague star leading into the misty unknown. He knows that he could have been successful in the old place. He does not know that he may not be a failure in the new place. Art, literature, science, commerce—in all—it is the men and women who have dared to risk being failures that have proved the mainspring of progress. Cook was sure enough of himself to exchange shopkeeper's linen for the coal-heaver's blue jeans, to risk following the star of his destiny to the sea.
Presently, the commonplace, grimy duties which he must fulfil are taking him to Dublin, to Liverpool, to Norway; and by the time he is twenty-two, he knows the Baltic trade well, and has heard all the pros and cons of the furious cackle which the schools have raised over that expedition of Bering's to the west coast of America. By the time he is twenty-four he is a first mate on the coal boats. Comes another vital change! When he left the shop, he felt all that he had to do to follow his destiny was to go to sea. Now the star has led him up to a blank wall. The only promotion he can obtain on these merchantmen is to a captainship; and the captaincy on a small merchantman will mean pretty much a monotonous flying back and forward like a shuttle between the ports of Europe and England.
Cook took a resolution that would have cost any {179} man but one with absolute singleness of purpose a poignant effort. At the age of twenty-seven, he decided to enter the Royal Navy. Now, in a democratic age, we don't talk about such things; but there are unwritten laws and invisible lines just the same. Standing on the captain's deck of an American warship not long ago, watching the deck hands below putting things shipshape, I asked an officer—"Is there any chance for those men to rise?"
"Yes, some," he answered tentatively, "but then, there is a difference between the men who have been trained for a position, and those who have worked up the line to it." If that difference exists in a democratic country and age, what was it for Cook in a country and at a time when lines of caste were hard and fast drawn? But he entered the navy on the Eagle under Sir Hugh Palliser, who, almost at once, transferred him from the forecastle to the quarterdeck. What was the explanation of such quick recognition? Therein lies the difference between the man who tries and succeeds, and the man who tries and fails. Cook had qualified himself for promotion. He was so fitted for the higher position, that the higher position could not do without him. Whether rocking on the Baltic, or waiting for the stokers to heave out coal at Liverpool, every moment not occupied by seaman's duties, Cook had filled by improving himself, by increasing his usefulness, by sharpening his brain, so that his brain could better direct his hands, by {180} studying mathematics and astronomy and geography and science and navigation. As some one has said—there are lots of people with hands and no brain; and there are lots of people with brains and no hands; but the kind who will command the highest reward for their services to the world are those who have the finest combination of brains and hands.
