Men Who Have Made the Empire

by George Chetwynd Griffith

It may have been that James Cook’s latent ambition had never looked beyond the possibility of becoming master of one of the vessels of which he had been mate, and it is also possible that he might never in reality have been anything more, but it so happened that his ship, the Friendship, was lying in London river in May, 1756, and that at the same time the war with France, which had been brewing for a year, broke out.

As usual the Press Gang set instantly to work, and now came Cook’s chance. He was mate of a ship, albeit only a collier brig; still he was a thorough seaman, an excellent navigator, and, more than that, he seems to have known something of the theory as well as the practice of his science. These accomplishments, however, did not put him beyond the reach of the Press Gang.

Now, in those days there were two ranks of seamen before the mast in the King’s navy—the pressed man, who might be anything from a raw land-lubber to an escaped convict, and the volunteer, who was probably and usually a good sailor, if not something better, as Cook was, and he, guided either by inspiration or deliberate resolve, eluded the Press Gang by offering himself as a volunteer, and so in due course took his rating as able-seaman before the mast on board his Majesty’s frigate Eagle, of sixty guns, of which shortly afterwards the good genius of his life, Sir Hugh Palliser, was appointed captain.

During the next four years there was fighting, but we have no record of any share that Cook took in it. What we do know is that by the time he was thirty he had risen to the rank of master of the Mercury, a King’s ship which went with the fleet to the St. Lawrence at a very critical juncture in British colonial history.

So far it would appear that he had worked himself up by sheer ability and industry, but now his chance was to come. The river St. Lawrence at that time had never been surveyed, and it was absolutely necessary that soundings should be taken and the river correctly charted before the fleet could go in and with its guns cover Wolfe’s attack on Quebec. The all-important work was entrusted to the master of the Mercury, and although the river was swarming with the canoes of hostile Indians in the service of the French, and though he had to do his work at night, he did it so thoroughly that not only did the fleet go in and out again with perfect safety, but the work has needed but little re-doing from that day to this.

Thus did James Cook, not as sailor or fighting-man, but as good mariner and skilful workman play his first part as Empire-Maker, and in an unostentatious fashion contribute his share towards the capture of Quebec and the acquisition of one of the widest and fairest portions of Greater Britain.

He was at this time, as has been said, only thirty. As regards the outer aspect of the man he stood something over six feet, spare, hard, and active. His face was a good one and suited to the man, broad forehead, bright, brown, well-set eyes, yet rather small, a long, well-shaped nose with good nostrils, a firm mouth, and full, strong chin.

In short, his best portraits show you just the kind of man you would expect Captain Cook to be. For the rest he was a man of iron frame, tireless at work, resting only when it was a physical necessity, with few friends and fewer confidants, cool of judgment save during his rare and deplorable fits of passion, self-contained and self-reliant—just such a sea-king, in short, as we may imagine Heaven to have commissioned to carry the British flag three times round the world and to the uttermost parts of the known earth, and to plant it on lands which until then no white man’s eye had seen or foot had trodden.

In the same year Cook was promoted from the Mercury to the Northumberland, the Admiral’s flag-ship, and in her he came back to England, and at St. Margaret’s Church, Barking, married Elizabeth Batts, a young lady of great beauty and of social standing far above that of the grocer’s apprentice and collier’s knockabout boy, but not above that of the Master of a King’s ship. His married life lasted some seventeen years, and of these he spent a little over four in the enjoyment of the delights of home.

For the next four years or so he was regularly employed in surveying and exploring work off the Atlantic coast of America, and this of itself shows that he had already made his mark in his chosen profession. But much greater things were now to be in store for him. It will be remembered how Drake, when he first saw the smooth waters of the Pacific, prayed God that He would give him life and leave to sail an English ship on its waters. That prayer had been granted, and his and many another English ship had crossed the great Sea of the South.