The knowledge of such circumstances might well have caused experts to entertain doubts.
I had this hawked-about Log in my possession, and took tracings of portions, satisfying a well-known historian, and valued public officer at the Record Office, that the Log before us had been tampered with.
Although one of the empty spaces had, as in other cases, been filled up, in a handwriting different from that in the text, as Port Jackson, which never appears in the Logs of Cook and his officers, it was easy to suppose it referred to a Secretary to the Admiralty, Sir George Jackson, afterwards recognised as Sir George Duckett, the great friend to Bishop Stortford.
Erasures and re-writing are not confined to Botany Bay. Rockingham Bay has evidently had two earlier changes. Halifax Bay has similarly suffered. If adopted, as some fancy, as the Log used by Dr. Hawkesworth, considerable freedom was used.
The signatures to all Cook's genuine logs and copies is Jams Cook, with a grand flourish; but Corner's has James Cook only.
CORNER AND BOTANY BAY.
Corner's Log, having been re-written, corrected in spelling, &c., and afterwards printed and circulated as a veritable Cook's Log, what it had to say about Botany Bay may reasonably excite the deepest interest and attention.
In various Logs, elsewhere described, the Bay has been called Sting Rea or Ray Harbour, and the reason stated in Cook's own words, and those of his chief officer, was on account of the numbers of the fish Stingray, Skeats, or Skate.
Corner's, May 6th, says, on the contrary: