Byron.
Wallis and Carteret.
The voyage of Commodore Byron, who sailed from England in 1764, was altogether one of discovery, his special instructions being to ascertain whether there was reason to believe “that lands and islands of great extent, hitherto unvisited by any European power, were to be found in the Atlantic Ocean between the Cape of Good Hope and the Magellanic Strait, within the latitudes convenient for navigation, and in the climates adapted for the produce of commodities useful to commerce.” He was further ordered to seek for “His Majesty’s islands called Pepys’s Island and Falkland’s Island,” about the position, or even the existence, of which there had previously been considerable doubt. Byron having already had some experience of the southern latitudes under Anson, gives an account of his voyage and adventures homewards after the wreck of the Wager on the coast of Chili, a narrative which is one of the most romantic stories in naval history. He shows that there was no ground for believing in the existence of Pepys’s Island; but, during a passage through the Falkland Islands and a considerable part of the Straits of Magellan, he furnishes much interesting information regarding the native Patagonians and the intricate navigation of these then scarcely known straits. Thence he made his way across the Pacific, passing and naming various small groups of islands, till he at length anchored in the harbour of Tinian, where Anson had been twenty years before, reaching England early in May 1766 after an absence of twenty months. The careful survey of the Straits of Magellan, which (contrary to the later judgment of Captain Cook) he prefers to rounding the Horn Islands, may be deemed the chief geographical result of Byron’s expedition, that being the course almost universally adopted at the present day, especially by steamers. On the coasts of Patagonia, in the Straits, and in the Falkland Islands, Byron met with enormous quantities of penguins, quaintly described by Sir John Narborough (an earlier navigator in these parts) as “like little children standing up with white aprons on.” Commodore Anson was followed in the same year by Captains Wallis and Carteret, the former of whom was the first to give any account of Otaheite (sometimes called King George’s Island), and the latter to discover Pitcairn’s Island, the home, till recently, of the descendants of several of the mutineers of the Bounty.
Captain Cook.
His first voyage in the Endeavour.
Captain James Cook, the greatest of our more modern discoverers, had in his early years undergone much hard service in the coal trade on the east coast of England. After entering the English naval service in 1755, he had greatly distinguished himself by the soundings he made of the St. Lawrence, so as to allow the English fleet to co-operate with General Wolfe against Quebec; and subsequently by his surveys of the coast of Newfoundland, during the government of Sir Hugh Palliser. In 1768 he was appointed to the command of the Endeavour, the main object in view being an observation of the transit of Venus over the sun’s disk, at the best place that could be selected for this purpose south of the line; and, on the advice of Captain Wallis, who had just returned from his voyage to the Pacific, the island of Otaheite was chosen, and Cook started for that place August 26th, 1768, accompanied by Mr. (afterwards Sir Joseph) Banks, and Dr. Solander, then the keeper of the Natural History in the British Museum. Having rounded the Horn Islands in thirty-four days, Cook held resolutely on his course, and in due time, reaching Otaheite, had the satisfaction of making with the utmost success the astronomical observations which were the main object of his expedition. During the three months’ stay of the expedition at Otaheite he surveyed the group of islands of which it is the most important, and gave to them the collective title of the “Society Islands.”
Proceeding onwards to the west, he at length reached the north end of that Terra Australis Incognita, now known as New Zealand, which had been first touched at by Tasman in 1642. Here Cook met with a class of natives in every way superior to those whom he had seen anywhere else; with some knowledge of cultivation, and habits of cleanliness uncommon even among far more civilised people. Their language, too, as was shown by their freely conversing with a native Otaheitan who accompanied him, proved the common ancestry of the natives of the Pacific islands. Tasman did not land on New Zealand, but coasted the eastern side from 34° to 43° S. Lat. Cook showed further that there were really two principal islands, separated by a narrow channel, since justly named after him Cook’s Straits. Having circumnavigated New Zealand, he went on to Australia, striking its coasts very nearly at the same place where Tasman had been before him. But during a run of two thousand miles to the north, the natives were noticed to be very much below even those of the Society Islands, nor was their language intelligible. After a voyage of great danger between the coral-reefs to the north-east of the island, Cook reached the straits separating New Holland from New Guinea; and, formally taking possession of the enormous tract of land he had discovered, gave to it the name it still bears, of New South Wales. Thence he returned to England, by way of Batavia and the Cape of Good Hope, where he arrived, after an absence of two years and eleven months. Throughout the whole narrative of this celebrated expedition the reader will be struck with the singular good sense and remarkable humanity characteristic of this great voyager, and which were equally conspicuous in his two subsequent voyages. In this respect he stands in marked contrast with all those who had preceded him, Columbus, Magellan, and Anson alone excepted. In every case we find him using his best influence to make friends with the natives, drawing up regulations of intercourse with them, to prevent his men taking unfair advantages, and, above all, restraining, as far as he could, their evil propensities. “Neither did I think,” says he on one memorable occasion, “that the thefts these people committed against us were, in them, crimes worthy of death. That thieves were hanged in England I thought no reason why they should be shot in Otaheite.”
Second voyage in the Resolution.
Not many months were allowed to elapse ere Cook was afloat again; this time to investigate the then unsolved problem of a great southern continent, which had been only in part set at rest by the discoveries of Byron, and by the circumnavigation of New Zealand. In this voyage he took the command of the Resolution, of four hundred and sixty-two tons, while Captain Furneaux took charge of the Adventure, of three hundred and thirty-six tons. Both, like the old Endeavour, were Whitby vessels; and Cook has himself recorded that every possible attention was paid to their proper equipment, and to the due supply of anti-scorbutics, and of other necessaries, under the especial eye of Lord Sandwich, then at the head of the Admiralty. The ships left Plymouth on July 13th, 1772, and, after calling at the Cape, pushed at once to the south, till on January 17th, 1773, they reached 67° 15´ S., where farther progress in that direction was barred by fields of solid ice. Thence Cook made his way to New Zealand, where he arrived, in Dusky Bay, March 25th, after having been one hundred and seventeen days at sea, and having traversed three thousand six hundred and sixty leagues. His companion, Captain Furneaux, who had been for some time separated from him, by asserting that the sea at the south end of New South Wales was only a deep bay, missed the opportunity of tracing the Straits of Van Diemen’s Land, while he at the same time misled Captain Cook.
At New Zealand Cook landed several domestic animals, and the seeds of various vegetables, both of which have prospered remarkably. From that island he paid a second visit to his former friends in Otaheite, and, having surveyed several islands, among others New Amsterdam, the people of which were far more civilised than any natives he had as yet met with, returned to Queen Charlotte’s Sound, New Zealand, to revictual and refit his ships. On the return of summer he determined to examine more minutely the question of a southern continent, proceeding as far as 71° south latitude, the highest latitude which has been as yet attained. Returning to the north, he examined Easter Island,[207] one of the group now known as the Marquesas, and describes the remarkable native statues existing there, of which two have been recently brought to the British Museum. Thence, passing by Otaheite, he sailed for the archipelago to which he had given the name of the Friendly Islands; thence to a still farther group, which he christened the New Hebrides; and thence to New Caledonia (the largest island in the Pacific after New Zealand), and to Norfolk Island, then wholly uninhabited. Resting for a short time in his old quarters at New Zealand, Cook again started, and made a clean run to Cape Horn, examining in detail Terra del Fuego and Staaten Island. After touching at the Cape, he sailed for England, and arrived at Portsmouth July 13th, 1775, having been absent on his second expedition three years and eighteen days. During this remarkable and perilous voyage he lost but four men, and only one of these by disease.