First voyage of James Cook
The first voyage of James Cook was a combined Royal Navy and Royal Society expedition to the south Pacific Ocean aboard HMS Endeavour, from 1768 to 1771. The aims were to observe the 1769 transit of Venus from Tahiti and to seek evidence of the postulated Terra Australis Incognita or "undiscovered southern land". It was the first of three voyages of which Cook was the commander.
Cook was chosen to lead the voyage based on his skills in cartography and mathematics. Departing from Plymouth Dockyard in August 1768, the expedition crossed the Atlantic, rounded Cape Horn and reached Tahiti in April 1769, before the expected transit on 3 June. After the observation, Cook stopped at the nearby islands of Huahine, Borabora and Raiatea to claim them for Great Britain before sailing into the largely uncharted ocean to the south and west. In October, the expedition reached New Zealand; Cook was only the second European to visit there, following the first voyage of Abel Tasman 127 years earlier. Cook and his crew spent the following six months charting the New Zealand coast, before resuming their voyage westward across open sea. In April 1770 they became the first known Europeans to reach the east coast of Australia, making landfall near present-day Point Hicks, and then proceeding north to Botany Bay.
The expedition continued northward along the Australian coastline, narrowly avoiding shipwreck on the Great Barrier Reef. In October 1770 the badly damaged Endeavour came into the port of Batavia in the Dutch East Indies, her crew sworn to secrecy about the lands they had discovered. They resumed their journey on 26 December, rounded the Cape of Good Hope on 13 March 1771, and reached the English port of Deal on 12 July. The voyage lasted almost three years.
The year following his return, Cook left on a second circumnavigation, again in search of Terra Australis.
Conception
On 16 February 1768 the Royal Society petitioned King George III to finance a scientific expedition to the Pacific to study and observe the 1769 transit of Venus across the face of the sun to enable the measurement of the distance from the Earth to the Sun. Royal approval was granted for the expedition, and the Admiralty elected to combine the scientific voyage with a confidential mission to search the south Pacific for signs of the postulated continent Terra Australis Incognita. The aims of the expedition were revealed in the press: "To-morrow morning Mr. Banks, Dr. Solano , with Mr. Green, the Astronomer, will set out for Deal, to embark on board Endeavour, Capt. Cook, for the South Seas, under the direction of the Royal Society, to observe the Transit of Venus next summer, and to make discoveries to the South and West of Cape Horn". The London Gazetteer was more explicit when it reported on 18 August 1768: "The gentlemen, who are to sail in a few days for George's Land, the new discovered island in the Pacific ocean, with an intention to observe the Transit of Venus, are likewise, we are credibly informed, to attempt some new discoveries in that vast unknown tract, above the latitude 40". Another article reported that "the principal and almost sole national advantage" of the island discovered by Captain Wallace, that is Tahiti, was "its situation for exploring the Terra Incognita of the Southern Hemisphere", and that, "The Endeavour, a North-Country Cat, is purchased by the Government, and commanded by a Lieutenant of the Navy; she is fitting out at Deptford for the South Sea, thought to be intended for the newly discovered island." The Gazette de France of 20 June 1768 reported that the British Admiralty was outfitting two sloops of war to go to "the newly discovered island", from where they would "essay the discovery of the Southern Continent".The Royal Society suggested command be given to Scottish geographer Alexander Dalrymple, who had urged that an expedition be sent to make contact with the estimated 50 million inhabitants of the Southern Continent with whom, he said, there was "at present no trade from Europe thither, though the scraps from this table would be sufficient to maintain the power, dominion, and sovereignty of Britain, by employing all its manufacturers and ships". As a condition of his acceptance, Dalrymple demanded a brevet commission as a captain in the Royal Navy. However, First Lord of the Admiralty Edward Hawke refused, going so far as to say he would rather cut off his right hand than give command of a Navy vessel to someone not educated as a seaman. In refusing Dalrymple's command, Hawke was influenced by previous insubordination aboard the sloop in 1698, when naval officers had refused to take orders from civilian commander Edmond Halley. The impasse was broken when the Admiralty proposed James Cook, a naval officer with a background in mathematics and cartography. Acceptable to both parties, Cook took and passed the examination for Lieutenant, so allowing him to take command of Endeavour, and of the expedition.
Preparations and personnel
Vessel provisions and Instruments
The vessel chosen by the Admiralty for the voyage was a merchant collier named Earl of Pembroke, launched in June 1764 from the coal and whaling port of Whitby in North Yorkshire. She was ship-rigged and sturdily built with a broad, flat bow, a square stern and a long box-like body with a deep hold. A flat-bottomed design made her well-suited to sailing in shallow waters and allowed her to be beached for loading and unloading of cargo. Her length was, with a beam of, and measuring 368 tons burthen.Earl of Pembroke was purchased by the Admiralty in May 1768 for and sailed to Deptford on the River Thames to be prepared for the voyage. Her hull was sheathed and caulked, and a third internal deck installed to provide cabins, a powder magazine and storerooms. A longboat, pinnace and yawl were provided as ship's boats, as well as a set of sweeps to allow the ship to be rowed if becalmed or demasted. After commissioning into the Royal Navy as His Majesty's Bark the Endeavour, the ship was supplied with ten 4-pounder cannons and twelve swivel guns, for defence against native attack while in the Pacific.
Provisions loaded at the outset of the voyage included 6,000 pieces of pork and 4,000 of beef, nine tons of bread, five tons of flour, three tons of sauerkraut, one ton of raisins and sundry quantities of cheese, salt, peas, oil, sugar and oatmeal. Alcohol supplies consisted of 250 barrels of beer, 44 barrels of brandy and 17 barrels of rum. The livestock included a goat that had already travelled around the world with Samuel Wallis.
For the various scientific investigations, there were 2 reflecting telescopes with a focal length of 60 cm, 2 wooden tripods for the telescopes with equatorial polar axes, an astronomical quadrant with a radius of 30 cm, an astronomical clock, a brass sextant, a barometer, a control clock, 2 thermometers, 1 stand for the quadrant, a diving needle, an azimuth compass and a portable observatory. In addition to these instruments, Cook requested and received mathematical and surveying equipment, including a theodolite and a measuring table, a pair of brass scales, a pair of proportional compasses, glass for tracing, and paper and paints for determining the ship's position and mapping land.
Instructions
Cook's first task was to sail to King George Island and find a suitable place to observe the transit of Venus. After observing the transit of Venus, Cook was to sail south to find the suspected unknown southern continent. If there were no signs of a continent, he was to seek out the eastern side of New Zealand. If the continent was indeed discovered, Cook was to explore as much of the coast as he could; he was to record the true position of the coast in both latitude and longitude, the variation of the compass needle, the orientation of the headlands, the height, direction and course of the tides and currents, the depth of the sea, shoals, rocks and cliffs, and take views of bays, harbours and parts of the coast that might be useful for navigation. In addition, he should take possession of uninhabited land, study the flora and fauna of the area and take samples of all his findings, as well as seek friendly contact with the natives. The Admiralty's Instructions do not mention the half-mapped fifth continent of New Holland.Navigation
Cook's career covered the time when practical solutions were being developed for the longitude problem. Calculation of longitude required knowledge of the time at a fixed reference meridian. When Cook was appointed to command his first voyage of exploration, Samuel Wallis was returning from his exploration of the Pacific. The purser of his ship, John Harrison had the necessary skills and astronomical tables to use the lunar distance method of working out the time at a reference point and, using local time, work out the longitude. This meant that Wallis's position of Tahiti gave both the latitude and longitude of this island, so Cook should have no trouble finding the island.Cook was equipped with advance copies of the tables in the nautical almanac for 1768 and 1769, providing pre-calculated steps for the lunar distance method. These substantially shortened the mathematics, compared to that used on Wallis's voyagefour hours of calculations was now reduced to one hour. When the tables ran out at the end of 1769, Cook had to revert to the longer process. The officers and many of the petty officers of learnt how to take the observations of lunar distance, with several taking sights at the same time whenever the astronomical conditions were appropriate. This even continued when the ship was in peril, with good measurements taken on 17 August 1770, whilst the rest of the crew were struggling to save the ship from being driven into breaking waves on a reef.