FROM TASMAN TO MASSEY

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 90, 13 October 1934, Page 24

FROM TASMAN TO MASSEY

THE MERIT'S . OF. MISS COAD

\ND THE CRIMES OF

HAWKESWORTH

(By "Ajax.")

New Zealand from Tasman to Massoy. By N. B. Coad. 307 PP- Wellington: Harry 11. Tombs, Ltd. 6s 6d. [Ist Notice.] Having to cover all the way from Tasman to Massey in about three hundred pages, Miss Coad has had to keep moving, and. tho temptation to linger too long on attractive episodes for the small scale' on which she has had to work must have been almost incessant. But in respect to both pace and proportion it seems toi me that sho has managed exceedingly well, and I trust that there will be found to be room for such a book on a scale between those of Messrs. Shrimpton and Mulgan '& standard work, "Maori and Pakeha" and tho smaller manuals- of Professor Condliffo and others.

By way of apology for"her adventure Miss Coad refers to the recent phases of our history—the Provincial Period, the story of New Zealand's' Dependencies and of her imperialism in the Pacific, the history'of 'tlie 'War Period and the rule of the' Reform Party under Mr. Massey—as requiring treatment in the .'light of material 'only recently available. . To wh'ai extent this remark applies to the Provincial Period I do not know and she does not reveal, and the most recent years have, as she points out, their special difficulties.

To be sure, she says, the events and personalities of these later years are too near for historical judgments upon them to be crystallised. Nevertheless the time has come for a fuller treatment of this momentous era than it has hitherto received. On the other hand, in going back to the eighteenth century, an attempt has been made to give a slight description of the background and environment from' which New Zealand emerged as a British possession.

As Miss Coail. .points out in her opening paragraph, the pioneering activities of the IJuteh in the South Pacific dated from "the early years of the seventeenth century. For a considerable part of that 'century' the Stuart doctrine of Divine Right gave the English too much urgent business at home to "leave them any time to think about exploration in the" South Seas.' The sailing of Tasman from Batavia on August 14, 1642, on the voyage of discovery which. . brought him to New Zealand, and the raising of the Royal Standard at Nottingham on the 22nd of the samo month by which Charles I opened the Civil War have always seemed to me. to make one of the happy, coincidences of history. The fact that only about five years after helping to bring the Seven Years' War (1756-63) to a-vic-torious issuo Cook set sail on the voyage which brought him to New Zealand was something more than a coincidence. These dates of Tasman and Cook, and those of the Furopean entanglements to which Miss Coad refers as from time to time balking the activities of Franco in these parts, might servo a useful purpose in the propaganda which must some day be undertaken to convince our poltroons and fatalists and feather-neads that New Zealand did not acquire her privileged place in a great Empire by accident, and that only by the exertion of the same human forces which gave her that place can she hope to retain it.

Miss Coad may be congratulated on the skill with which, without unduly crowding her canvas, she has brought out the salient points in Cook's character and career in a chapter of eleven pages. In regard to his unfortunate clash with tho Maoris at Poverty Bay she has given him the benefit of a milder judgment than the opinion of Banks or of Cook himself or the facts seem to me to warrant. But I make no complaint of that, for if charity is ever to be allowed to deflect the scales of justice it could hardly find a more plausible pretext than in the desire to clear the character of such a man. My concern is to, clear the character of Cook from responsibility for the writing of the narrative of his First Voyage which purports lo be his work and, in perfect good faith, ds accepted by Miss Coad, as by. thousands of other readers, as genuine.

The records of Cook's First Voyage were given to Dr. John Hawkesworth to write up, and the manner in which he carried out tho work makes the result one of the most outrageous scandals in English literature. He was given £6000 for the job, but if he had been given six years instead of if, as forgery was in those days a capital offence, he had been sent to Tyburn, it would have better suited his merits. He rewrote the whole of his material in the most verbose, flamboyant, and carefully balanced eighteenth century penny-a-line style, and published it all in the name of Cook! Not a single word in what was published as Cook's own narrative of his First Voyage, and what is still, regarded as the standard version,' can safely be accepted as his. Writing of Hawkesworth '3 treatment of his authorities, Admiral Wharton, who edited Cook's Journal honestly and competently in 1893, says: —

As they are all jumbled together, the whole being put into Cook's mouth, it is impossible to know whether we are reading Cook. Banks, Solander, or Hawkesworth himself.

Could Tyburn have done justice to such :- crime or should there not have been something with boiling oil in it?

I can well remember -my pleasure on first reading the description which Miss Coad now quotes of tho bell-bird chorus in. Queen Charlotte Sound:—

The ship lay at the distance of somewhat less than a quarter of a mile from the shore, and in the morning we were awakened by the singing of birds: The number was incredible, and they seemed to strain their throats in emulation of each other. This wild melody was infinitely superior to any that we had ever heard of the same kind; it seemed to be like .small bells, exquisitely tuned, and perhaps the distance and the water between might be no-small advantage to the sound.

This passage is far above Hawkesworth's normal level because it follows Banks very closely. But there is not a word on the- subject in Cook's entry for the day, and the polished stylo is as unlike Cook's simple, rough, and sometimes ungrammatical seaman's English as it could possibly be.

In Ms apologia for-the fatal clash at Poverty Bay Hawkesworth had an entry in the Journal to go upon, and he does not seriously misrepresent it. But though he .speaks, for Cook and in his name, he does'Tiot either reproduce or imitate the passage, and it will be seen that the balance of the last sen-

tence, which Miss Coad was not concerned to complete, is perfect.

Thus far, says the psuedo-Cook, my intentions certainly were not criminal; and though in the contest, which I had not the least reason to expect, our victory might have been complete without so great an expence of life, yet in such situations, when the command to fire has been given, no man can restrain its excess or prescribe its effect.

In my opening paragraph-1 congratulated Miss Coad on the sense of proportion which she* had displayed throughout her long and difficult task. In my brief and easy one I have displayed the opposite vice by being diverted from her merits to the crimes of Hawkesworth. Next week I hope to do better, and in the meantime I will illustrate my proper theme, by q-oting one of - those characters in which from time to time she takes her leave of the leading figures in her story.. She sums up Captain Hobson aptly and justly, in my opinion, as follows: —

A sick man, in a far-distant and isolated country, with a stall small, and by no meaaa brilliant, it was his' difficult task to conciliate the missionaries,'pacify the Katives, satisfy the settlers, and keep peace with the Company's people in the south. It was in regard to them; however, that he made his worst mistakes. His attitude towards them was the reverse of helpful, and his sentiments were coloured by the prejudices and suspicions of the Colonial Office of the day. Consequently, his actions towards them were often unjust, being based upon insufficient knowledge of their character and circumstances. In reflecting the views of the Colonial Office he worked, of course, with sailor-like obedience. But there is one thing that will always stand to his credit, and that is that he gained the confidence and esteem of the Natives. '