CAPTAIN COOK

King Country Chronicle, Volume III, Issue 157, 20 May 1909, Page 5

CAPTAIN COOK

- - - By W. 8., Tc Kuiti.

No. U.

James GHt was born 181 yean ago, ; to wit: on the 27th October, 1728, at ! Marlon in the County of York, England. His father was an ordinary farm , day labourer, living in a mod and thatch cottage; a bousing considered, until the other day. ample comfort for those in that social classification; and was carefully transplanted to our land, till what time the Shearers" Accommo- ! dation Act landed a shot in its eye and stunned it. He was one of a family of 1 nine barefooted simp'c life students, who from cockcrow to nightfall were, with what strength poor food would permit them, compelled to enrich the lord of the farm. At the age of thirteen he was sent to school to learn writing and arithmetic; reading be bad somehow acquired by self-tuition and the tracts of the curate endeavoured to trammel his brain with. In 1745 he was apprenticed to a shop keeper. But those were the days of England's sea hero*; when talcs were brought to the village by returned sea exiles: Young men of bis class, whom the press gang snatched up.or enticed with decorated eologiums and indurated with rancid pork, worm infested biscuits, black ram, and glory. Young men who had gone down to the sea in ships and learnt the secrets of what lay beyond the skyline, and returned grizzly veterans. who swaggered into the village ale house, and suppressing sea hard- ' •♦hips, spoke in loud rancus boasts, and blasphemed strange horrible oaths.and drank much strong beer, and rcfought great sea fights till pot hooks jingled by the inn fireside and the farm yokels' hair crept and jaws ached. What wonder then that young Cook suddenly loathed tapes and grocer's sundries, and in shop hours moped, and at night dreamed of Spanish treasure ships and undiscovered spice islands.awjry in that other hemisphere, only heard of from All Nation filibusters and published in books too expensive for lowly shop youths; until bis master tore up the : indentures and told young Cook to dear out and follow his dream mirages. But being without high placed interest he began his climb on the lower rung, | and articled himself for three yean to a Whitley coal tramp. No roystering be fore-the-mast drunken spree sailorin* in the navy for him. He was great, did I say so before? W«dl, it will bear j repititiOn: he was great, and he felt so. So when his collier bondage ended j in 1750. he engaged in the Baltic trade: | Another preparation for the stern days not yet dawned And until he achieved a first mate's rating—and not till then - in 1755. he entered the navy in a forecastle statu?. But he was great. That is why when his superiors recognised that greatness, shifted him from the windlass bitto to the quarterdeck: i from whence promotion awaited his pleasure. But. until he entered the ; navy his knowledge of navigation was ; hardly more thqn that of the land hug- | ger. And history is silent where and how, he acquired such a proficiency that at the siege of Quebec, he was selected from among many highborn, with a powerful-political push in the rear to urge their claims, for which co-note Maori land records, to survey and accurately chart the river St. Lawrence, under a plunging baEtery : fire from the French forts. This accomplished with an exactitude indi- ! cative of future consummations, where envy preached failure, was to him a ; sesame to the notice of those in command. So far had his fame spread as an impeachable doer of things exacting hair-fine admeasurements, that, when in 1767, the Spci«.>ty sought for a comiitient man, to observe with the mathematical precision that day's instruments permitted, the approaching transit of Venus; and because that phenomenon only occurs once in 120 yean, and the success of the observations depended on the skill of the observer sent, our hero was singled out to perform this scientific achievement. And that his rank be commensurate with the import of the mission.be was appointed a Lientenant in His Majesty's navy. And as his journal opens: - "Having received my commission, which was dated the 25th of May, 1769.1 went on board on the 27th, hoisted the pennant, and took charge of the ship, whicb then lay In the

basin in Deptford yard. . . And thereupon he set out upon that series of explorations and discoveries which stu pitted the then known world, and inscribed his name among the immortals. And by mpie ought Ms memory to be kept m> gceen, W cherished, and so magnified, as by us, the residing legatees of this intellectual giant Perhaps no eulogy of the man Is at once so teaching and true, a» that of his faithful friend. Admiral Forbes, Commander of the Fleet, upon the news of his death, which be concludes thus"lf the arduous but exact researches of this extraordniary man have not discovered a new world, they have discovered maißDUVifi>Ullaul unknown before. They h»v* made os acquainted with islands, people, and productions, of which we had no conception. And if be has not been so fortunate as Americans to give bis name to 9 consent, bis pretentions sucu distinction rsm#tß up(ivatled*. and he will revered while there remains a page of bis own modest account of his vqyagfy?; *nd as long as m*sio«»(» and geographers shall be instructed, by his new map of the Southern Hemisphere, to trace the various courses and discoveries he has made. If public ipy'fit acknowledgment*; if the' man who adorned and tawed the fame of bi* country is deserving of honours, then Captain Cook d*servea to have a monument raised to his memory by a generous and grateful nation." And that this excerpt from a noble tribute to his dead friend's celebrity, is not singular to the manes of friendship, it, and the account of bis voyages, together with bis journals, ar< translate*? into th» !ang*-Kv vt •fa bvaKd'»aiT®4"§f *the Vplkf-