by Lay, Graeme
Dismissing the officers, James returned to his official journal. He concluded the entry:
I shall make no reflection on this melancholy affair until I hear more about it. I must, however, observe in favour of the New Zealanders that I have always found them of a brave, noble and open and benevolent disposition, but they are a people who will never put up with an insult if they have an opportunity to resent it.
The English Indiaman was the True Briton, under the command of Captain Broadly. Again, it was Pickersgill, this time in the company of Cooper, who went across to her. The Grass Cove massacre report was confirmed by her crew. Captain Broadly also sent packages of tea, sugar and Chinese quails across to Resolution, along with a large pig and a pile of last year’s London newspapers, all of which were gratefully received. Learning that True Briton was returning to London directly from Canton and not calling at Cape Town en route, James penned a letter to the Admiralty, sealed it and sent it across for delivery to Whitehall. He also sent a separate note to Elizabeth, informing her that they should be in London by July.
That evening James perused the newspapers Broadley had passed on, feeling strange to be reading news of a world from which they had been disconnected for so long. He read about a group of colonists in Boston, Massachusetts, who had boarded a ship in the harbour there and thrown overboard a load of tea as a protest against the tax policy of the British government and the East India Company, which controlled all the tea imported into America. Elsewhere there was now open defiance of Britain’s authority. Colonists in Taunton, Massachusetts, had openly proclaimed the word ‘Liberty’ on a flag, and the catch-cry ‘No taxation without representation’ was becoming common. It seemed that the Americans were replacing the French as Britain’s immediate foe. Disturbing news, James thought, that there was a likelihood of war in the colonies. America becoming politically separated from Britain was unthinkable. He asked himself, would he serve the British cause if required to? He put the newspaper aside. He most certainly would.
The following day the ships fired a six-gun salute to one another, then parted, True Briton bound for London, Resolution for Cape Town.
When Table Mountain was sighted from Resolution’s masthead, the crew became buoyant. All remembered the pleasures of Cape Town from two and a half years ago, all knew that their stay here would not be brief, given the necessary repairs to the ship. After sailing nearly 60,000 nautical miles, her rigging and sails were in dire need of replacement, so while she was refitted there would be shore leave, surely.
21 MARCH 1775
The roads and harbour were busy with ships flying the flags of France, Holland and Britain. James ordered a salute fired. As the crews of the neighbouring vessels waved and cheered, the Resolutions returned their waves, and stared at the other vessels in the harbour with a kind of wonder. After two and a half years, they had at last rejoined the civilised world. And, it seemed, this world considered James and the other Resolutions to be heroes.
After the ship was securely anchored, James ordered the boats hoisted. He first sent Pickersgill ashore to convey his greetings to the Dutch governor, Baron Joachim van Plettenberg, and to request permission for his men to erect tents behind the town and for Wales to set up an observatory there. When Pickersgill returned he reported that the governor had acceded to all these requests. ‘It seems, sir,’ Pickersgill added, ‘that our feats of exploration have become renowned in this port.’ His expression darkened. ‘Although mainly because of the murders in Queen Charlotte Sound. And the governor gave me news of another killing of Europeans in New Zealand.’
Startled, James said, ‘Where? And when?’
‘In the Bay of Islands, two and a half years ago.’ James made a quick calculation. When they were preparing to leave on this voyage. ‘The expedition was French, led by Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne. He and 26 of his men were killed and eaten. A survivor, a man called Crozet, is in port now. He managed to sail their ship away to safety.’
James made a note of this name. He would seek this Frenchman out. But in the meantime, there was much to organise. He must arrange for his maps and journals to be packaged, sealed and sent on to London with the next available English vessel. He stood up. ‘Thank you, Pickersgill, that is all for now. I’ll now prepare to go ashore myself. Is it necessary for me to meet the governor again?’
‘I think not. He has already consented to all our requirements.’
‘Good.’ James grunted. ‘I found him a tiresome fellow.’
The launch’s painter was made fast to a bollard on the wharf and James climbed the stone steps up to it, followed by Bayly, lugging all his equipment. There were dozens of other boats tied up, and the waterfront was crowded with seamen, carriers, carts and carriages. Dutchmen on horseback made their way slowly through the throng, while Negroes humped bundles of goods from the launches to warehouses on the other side of the cobbled street. Further along the front was a row of chandleries, boatyards and sail lofts. The coffee houses and stores directly across from the harbour were doing brisk business, and elegant Dutch women, in hooped skirts, bonnets and holding parasols, stood about talking. The morning air was scented with brewing coffee, cigar smoke and the blooming lavender that filled the window boxes of the coffee salons. Although it was autumn, the morning air was mild, the great face of Table Mountain masked by shadow.
James and Bayly parted on the wharf after arranging to meet later that day at the hill behind the town which had been designated for Bayly’s observations. James was about to head across to the street to a map-maker’s shop—he was in need of more chart paper—when a man stepped out in front of him. ‘James Cook?’
‘Yes.’
‘Thomas Mawton. British Consul to Cape Colony.’ He held out his hand. ‘I watched Resolution come in and resolved to meet you.’ He gave a little smile. ‘You are renowned, you know.’
He was in his 50s, a short, heavily built man with a large head, deep-set grey eyes and a fleshy nose. He wore a tricorn, a scarlet jacket with gold cuffs and a matching waistcoat, half of whose brass buttons were undone. ‘Would you care to take coffee with me? Schouten’s is a suitable venue.’
‘Thank you, yes.’
Mawton was originally from Tower Hill, in London, but had lived in Cape Colony for 18 years. A one-time merchant seaman, he now exported wine from the Cape to England and imported manufactured goods such as shoes, millinery, belts and buckles. Slow of speech, with a slightly sardonic and mock-serious manner, he was agreeable company and a fund of information. Over their coffees they spoke for nearly an hour, James providing Mawton with an outline of his voyage and the consul giving him the names of the firms who could assist with the repair and provisioning of Resolution.
After they parted outside the coffee house, Mawton turned back hurriedly. ‘I almost forgot, Captain. I have long been holding a letter addressed to you.’ He fumbled inside his jacket pocket, withdrew a long cream envelope and handed it to James. ‘It came the year before last, and having no notion of when you would return to Cape Town I have held it here for you all this time.’
James took the envelope. On it was written James Cook, Royal Navy, Master of HMS Resolution, c/o The British Consul, Cape Town.
The handwriting was Elizabeth’s.
Back in the Great Cabin, James opened the envelope and withdrew a single sheet of paper.
28 OCTOBER 1772
Dearest James,
I write this in the hope that you may one day receive it. Having no address for you but Cape Town, and knowing that you intended to call there towards the end of your voyage, I consigned the letter to that port, care of the British Consul. It will, I hope, reach you one day.
Little George died on the first day of October, during the night. He was not yet five months old, and had been unwell for some weeks, crying constantly, taking almost no milk and as a consequence, wasting away. It is my belief that a fall I suffered three weeks before he was born caused the unborn child some damage, and brought on his birth p
rematurely. Thereafter, he was weak and his little body failed to grow as it should. I need hardly say how much grief his death has brought to our household. Fortunately James and Nathaniel were spending several days with my mother and stepfather, so they were spared the shock of discovering their brother’s body. They had been terribly distressed when baby Joseph was taken. But when the boys returned and I gave them the news, their grief was horrible to behold. They had nicknamed their brother Baby King George, and they adored him.
So once again, husband, I mourn another child, and again I do so alone. And once again a child of ours has never seen its father. If this sounds bitter to you, James, then that is an honest expression of my feelings. I cannot pretend otherwise. I am bitter, not only at my sense of loss of a third child, but that I am left to grieve without you. I am only too aware of your sense of duty to King and Country, but I would gladly exchange that sense for a husband who is at home to offer his wife the comforts and consolations she deserves. That, surely, is not too much to ask.
You may never receive this letter. You may have perished in the frozen South Sea, or have been consumed by cannibals, or been swept overboard in a gale and drowned. It is my earnest-most hope that none of these fates has befallen you, and that you will return to what remains of your family, but I can by no means be assured of that. If you do return safely, then it must surely be the conclusion to your voyaging. I do not wish to lose you, as well as our children.
We buried baby George in the graveyard of St Dunstan’s, alongside little Elizabeth and Joseph, on 3 October. As yet, he has no headstone.
I remain,
Your loving wife,
Elizabeth
The letter fell from his hands. He closed his eyes. Another child gone. Yet more sorrow for Elizabeth, for James and Nathaniel, and for the rest of the family. It must have been terrible for her to lose yet another one. It was insupportable, unspeakable. In his mind a great swell of guilt rose up, then became a wave that broke and engulfed him. He looked up, blinked hard, then put his face in his hands. There could be only one certainty about the future now. His days at sea were numbered.
Thirty
THEY WERE AT CAPE TOWN FOR ALMOST FIVE WEEKS. During that time both ship and crew were revived. Shore leave for the men was generously granted and gratefully received. Most of the officers and gentlemen stayed ashore as guests of a generous and convivial resident, Christoffel Brand. Several members of the crew hired horses and rode into the interior, pausing at every roadside inn to imbibe more Cape Colony wine. There was much hard drinking and whoring in the back streets of the town. The men found the Hottentot women exotic and arousing, although they demanded guilders, not nails or bark cloth, in exchange for their bodies. Resolution’s purser was pestered for advances on the crew’s wages. Repairs to the ship’s rigging and sails in the Dutch shipyards were also costly.
The naturalists and the astronomer relished their time ashore. James and Wales checked their longitude as shown by Kendall’s timekeeper against the long-established certitude of Cape Town’s. The timekeeper was accurate within 18 minutes, less than a third of a degree. It had proved a marvellous device, ensuring that on almost every chart James and his assistant Isaac Smith had drawn the longitude as well as the latitude recordings were precise.
On 28 March the supernumerary botanist, Anders Sparrman, left the ship’s company. Farewelling James, he said, ‘I thank you, Captain, for permitting me to be part of this expedition. I have learned a great deal.’ He had grown a beard, and his smile was only partly visible through the auburn foliage surrounding his mouth.
Shaking his hand, James said, ‘Where will you go now?’
Sparrman waved a hand in the direction of Table Mountain. ‘Inland. To botanise.’ He closed his eyes and inclined his head reverently. ‘And I know that the good Lord will watch over me, as He has these past two and a half years, protecting me from the countless perils we have faced.’
James made no reply, feeling a twinge of resentment at the Swede thanking God for his protection. The man had obviously come under the self-righteous influence of Johann Forster and his piety. It was Sparrman’s commander and crew to whom he should really be grateful, James considered. With a curt nod, he bid the Swede adieu.
He saw more of Thomas Mawton when ashore, meeting and talking over strong Brazilian coffee at Schouten’s. The consul seemed to know everything that happened in and around the Cape Colony, as well as its most influential citizens. It was Mawton who introduced James to the French navigator, Julien-Marie Crozet. James invited Crozet to dine with him on Resolution.
A small, dark-eyed, sharp-featured man who spoke adequate English, he gave a vivid account of the killing and eating of the Frenchmen, and the subsequent retribution. The French had destroyed three Maori villages and killed or wounded hundreds of natives, Crozet said with obvious pride, causing James to wonder what he would have done in those circumstances.
Two days later James again met Mawton at the coffee house. On the table in front of him were three large books. The consul was clearly excited. ‘These arrived this week on the Kentish Princess, Captain, and I have much pleasure in presenting them to you.’ He moved the large volumes across the table. ‘They were published in London, and I ordered several copies for sale here.’
Curious, James picked up the top volume. Heavily bound, it was entitled An Account of the voyages undertaken … for making Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere and performed by Commodore Byron, Captain Wallis, Captain Carteret and Captain Cook (from 1702 to 1771). The author’s name, embossed on the covers, was John Hawkesworth.
James frowned. ‘Hawkesworth? Do I know that name?’
‘You may. He is a journalist. And a friend of Dr Johnson and Joseph Banks.’ James’s attention quickened. ‘The first volume is given over to Byron, Wallis and Carteret, the second and third volumes with Endeavour’s voyage.’
James picked up the first volume. ‘What references did this fellow Hawkesbury use?’
‘Hawkesworth. The journals of the explorers concerned, including yours, which he obtained from the Admiralty. Look at the title page of Volume One.’
James opened the book. On the title page was the statement: ‘Drawn up from the journals which were kept by the several Commanders and from the papers of Joseph Banks Esq. by John Hawkesworth LLD. Dedicated to King George the Third of England.’
James began to feel uneasy. This fellow Hawkesworth had evidently been given his journals and had used them to write his own account of Endeavour’s voyage. Was that not highly presumptuous? The book had a lengthy introduction. Skimming it, James noticed a recurring name: Joseph Banks.
He closed the book, then picked up the second volume. Its opening sentence read: ‘Having received my commission, which was dated the 25th of May 1768, I went on board on the 27th, hoisted the pennant, and took charge of the ship, which then lay in the basin in Deptford Yard. She was fitted for sea with all expedition; and stores and provisions being taken on board, sailed down the river on the 30th of July, and on the 13th of August anchored in Plymouth Sound.’
James looked up in astonishment. Hawkesworth had assumed the persona of James Cook. The pronoun ‘I’ was meant to convey the impression that he, James, was the author. That was not only impertinent, it was surely fraudulent. And inaccurate. Hawkesworth had made several errors in just one sentence. James hadn’t joined Endeavour in Deptford—he went aboard off Deal. And the ship wasn’t provisioned until they got to Plymouth. Thunderstruck, he stared at Mawton. ‘You said these books are mine to keep?’
‘Yes. Please add them to Resolution’s library.’
James took the books back to the ship, and read the second and third volumes that afternoon. The contents horrified him. They were marred by misrepresentations and inaccuracies. Not having been on Endeavour’s voyage, the journalist had invented aspects of it and grafted them clumsily onto James’s journal entries. And the worst of it was, it was James’s name to which the contents of the books w
ere ascribed. Readers would thus assume that it was entirely James’s work. But nothing could be further from the truth. Hawkesworth had not only stolen his identity, he had falsified aspects of his voyage. The man was an imposter, his version of the voyage mostly fiction.
James flicked to the concluding section of the account, which purported to describe Endeavour’s call at the island of Helena on 1 May 1771:
Here are a few horses, but they are kept only for the saddle, so that all labour is performed by slaves; nor are they furnished with any of the various machines which art has invented to facilitate their task. The ground is not everywhere too steep for a cart, and where it is, the wheelbarrow might be used with great advantage, yet there is no wheelbarrow in the whole island; everything is conveyed from place to place by slaves, and they are not furnished even with the simple convenience of a porter’s knot, but carry their burden upon their heads. They are indeed very numerous, and are brought from almost every part of the world, but they appeared to be a miserable race, worn out partly by excessive labour, and partly by ill usage, of which they frequently complained; and I am sorry to say, that instances of wanton cruelty are much more frequent among my countrymen here, than among the Dutch, who are and perhaps not without reason, generally reproached with want of humanity at Batavia and the Cape.
Not my words, not my sentiments, not my experience, James thought bitterly. Banks’s, more like it, but not ascribed to him. Hawkesworth had perpetrated blatant falsehoods in James’s name. And in doing so, the slubberdegullion had violated his record and dishonoured him.
