Page 43 - French Polynesia

Captain James Cook

The king began to understand that Cook was
his enemy. As Cook turned his back to help
launch the boats, he was struck on the head by
the villagers and then stabbed to death as he
fell on his face in the surf.

C aptain James Cook was a British explorer, notice came at a crucial moment in both Cook’s and cartographic skills, physical courage and
navigator, cartographer, and captain in career and the direction of British overseas an ability to lead men in adverse conditions.

the Royal Navy. Cook made detailed maps of exploration, and led to his commission in 1766 as Cook was killed in Hawaii in a fight with Hawai-

Newfoundland prior to making three voyages to commander of HM Bark Endeavour for the first of ians during his third exploratory voyage in the

the Pacific Ocean, during which he achieved the three Pacific voyages. Pacific in 1779. He left a legacy of scientific and

first recorded European contact with the eastern In three voyages Cook sailed thousands of miles geographical knowledge which was to influ-
coastline of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands, across largely uncharted areas of the globe. He ence his successors well into the 20th century
and the first recorded circumnavigation of New and numerous memorials worldwide have been

Zealand. Cook joined the British merchant navy mapped lands from New Zealand to Hawaii in dedicated to him. In 1745, when he was 16, Cook

as a teenager and joined the Royal Navy in 1755. the Pacific Ocean in greater detail and on a scale moved 20 miles to the fishing village of Staithes,

He saw action in the Seven Years’War, and sub- not previously achieved. As he progressed on his to be apprenticed as a shop boy to grocer and

sequently surveyed and mapped much of the voyages of discovery he surveyed and named haberdasher William Sanderson. Historians have

entrance to the Saint Lawrence River during the features, and recorded islands and coastlines on speculated that this is where Cook first felt the

siege of Quebec. This helped bring Cook to the European maps for the first time. He displayed a lure of the sea while gazing out of the shop

attention of the Admiralty and Royal Society. This combination of seamanship, superior surveying window.