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Historical Records of New Zealand

Mr. Pallas,*to Mr. Pennant, Thomas† (Banks Papers)

Mr. Pallas,*to Mr. Pennant, Thomas (Banks Papers).

S. Petersburg, 15–26 Dec., 1779.

Dear Sir,—

In a letter sent by last post I desired Mr. Banks to let you know of the unhappy fate of Capt’n Cook, the circumstances of which I related to him from a French extract I had then read. Since that time S’r James Harris did me the favour to let me

* Pallas, Peter Simon. A celebrated German scientist attached to the Russian Court. Professor of Natural History in the Imperial Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg, and author of several standard scientific works.

Pennant, Thomas. An English Naturalist and Antiquary. The friend of Linnæus and Buffon, and a most voluminous writer. From the frequent acknowledgments he makes in his published works, of the obligations he was under to Pallas, it is evident that they were regular correspondents. The above letter was no doubt communicated by Pennant, Thomas to Sir Joseph Banks, to whom, as a fellow-voyager of Cook, and President of the Royal Society, it would be doubly interesting.

page 33 look over the original letters of Capt’n Cook and Capt’n Clarke, his second in command, wh ch have been delivered to him last week, and from these I can now give you a more faultless and circumstantial account.
C’t. Cook after having left the Cape of G.H., went to look after the new islands lately discovered, to the south of the Cape, by the French under Kesguelim.* He found them low, uninhabited, and destitute of either tree or shrub; a poor vegetation and some turtle is all it affords. From thence he past by Van Diemen’s Land and New Zealand, and pushed for Otaheitee. He found at his arrival there in August that since his last voyage the Spaniards had been there twice from Callao, and some of those that came first had stay’d on purpose on the island, but had been gone with the second comers some time before the Captain’s arrival. The Spaniards had left a bull, a ram, and some poultry, but all males; thus Cap’n Cook’s leaving several heads of domestic animals there proved very acceptable. Omiah was left at Oahine in good health, and several heads of cattle with him. Some more were distributed among the Friendly and Society Islands. About the end of the year C. Cook sailed to the northward. He discovered in longitude 200° from your Merid. of Greenwich, a little to the north of the Tropik, an island, which he called I. Sandwich, and near which more others seemed to lye scattered to the eastward. He made the coast of America in March, and having much suffered in masts and riggging by the heavy storms he met in the northern hemisphere, he entered a harbour which he found a little to the north of that spot where in maps you will find the enry of Aguilas. Having renewed the masts of the Resolution he stood out to sea, but met again with such continual squalls as made it impossible to observe any part of the coast till he came to anchor in a bay which by its longit. and latitude coincides with Cape Elias, where Capt’n Bering had a sight of America, and lay some hours at anchor. After some repairs in that bay, Cook steered along the coast of America, of which he made a close survey and found many mistakes of former maps, which all the way had frequently misled him. He arrived at last to the streight which divides the two continents, but his letter gives neither latitude nor longit. Having past it he found the coast of America stretching to the N.E., so he followed it as

* M. De Kerguelen.

The credit of discovering these islands has been denied Cook by many writers. See The History of the Hawaiian Islands, Jarves, p. 98, where the whole question is discussed.

The harbour referred to is Nootka Sound, on the west coast of Vancouver’s Island. Cook called it King George’s Sound, but the native name “Nootka“ is almost unversally used.

page 34 close as possible, not doubting but that he had found the wished-for passage. But being arrived (it was in August) in latit. 70° 41′, longit. 198°, he was so suddenly beset by the ice that he ran risk of being hemmed in and forced to shore by it. However, with some trouble he got clear, and finding all round to the north the sea walled up by the ice, and many reasons to convince him of the existence of some continent lying towards the Pole, which furnishes and fixes the ice, he went on to the west to try what chance he could have on the side of Siberia, the coast of which he made in lat. 68° 55′, longit. 180 1/2° from Greenwich. Finding there no more passage than the other way he returned to the streights, remarking by the way that both continents present these quarters a low and bare country, and that the sea between them and north of the streight is not deep. On is return, C. Cook lay at the harbour of Unalashka, which island he places in 53° 55′ lat. and 192° 30′ longit., thus more southerly and westerly than any Russian map of account. There he delivered the letter which has been received from Ct. Cook’s hand to a Russian crew which he met on the same island. It is dated in October, 1778. He mentions at the close of it that he lost during his whole absence only the surgeon of the Resolution and two men, one belonging to the Discovery having been drowned, the other died of a dropsy. He also exposes his intention of returning during winter to Sandwich Island, not to remain unactive during a long wintering in Kamtshatka, and his proposed return to the north for another tryal next year.
Thus far the celebrated Capt’n Cook’s letter. Another letter from Capt’n Clarke came along with it from Kamtshatka and continues the account. Capt’n Cook found his supposition of more islands lying to the east of Sandwich I. to be true. He discovered several more, the names and number I cannot recollect, but all very luxuriant and populous, and the inhabitants of the same nation w’t the people of Otaheitee. In one of these islands called by the inhabitants O-why-he anchored in a bay and stay’d two months in that harbour, which bears the name of Cara-ca-cossa.* The people received him very sociably, and used to pay him a kind of worship more fit for a Divinity than man. His crew was plentifully supplied with hogs, yams, plantains, and other refreshments. He had just left the harbour when a heavy gale worsted his foremast, and obliged him to return to it again to repair. He had the carpenter and his observatory landed, and thought no harm. But the islanders now grew more thievish than they had ever been before, and at last the cutter belonging

* Cook spelt this Karakakooa.

page 35 to the Discovery was stole from the buoy on which it was moored. Capt’n Cook next day went on shore with his lieutenant* and nine guarde-marines to the place where the chief of the isle, Tere-oboo, resided. He was received by the people with their usual veneration, but found a great mob assembled about the chief. During his compliments some of the bystanders grew insolent, and one fellow at last became it to such a degree that C. Cook fired at him with small shot, and tho’ the fellow received no hurt thro’ the mat he had thrown about him, yet a murmuring pervaded the whole mob, and as some hostilities began from their side the lieutenant fired and killed a man, on which, instead of flight, the attack became general, and tho’ the guarde-marines fired with effect no time was given them to reload their pieces. In this fray Capt. Cook was unfortunately killed at the first onset, with four of his people. The lieutenant, with the remainder, mostly wounded, retired with difficulty, whilst the firing from the pinnace and long-boat, which lay near shore, kept the enemy at some distance. Capt. Clerke, to whom the command devolved, saw no means of revenging, without considerable loss, the death of his brave countryman, the islanders being a numerous and it seemed a warlike set of people, and having stone walls for their defence on the hills. Thus he kept on the defensive and got all things on board, where he continued repairing, whilst the islanders most heartily sued for peace. In the middle of March he left this unlucky island, O-why-he, and stood to the north, where he met with very heavy gales, and brought the Resolution, which had sprung a leak and received other damage with the gale, into the harbour of Awatcha or S. Peter and S. Paul. At the end of April this year, having damages to repair, and winter still continuing in these quarters, Capt. Clarke made his arrival known to the commander of Kamtshatka, Major Behm, who came himself down to Avatsha, supplied him with cattle and all other kind of provisions that was in his power, and shewed all possible benevolence to serve him. The 4th June, when his letter was dated, Capt. Clerke was ready for sea, intended to make another tryal to the north-ward to survey the islands, then to call again if necessary at Kamtshatka, and lastly to return home any way. As Major Behm is expected here this winter, and carries with him the Resolution’s log - book and a chart sent by Capt. Cook, you may expect some more account respecting America and the streights, if I should be favoured with a sight of these.

* The lieutenant of marines, Mr. Molesworth Philips.