The last major probe of the South Seas in the 18th Century was led by Jean-Frangois de Galaup de La Perouse. a redoubtable French nobleman and military hero whom King Louis XVI sent to the Pacific in 1785 to search for “all the lands that had escaped the vigilance of Cook.”
A truly royal prodigality was exercised in preparing for the voyage. Some 20 artisans and scientists were engaged, and La Perouse was given two 500-ton frigates, the Astrolabe and the BoussoJe, crammed with books, charts, and special supplies—including 10 reams of paper for pressing leaves to bring home, 20 barrels of water specifically for studying the growth of bacteria, and one million assorted pins to help win the friendship of any indigenous peoples the explorers might meet.
In two and a half years of almost constant sailing. La Perouse described three vast loops through the Pacific, more or less retracing Cook’s routes but proceeding farther, to such exotic outposts as Tatary (China and Siberia) and Japan. All along the way he wrote about his discoveries— detailing the lay of the land, noting anthropometric measurements of the peoples he encountered, and describing their food, clothing, houses and customs. His last stop was
Cook’s Botany Bay in Australia, where, obeying what must have been a prophetic impulse, he persuaded British colonial officers to transmit his letters and ship’s log to Paris.
After he sailed from Botany Bay in February 1788, La Perouse and his men were never heard from again. Their fate remained a mystery until the 1820s, when an Irish merchant visiting the Santa Cruz Islands happened upon a sword guard inscribed J. F.G. P. (the initials of Jean-Frangois de Galaup de La Perouse). From islanders who had been children at the time, he pieced together a story of shipwreck; they had some relics of the expedition, among them a ship’s bell and several brass guns. The subsequent discovery of 60 European skulls gave grisly testimony that La Perouse and his men had been killed and eaten by Santa Cruz Islanders—descendants of the same ferocious folk who had attacked would-be colonists led by Spanish explorers Mendaha and Quiros some 200 years earlier.
The British officers, true to their word, delivered La Perouse’ papers to France. That collection, published in 1797 as Voyage round the World, was a four-volume assortment of plates, charts and commentaries that provided a worthy finale to the era of Pacific navigation.
Leun-Fmn(,ois dr La Perouse unrolls an rxplarer’s mop of the Pacific for Louis XVI fseu(ed). os one of the King's minisle'rs looks on.
Cook signaled his men to retreat and moved toward his boat, just then the crowd received word that Englishmen elsewhere on the bay had killed another chief—the result of Cook’s order to prevent canoes from leaving. Almost simultaneously a Hawaiian threatened Cook with a dagger. Cook fired his barrel of small shot at him, but the assailant, protected by a war mat, was unharmed and yelled defiance. The crowd began advancing. Cook fired his other barrel and killed a man. He yelled, “Take to the boats!’’ But he never got there himself. Knocked down, he was stabbed and held underwater, then stabbed again and again. Four Marines were also killed before the rest escaped. In shock, the survivors rowed silently back to the ships, leaving the dead behind. It was 8 a. m.
A stunned Charles Clerke succeeded to the command. Wisely, he decided against vengeance. Among the Hawaiians there was grief equaling that of the visitors: The terrible incident was a ghastly aberration in the islanders’ normal behavior. In a few days a priest brought parts of Cook’s body to the ship; he had been cut up and his flesh burned, but—as with any great chieftain—his bones had been preserved as relics. Clerke committed them to the bay, while 10 guns sounded a salute.
Clerke could have sailed straight home, but as a tribute to Cook he chose to continue the voyage. That spring, after a stop at Kamchatka, the ships sailed north through the Bering Strait and were again barred by the implacable ice. Defeated, they returned to Kamchatka. There Clerke, who had been suffering all through the voyage from tuberculosis, died. Lieutenant John Gore took over and brought the ships back to England. They arrived on October 4, 1780.
The news of Cook’s death had preceded them, for Clerke had sent word from Kamchatka via the Russians. There had been genuine mourning, but it was short-lived; Britain was increasingly preoccupied with the war against its colonists across the Atlantic, which was going badly. Furthermore, it was difficult for most 18th Century Britons to understand the magnitude of Cook’s achievements. Much of what he had done was, in a way, negative; He had proved that the fabled Southern continent did not exist, and he had shown that there was at least no warm-water Northwest Passage. The positive feats could be adequately appreciated only by later generations.
His associates, however, were well aware of his greatness. Lord Pal-liser. Cook’s superior in the Navy, called him “the ablest and most renowned navigator this or any country hath produced. He possessed all the qualifications requisite for his profession and great undertakings.’’ David Samwell, surgeon of the Discovery, wrote that Cook was “vigilant and active in an eminent degree; cool and intrepid among dangers; patient and firm under difficulties and distress; fertile in expedients; great and original in all his designs; activeand resolved in carrying them into execution. In every situation he stood unrivalled and alone; on him all eyes were turned; he was our leading-star.’’
Other explorers understood too. In the opinion of the French navigator jean-Frangois de Galaup de La Perouse, Cook’s work was so all-encompassing that there was little for his successors to do but admire it. What he had bequeathed to posterity was at once grand and simple: a coherent map of the Pacific.
World History
