Even James Boswell,the great British diarist and chronicler of the late 1700s noted that he simply found Cook,“a plain,sensible man with an uncommon attention to veracity ... He seemed to have no desire to make people stare,and[was] a man of good steady moral principles.”
Captain James Cook's Botany Bay landing.
The great writer Fanny Burney also met Cook,after the return of the Endeavour:“This truly great man appeared to be full of sense and thought;well-mannered,and perfectly unpretending;but studiously wrapped up in his own purposes and pursuits;and apparently under a pressure of mental fatigue when called upon to speak,or stimulated to deliberate,on any other.”
Struggling for conversation she asked for him to give her a sketch of his journey,at which point,all changed.
“Captain Cook instantly took a pencil from his pocket-book,and said he would trace the route;which he did in so clear and scientific a manner,that I would not take 50 pounds for the book.”
Cook was a dour doer,not a tinsel talker.
Far from being a rapist,he was very likely the only man aboard the 95-strong Endeavour who had no congress at all with the native women when the ship anchored at Tahiti for several months.
Far from being an enthusiastic Imperialist,he was an instrument of Empire,a brilliant cartographer,navigator and seaman,who rose from extremely humble beginnings through hard work and technical excellence to be the foremost explorer of his age.
A replica of the Endeavour.Credit:AP Photo/Mark Baker
Those humble beginnings imbued him with a great understanding and empathy with his sailors,and he was generally highly regarded by them.
As to his treatment of Natives,I have often noted how shocked I was – by both the fact that it happened,and it is so little known – that before landing at Botany Bay he actually fired his musket and hit with lead-shot one of the warriors blocking his way.
Broadly though,he had great empathy for Indigenous populations,and worried about what contact with Europeans would do to them.
In sum,as a man,Cook was as buttoned-down as he was brilliant,as conscientious as he was considered. No,not great dinner company,you’re right – and he’d spend more time tucking into the sauerkraut to ward off scurvy,than chatting. But you needn’t worry. He,Sir Douglas and Sir John will be gone by 9.30pm sharp,all of them eager to get a good night’s sleep,as they have so much work to do tomorrow,so many worlds to conquer.
The trouble now will be getting rid of the rest. At least we can pour Kingsford Smith and Nancy Wake into a cab. If the bloody Breaker still won’t go by midnight,I may have to get the fellow with the ice-cream tin upside-down on his melon to help me shift him. That’ll do it.
And Ned can go when he’s good and ready. You can check him for the silverware.
Les can sleep over.
Twitter:@Peter_Fitz