The Failure of the Philosophers to Sail with Cook in the Resolution

Abstract

On 15 july 1771 Captain Cook arrived in England on the completion of his voyage in the Endeavour, during which he had discovered the eastern coasts of Australia. On this voyage of circumnavigation, science was represented by the natural philosophers Joseph Banks (afterwards Sir Joseph Banks, Bt., and for forty-three years President of the Royal Society) 1 and Dr. Daniel Solander. Only four months later Cook was appointed to the Resolution with orders to proceed to the South Seas to clear up the controversy over the great unknown continent. Hastily Banks and Solander, determined again to accompany him, became immersed in preparations for the second voyage, and this time on a much larger scale. Banks's party was to number twelve, headed by Solander, Joseph Priestley, Zoffany the painter and Dr. James Lind, f.r.s., who had a high reputation in astronomy and geology. To accommodate many, extensive alterations had to be carried out on the Resolution, which was a small ship, very low in the waist and, like the Endeavour, one of those stout, flat-bottomed colliers from Whitby on which Cook had learnt his seamanship and to which he always remained loyal. When the alterations had been completed it was found that they had made the ship quite unseaworthy; in Cook's words so crank that she would not bear her proper sail to be set. The ship was therefore restored almost to her original condition. When Banks made his next and final inspection he wrote to the Admiralty that she was neither roomy nor convenient enough for the purpose, nor no ways proper for the voyage.,, To find that all his plans and hopes had come to nothing was bitter to Banks and he never forgave the Navy Board for its failure to see eye to eye with him. In his old age, as is well known, he wrote down * for his friend and librarian, Robert Brown, the story of his disappointment. There is how? ever also in existence a copy of a long and passionate letter, 3 written in the heat of the moment, to Lord Sandwich, the First Lord of the Admiralty, which has been until now overlooked and which has never been published. In this letter he makes a last appeal that a larger ship should be provided and he even puts forward the regrettable suggestion that some other commander, less wedded to these uncomfortable little cats from Whitby, should supersede Cook. I have to acknowledge the gracious permission of His Majesty the King to make use of this material from the Royal Archives, Windsor Castle. Appended to the letter are the comments 4 of the Navy Board. Clearly the Board was concerned only with the task of fitting out what was