First Voyage Round the World | Page 5

James Cook, a Yorkshire labourer, and Grace his wife, he was born on
the edge of the Cleveland Hills on February 27th, 1728, in the little
village of Marton, which lies about four miles south-south-east of
Middlesborough, and five miles west of the well-known hill and
landmark, Roseberry Topping. Eight years later his father removed to
Great Ayton, which lies close under Roseberry Topping.
At the age of thirteen Cook, who, it is recorded, had had some
elementary schooling both at Marton and Great Ayton, was apprenticed
to one Sanderson, a draper and grocer of Staithes, a fishing village on
the coast, about fourteen miles from Ayton and nine north-west of
Whitby.
A year later Cook went, or ran away, to sea, shipping at Whitby on
board the Freelove, a collier belonging to the brothers Walker.
In this hard school Cook learnt his sailor duties. No better training
could have been found for his future responsibilities. Here he learnt to
endure the utmost rigours of the sea. Constant fighting with North Sea
gales, bad food, and cramped accommodation, taught him to regard
with the indifference that afterwards distinguished him, all the
hardships that he had to encounter, and led him to endure and persevere
where others, less determined or more easily daunted by difficulties,
would have hurried on, and left their work incomplete.
All details of Cook's life during his thirteen years in the merchant
service are lost: what voyages he made, how he fared, whether he
advanced in general knowledge, all is gone. The only fact known is that
in May 1755, when Cook was twenty-seven years of age, and mate of a
vessel of Messrs. Walker, then in the Thames, he, to avoid the press,
then active on account of the outbreak of the war with France,
volunteered on board H.M.S. Eagle, of 60 guns, as an able seaman.
Captain Hugh Palliser, who succeeded to the command of this ship in
October, was certainly Cook's warmest patron, and it would appear that
Cook did work superior to that of an able seaman in the Eagle. Be that
as it may, all that is absolutely known is that that ship took her share of
the fighting at the taking of Louisbourg and elsewhere on the North

American and West Indian Station, and returned to England in 1759.
By Palliser's interest Cook was now appointed master of the Mercury.
It is therefore evident that his qualifications as a navigator
recommended themselves to Palliser.
The Mercury went to North America, and here Cook did his first good
service recorded, namely, taking soundings in the St. Lawrence, to
enable the fleet then attacking Quebec to take up safe positions in
covering the army under Wolfe. This he accomplished with great skill,
under many difficulties, in the face of the enemy, much of it being done
at night. He was immediately employed in making a survey of the
intricate channels of the river below Quebec, and for many years his
chart was the guide for navigation. Cook was indeed a born surveyor.
Before his day charts were of the crudest description, and he must have
somehow acquired a considerable knowledge of trigonometry, and
possessed an intuitive faculty for practically applying it, to enable him
to originate, as it may truly be said he did, the art of modern marine
surveying.
The expedition to Quebec concluded, Cook was appointed master of
the Northumberland, bearing Admiral Lord Colville's flag, and during
that ship's winter at Halifax he applied himself to further study of
mathematics and astronomy.
In 1762, the Northumberland being at Newfoundland during the
capture of that island from the French, Cook again was employed in
surveys. This attracted the attention of Captain Graves, the Governor,
who conceived a high opinion of his abilities in this respect.
In the latter part of 1762 Cook returned to England and married
Elizabeth Batts, daughter of a man in business at Wapping; but a few
months afterwards he was called upon by Captain Graves to go again to
Newfoundland to make marine surveys.
In this important work he was engaged until 1767, Captain Palliser,
who succeeded Captain Graves as Governor, being only too glad to
avail himself of Cook's services.
The charts he made during these years in the schooner Grenville were
admirable. The best proof of their excellence is that they are not yet
wholly superseded by the more detailed surveys of modern times. Like
all first surveys of a practically unknown shore, and especially when
that shore abounds in rocks and shoals, and is much indented with bays

and creeks, they are imperfect, in the sense of having many omissions;
but when the amount of the ground covered, and the impediments of
fogs and bad weather on that coast is considered, and that Cook had at
the