The Life of Captain James Cook | Page 4

as varied an experience of things nautical as lay in his power.
After several voyages in the Freelove (which is stated by the Yorkshire Gazette to have been "lost, together with one hundred and fifty passengers and the winter's supply of gingerbread for Whitby, off either the French or Dutch coast" one stormy Christmas, the date not given) Cook was sent to assist in rigging and fitting for sea a vessel, called the Three Brothers, some 600 tons burden, which was still in existence towards the close of last century. When she was completed, Cook made two or three trips in her with coals, and then she was employed for some months as a transport for troops from Middleburg to Dublin and Liverpool. She was paid off by the Government at Deptford in the spring of 1749, and then traded to Norway, during which time Cook completed his apprenticeship, that is, in July 1749. Cook told the naturalist of the second South Sea voyage, Mr. Forster, that on one of his trips to Norway the rigging of the ship was completely covered with birds that had been driven off the land by a heavy gale, and amongst them were several hawks who made the best of their opportunities with the small birds.
OFFERED COMMAND.
When his apprenticeship had expired he went before the mast for about three years. In 1750 he was in the Baltic trade on the Maria, owned by Mr. John Wilkinson of Whitby, and commanded by Mr. Gaskin, a relative of the Walkers. The following year he was in a Stockton ship, and in 1752 he was appointed mate of Messrs. Walker's new vessel, the Friendship, on board of which he continued for three years, and of which, on the authority of Mr. Samwell, the surgeon of the Discovery on the third voyage, who paid a visit to Whitby on his return and received his information from the Walkers, he would have been given the command had he remained longer in the mercantile marine. This was rapid promotion for a youth with nothing to back him up but his own exertions and strict attention to duty, and tends to prove that he had taken full advantage of the opportunities that fell in his way, and had even then displayed a power of acquiring knowledge of his profession beyond the average.
About this time Cook's father seems to have given up his position at Airy Holme Farm and turned his attention to building. A house in Ayton is still pointed out as his work, but has apparently been partially rebuilt, for Dr. Young speaks of it as a stone house, and it is now partly brick, but the stone doorway still remains, with the initials J.G.C., for James and Grace Cook, and the date 1755. The old man has been represented as completely uneducated, but this cannot have been true. Colman in his Random Recollections, writing of a visit he paid to Redcar about 1773, relates how a venerable old man was pointed out who:
"only two or three years previously had learnt to read that he might gratify a parent's pride and love by perusing his son's first voyage round the world. He was the father of Captain Cook."
If it is true that he was the son of an Elder of the Scottish Church, it is extremely improbable that he was entirely uneducated, and the position he held as hind to Mr. Skottowe would necessitate at any rate some knowledge of keeping farming accounts. More convincing information still is to be found in the Leeds Mercury of 27th October 1883, where Mr. George Markham Tweddell, of Stokesley, writes:
"I may mention that Captain Cook's father was not the illiterate man he has been represented; and I have, lying on my study table as I write, a deed bearing his signature, dated 1755; and the father's signature bears a resemblance to that of his distinguished son."
Reading is invariably learnt before writing, and as in 1755 the old man was sixty-one, it is evident he did not wait till he was eighty to learn to read.
FATHER'S GRAVE.
He claimed to have carved the inscription on the family tombstone in Great Ayton churchyard, and after spending the last years of his life under the roof of his son-in-law, James Fleck of Redcar, he died on 1st April 1778, aged eighty-four years. He was buried in Marske churchyard, but there was nothing to mark his grave, and its place has long been forgotten. His death is registered as that of a "day labourer."

CHAPTER 2.
1755 TO 1757. H.M.S. EAGLE.
Notwithstanding the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748, troubles were constantly arising between the French and English in which the American Colonies of both nations took a conspicuous part, and ultimately led to open war. The first shot was fired on 10th June