Captain Cook Fills in the Gaps in the Coastline

Tasman saw Westland in 1642 he was slightly under forty. By a coincidence James Cook was just past this age when he re-discovered New Zealand. His career began on a coastal vessel carrying coal and continued in the navy. He became skilled in the arts of astronomy, map-making and navigation. When in 1769 Cook was appointed Lieutenant-in-Command of H.M.S. Endeavour, Bark, his immediate objective was Tahiti where the transit of Venus was to be observed. Thence he was directed by sealed instructions to sail in search of the Southern Con­tinent, or, failing in that, to observe the latitude and longitude in which New Zealand lay, and ‘ explore as much of the coast as the condition of the Bark, the health of her crew, and the state of provisions will admit of.’

From 7^th October, 1769, when Nicholas Young sighted land off the coast of Poverty Bay, to 1^st April, 1770, when the Endeavour sailed for Austra­lian waters, Cook was supremely successful in his charting of the New Zealand coastline. His circum­navigation proved that New Zealand was not a part of any Southern Continent.

Cook made two subsequent voyages during which he obtained further details of the coastline and natives of New Zealand, crossed the Antarctic Circle for the first time on record, and explored many islands in the Pacific. He was killed in an affray with Hawaiian natives in 1779.

Cook’s influence on our future was immeasur­able. Tasman had discovered New Zealand for Europeans, but Cook’s map-work and observations, as well as those of his fellow travellers, cleared away a veil of mystery that for so long had shrouded the land and the inhabitants. His proclamations of sovereignty, ambiguous as they were, gave Britain some claim to the country. As a navigator, a man of sensibility and courage, and a conscientious leader, Cook is outstanding in the annals of maritime exploration.