(October 27, 1728–February 14, 1779) was a British naval captain, navigator and explorer. In 1759 and again from 1763–67, he explored the coasts and seaways of Canada. He made three voyages to the Pacific Ocean, 1768–71, 1772–75, 1776–79, sailing from the Antarctic to the Bering Strait, from the coasts of North America to New Zealand and Australia.
Captain Cook was known for not allowing profanity on board,675 he required his men to wear clean clothes on Sunday and on occasions he conducted divine service for his crew.676
Cook’s wife gave him a Prayer Book, which he seems to have read in order, as he named a number of places discovered on significant day, such as the Whitsundays, Trinity Bay, Christmas Island and Pentecost Islands.677
On Trinity Sunday, June 10, 1770, as Cook was sailing up the east coast of Australia, his ship, the Endeavour, struck the Great Barrier Reef. After much work, the crew managed to free her and steered the damaged ship towards a river-mouth, where the banks were suited to laying the vessel ashore for repairs. It was August 4, 1770 before the ship was ready, but no sooner had they embarked when the Endeavour was headed for the reef again. With no wind and seas too deep to cast anchor, the ship slowly was driven by the force of the tides toward certain destruction upon the perpendicular wall under the water.
The men manned the boats and tried in vain to tow her away. Just eighty yards away, “suddenly, a little breath of air moved, blew for a few minutes, faded, the merest cat’s-paw.” It was enough to carry them towards a narrow opening in the reef, but there was still no wind. Another narrow opening was seen in the reef and Cook pulled the head of the ship around.
At last a light breeze sprang up, and with the tide being in their favor, they hurried the vessel through this “Providential Channel,” as Cook named it.678
Richard Pickersgill, the master’s mate wrote that it was:
The narrowest escape we ever had and had it not been for the immediate help of Providence we must inevitably have perished.679
On August 16, 1770, Captain James Cook wrote of the situation:
It pleased God at this very juncture to send us a light air of wind, which, with the help of our boats, carried us about half a cable’s length from the present danger.680
On July 13, 1772, Captain Cook set sail with his ship, the Resolution, on his second voyage in the Pacific Ocean. He crossed the Antarctic Circle three times and reached the farthest south any man had gone, being stopped by solid ice at latitude 71 degrees 10´ south, longitude 106 degrees 34´ west. After three years and eighteen days, they returned home from one of the greatest exploration voyages in history. Cook attributed their success, and the fact only four men were lost out of a crew of 180, to the “care of Providence.”681
On July 12, 1776, Captain Cook set sail in the Resolution, accompanied by the Discovery, on his third voyage in the Pacific, attempting to find a north-west passage by sea from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean. After spending 1777–78 exploring the Friendly Islands, the Society Group and the Bering Strait, he headed toward the Sandwich Islands for the winter.
On February 14, 1779, at Karakakoa Bay on Hawaii Island, some natives stole the cutter (a small fast boat) of the Discovery. Cook attempted to take hostages of the natives until the cutter was returned—a practice he had used many times before with success. However, an angry native, incensed at the shooting of one of their chieftains by a member of Cook’s crew, fired a shot at Cook. This caused fighting to break out, and in a moment when Cook’s back was turned, Koa, the high priest, who just days before had deified Cook as one of their gods, struck him down with a club; others stabbed him to death. Cook was fifty years old.682
Historian F. B. Goodrich gives the account:
The last time Cook was seen distinctly, he was standing at the water’s edge, calling out to the people in the boats to cease firing. It is supposed that he was desirous of stopping further bloodshed, and wished the example of desisting to proceed from his side. His humanity proved fatal to him; and he lost his life in attempting to save the lives of others. It was noticed that while he faced the natives, none of them offered him any violence, deterred, perhaps, by the sacred character he bore as an Orono, but the moment he turned round to give his orders to the men in the boats, he was stabbed in the back and fell, face foremost, into the water.683
Captain Cook’s voyages made Englishmen aware of the existence of new lands. As a young man, William Carey read Captain Cook’s Voyages and was inspired to take the Gospel to India.684