COMMANDER COOK
We owe James Cook a more than we can ever repay.
He explored more areas and discovered more places than any other man and brought us a wealth of scientific knowledge as well. He explored on all seven continents including two trips to chart the edge of Antarctica.
I have no idea why we “demote” the man, for he attained to the rank of Commander, it may well stem from the man's natural sense of modesty and his insistence on doing things properly.
Often, I feel, we fail to realize the unique nature of his explorations. Most of the expeditions were funded by commercial interests such as several merchants joining to share the cost in return for treasures to be brought back to them, by Kings and Queens to add to their holdings, by religious groups, or by adventurers bordering, at times, on being renegades. The major trips taken by Cook were all funded by the Royal Geographic Society.
Following the coal collier years, He enlisted in the Royal Navy as a common seaman and continued to study surveying, navigation and astronomy. As a result of this unusual use of his time, he rose quickly through the ranks. He served in the Seven Years War and he was in the group which surveyed and charted the St. Lawrence River in advance of Wolfe's campaign in Canada.
Cook show a special ability to lead men and got along well with the scientists who became a part of ship's personnel on every trip he made after his navy years. They were often of an academic sort and must have caused some disruptions to routines aboard ship, especially in emergency times when they were called upon to serve as crew members rather than guests. Cook could, it seems, act as one of them on such occasions.
Read a good biography of this man's interesting life. The heritage he left us is complex and spans so many spheres of knowledge. It is said that Captain Cook explored or named one-third of all the places we know in the Pacific area today.
The story of his life has a tragic end at sixty-nine years of age. The facts prove that he was killed by Hawaiian natives. One version has him being revered as the God Lono and was suddenly discovered to be be a mere man because he bled. He was, That version insists, bludgeoned to death then and there. It happened in the very island he had discovered and named in honor of Lord Sandwich. He was one of the first to travel the high seas without losing crew members to scurvy. He insisted on vegetables and sour kraut in their mess kits and he kept a milk goat aboard as well.
While not a perfect man by any account, James Cook deserves more recognition than he has received.
A.L.M. November 15, 2002 [c483wds]
