Starting this thread early, because I haven’t read the main part of the book yet.

Here’s a piece of trivia I didn’t know, so you may not know.

The Endeavour was the fourth British ship in four years that the British admiralty sent to discover Australia. All four sailed westward through the Straights of Magellan and across the Pacific Ocean. The ships were launched in 1765, 1766, 1766, and the Endeavour in 1768.

And a French ship did too, in 1766.

Another piece of trivia, the report of the discovery of the Torres Strait by Torres 1606 was lost from memory until rediscovered in 1769 among documents captured seven years earlier from the Spanish in the Philippines.

Here’s something you didn’t know: Capt James Cook and I share the same birthday. Just a couple hundred years or so apart.

mollwollfumble said:

The Endeavour was the fourth British ship in four years that the British admiralty sent to discover Australia.

The British never sent a ship to discover Australia.

Here’s how much of Australia was mapped by 1644, more than a century before the Endeavour set sail.

Before Cook was even born, the continent had been extensively mapped by Willem Janszoon, Dirk Hartog, Abel Tasman, Jan Carstensz, François Thijssen, William Dampier, Willem de Vlamingh and others.

Here’s how much of Australia was mapped by 1644, more than a century before the Endeavour set sail.

Before Cook was even born, the continent had been extensively mapped by Willem Janszoon, Dirk Hartog, Abel Tasman, Jan Carstensz, François Thijssen, William Dampier, Willem de Vlamingh and others.

dv said:

mollwollfumble said:

The Endeavour was the fourth British ship in four years that the British admiralty sent to discover Australia.

The British never sent a ship to discover Australia.

This is in the preface to the online edition of Captain Cook’s Journal, which by the way is a great read.

‘The exact text of Cook’s orders cannot be given. They were secret orders; but, curiously enough, while the covering letter, which enjoined him to show them to nobody, which is dated July 30th, 1768, is duly entered in Admiralty Records, the orders themselves, which should follow in the letter book, are omitted. They have never been published. “

Peak Warming Man said:

dv said:

mollwollfumble said:

The Endeavour was the fourth British ship in four years that the British admiralty sent to discover Australia.

The British never sent a ship to discover Australia.

This is in the preface to the online edition of Captain Cook’s Journal, which by the way is a great read.

‘The exact text of Cook’s orders cannot be given. They were secret orders; but, curiously enough, while the covering letter, which enjoined him to show them to nobody, which is dated July 30th, 1768, is duly entered in Admiralty Records, the orders themselves, which should follow in the letter book, are omitted. They have never been published. “

Right, but whatever Cook’s orders were, they weren’t to discover a continent that had already been extensively mapped 100 years before.

dv said:

Peak Warming Man said:

dv said:

The British never sent a ship to discover Australia.

This is in the preface to the online edition of Captain Cook’s Journal, which by the way is a great read.

‘The exact text of Cook’s orders cannot be given. They were secret orders; but, curiously enough, while the covering letter, which enjoined him to show them to nobody, which is dated July 30th, 1768, is duly entered in Admiralty Records, the orders themselves, which should follow in the letter book, are omitted. They have never been published. “

Right, but whatever Cook’s orders were, they weren’t to discover a continent that had already been extensively mapped 100 years before.

Yes,one of the annoying claims. He was set on an expedition of exploration but at the same time they fully expected to find an already inhabited region and included instructions not to annoy the natives. This has been bent into hahahahah how could they have discovered Australia (or even more woke) the nations that would come to be known as Australia when there were already people here! Stupid eight wingers.

His journal can be found here.
https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/c/cook/james/c77j/index.html

AwesomeO said:

dv said:

Peak Warming Man said:

This is in the preface to the online edition of Captain Cook’s Journal, which by the way is a great read.

‘The exact text of Cook’s orders cannot be given. They were secret orders; but, curiously enough, while the covering letter, which enjoined him to show them to nobody, which is dated July 30th, 1768, is duly entered in Admiralty Records, the orders themselves, which should follow in the letter book, are omitted. They have never been published. “

Right, but whatever Cook’s orders were, they weren’t to discover a continent that had already been extensively mapped 100 years before.

Yes,one of the annoying claims. He was set on an expedition of exploration but at the same time they fully expected to find an already inhabited region and included instructions not to annoy the natives. This has been bent into hahahahah how could they have discovered Australia (or even more woke) the nations that would come to be known as Australia when there were already people here! Stupid eight wingers.

I don’t think there is much need to bring left and right into this…

dv said:

AwesomeO said:

dv said:

Right, but whatever Cook’s orders were, they weren’t to discover a continent that had already been extensively mapped 100 years before.

Yes,one of the annoying claims. He was set on an expedition of exploration but at the same time they fully expected to find an already inhabited region and included instructions not to annoy the natives. This has been bent into hahahahah how could they have discovered Australia (or even more woke) the nations that would come to be known as Australia when there were already people here! Stupid eight wingers.

I don’t think there is much need to bring left and right into this…

I was wondering where eight lies on the spectrum.

Peak Warming Man said:

dv said:

mollwollfumble said:

The Endeavour was the fourth British ship in four years that the British admiralty sent to discover Australia.

The British never sent a ship to discover Australia.

This is in the preface to the online edition of Captain Cook’s Journal, which by the way is a great read.

‘The exact text of Cook’s orders cannot be given. They were secret orders; but, curiously enough, while the covering letter, which enjoined him to show them to nobody, which is dated July 30th, 1768, is duly entered in Admiralty Records, the orders themselves, which should follow in the letter book, are omitted. They have never been published. “

The exact wording of Captain Cook’s secret orders was believed for a time to be lost, but the original orders now reside in an Australian library, perhaps the Mitchell library, I can look up which library if it really matters.

dv said:

mollwollfumble said:

The Endeavour was the fourth British ship in four years that the British admiralty sent to discover Australia.

The British never sent a ship to discover Australia.

You’d think so, wouldn’t you. Of the three previous ships sent by the British in the previous four years, I don’t know much so far. But I do know this much:

• One was captained by a Captain Samuel Wallis, who was circumnavigating the globe in HMS Dolphin. sighting the island on 18 June 1767. He discovered the island of Tahiti on 18 June 1767 and claimed it for the British – which was why Cook was ordered specifically to Tahiti.
• All three previous ships sent by the British in 1765-1766 were converted warships. It wasn’t realised until they got home that converted warships were entirely the wrong types of ships for this voyage. For starters, they were not big enough to carry anywhere near enough provisions, they were cramped, their middle decks weren’t high enough to stand upright, they had a deep draught so risked shipwreck anywhere near coral, and they weren’t manoeuvrable in heavy seas. In short, lack of provisions and foul weather meant they all had to cut their journeys short by heading north too early. Being made originally to carry coal, the Endeavour had ample room for provisions.
• I don’t know whether this is a disadvantage or not. The three British ships were sheathed in copper – great for stopping shipworms but copper made all the ironwork rust much faster. Cook opted for old-fashioned wooden sheathing, good for the ironwork but didn’t stop the shipworms as well.

The French ship that sailed in 1766, just after the third British one and two years before Cook, was a famous one, Captain Bougainville, the first person to sail between the island that bears his name and New Guinea. Bougainville caught up to the slower of the two British 1766 ships as he rounded Cape Horn on the way home.

Some more trivia about the Endeavour. The crew as it left England included two blacks. I wonder how many other blacks had previously sailed to Australia onboard Dutch ships. William Dampier had most of his crew from Jamaica, so probably had a black or two onboard.

The Endeavour has been compared in size to the Manly Ferry. The Endeavour was the same width, 3/4 the weight, and 1/2 the length of the Manly Ferry.

The refit for voyage doubled the price of the Endeavour over its original purchase cost. But even so, the scientific equipment onboard cost twice as much as the entire cost of the ship including refit.

I could you regale you with more pieces of trivia.

Such as “Captain Cook didn’t discover the east coast of Australia because he wasn’t promoted to captain until he got back to England after discovering the east coast of Australia.”

The blacks that sailed from England on the Endeavour never made it to Australia because they stole a bottle of rum when the ship was ashore in Chile, drank it and died. They were far from being the only sailors on the Endeavour who died by drinking rum.

I could regale you with the colours the Endeavour was painted, and why. And which minor member of the Endeavour’s crew later became Admiral.

What fascinates me far more is that onboard the Endeavour was a the Englishman called John Gore, second lieutenant. Not only did John Gore sail the ship home after Captain Cook died in Tahiti on his third cruise. Also, before stepping onboard the Endeavour, he had already sailed around the world.

In which ship did John Gore circumnavigate the globe? One of the three British ships in the four years before the Endeavour set sail presumably. But which one? The Dolphin? Or one of the other two.

The British never sent a ship to discover Australia.

You’d think so, wouldn’t you.

Well yeah, because it’s fkn obv.

dv said:

The British never sent a ship to discover Australia.

You’d think so, wouldn’t you.

Well yeah, because it’s fkn obv.

Is it disputed that Cook was looking for the Eastern coast of what we now call Australia?

Witty Rejoinder said:

dv said:

The British never sent a ship to discover Australia.

You’d think so, wouldn’t you.

Well yeah, because it’s fkn obv.

Is it disputed that Cook was looking for the Eastern coast of what we now call Australia?

Adding “the Eastern coast of” significantly changes the meaning of a sentence so your riposte is somewhat hatstand.

dv said:

The British never sent a ship to discover Australia.

You’d think so, wouldn’t you.

Well yeah, because it’s fkn obv.

Um, I don’t see why it’s so obvious.

The western half was already known. We know for a fact that Cook was given Admiralty instructions to find the eastern part. The instructions still exist (probably in the Mitchell Library along with the original journals of both Cook and Banks).

Why do you assume that Cook’s instructions were vastly different to the instructions given to the other three Admiralty ships sent off at the same time?

Consider the time frame. All this exploration came about because of the end of a battle. The battle of Sainte-Foy 28 April 1760. The French defeated the British. The needs for the discovery of new lands became a strategic imperative – for all four ships, not just the Endeavour. The French woke up just a year late to what the British were doing, so sent Bougainville after them.

Why do we know so little about the other three ships? Because they failed. Probably because of lack of provisions, but also in part because of the deep draft, the poor seaworthiness, possibly poor weather and possibly scurvy on the other three ships.

Why do you think that the Admiralty chose a coal ship for the Endeavour; it was because they’d learnt from the failure of the other three ships.

Not that the Endeavour was entirely failure-free. On much of the journey back from Batavia, they were burying a crew member almost every day.

mollwollfumble said:

dv said:

The British never sent a ship to discover Australia.

You’d think so, wouldn’t you.

Well yeah, because it’s fkn obv.

Why do you think that the Admiralty chose a coal ship for the Endeavour; it was because they’d learnt from the failure of the other three ships.

Not that the Endeavour was entirely failure-free. On much of the journey back from Batavia, they were burying a crew member almost every day.

And why cook was chosen, he had proven himself as a mapmaker in Canada and early in his career he worked on coalers.

mollwollfumble said:

dv said:

The British never sent a ship to discover Australia.

You’d think so, wouldn’t you.

Well yeah, because it’s fkn obv.

Um, I don’t see why it’s so obvious.

The word “discover” doesn’t mean the same as “further explore”. Only one person can “discover” Australia for the Europeans: it’s an event that happens only once. I suppose we could have a debate about whether it was Torres or Jansz or discovered Australia for the Europeans, but whichever it was, it occurred in 1606. After that, it was impossible for anyone else to discover Australia.

dv said:

mollwollfumble said:

dv said:

The British never sent a ship to discover Australia.

You’d think so, wouldn’t you.

Well yeah, because it’s fkn obv.

Um, I don’t see why it’s so obvious.

The word “discover” doesn’t mean the same as “further explore”. Only one person can “discover” Australia for the Europeans: it’s an event that happens only once. I suppose we could have a debate about whether it was Torres or Jansz or discovered Australia for the Europeans, but whichever it was, it occurred in 1606. After that, it was impossible for anyone else to discover Australia.

Ah, I see, you were misquoting my OP. You’re forgiven.

> And why cook was chosen, he had proven himself as a mapmaker in Canada and early in his career he worked on coalers.

Yes, and not quite yes. His three maps of Canada must have decided the issue, together with his knowledge of astronomy and captaining experience. Another contender was Dalrymple, who was quite put out that Cook was chosen. Dalrymple was an expert on the Islands of the Pacific Ocean, including first hand knowledge of the Philippines. Cook had no knowledge of the Pacific. But Dalrymple was passed over because he wasn’t in the Navy, Cook was, and this mission was paid for by the Navy.

As for the use of a coal ship for Endeavour, opinions differ as to whether it was Cook or Dalrymple who selected it, both claimed to have made the selection. Perhaps most likely is that Dalrymple made the selection and Cook agreed instantly, because of his earlier experience with coal ships.

mollwollfumble said:

Ah, I see, you were misquoting my OP. You’re forgiven.

No, I definitely wasn’t, and you’re not.

Here is your direct quote from the OP.
“The Endeavour was the fourth British ship in four years that the British admiralty sent to discover Australia. “

I haven’t edited anything.

So here we are … “No, the British never sent a ship to discover Australia.”

dv said:

mollwollfumble said:

Ah, I see, you were misquoting my OP. You’re forgiven.

No, I definitely wasn’t, and you’re not.

Here is your direct quote from the OP.
“The Endeavour was the fourth British ship in four years that the British admiralty sent to discover Australia. “

I haven’t edited anything.

So here we are … “No, the British never sent a ship to discover Australia.”

OK, OK. I slipped up, I thought I said “eastern Australia” in the OP. And anyway, I was wrong even there. Reading further into the book. It turns out that eastern Australia was Cook’s fourth objective of the voyage, and almost certainly not one the British admiralty particularly cared about.

• The first objective was a southern continent due west of Chile. Cook sailed west from the Straits of Magellan, finding nothing.

• The second objective was to observe the transit of Venus from Tahiti. I had heard this called both a success and a failure. Now I know why. The real reason for measuring the transit was to observe it from three locations around the Earth in order to determine the distance of the Earth from the Sun. Cook did successfully observe the transit but the view was hazy. It was hazy in the other two locations as well, too hazy for its actual purpose. And the accurate distance from the Earth to the Sun had to wait for another 70 years.

• The third objective was to look for the eastern side of Tasman’s continent of New Zealand. It wasn’t a continent. Interesting from my point of view, a Maori from the North Island that Cook met, had already known of both the South Island and Stewart Island. So here we have proof that the Maories had circumnavigated New Zealand by ship before Cook arrived. Several other interesting trivia from New Zealand, one is that New Zealand was described in the journals as a wonderful place – so why was there no official settlement for a very long time? Apart from the occasional sealer, whaler and missionary stations. New Zealand was never a proper colony. Even as a part of NSW it was cut in half. Another trivia is that the tribe of “Murderers” from Tasman’s “Murderer’s Bay” had already been completely wiped out by other Maori before Cook arrived. So although the Maori shared a common language, that did not stop them from tribal warfare to extinction. Another piece of trivia, Cook was not racist against the Maori. Cook felt that so long as you kept a close watch to ensure that you weren’t murdered in your sleep, a sensible precaution with a cannibal people, the Maori fighting spirit would make them an excellent friend and ally.

• Eastern Australia was only the fourth and definitely least objective of Cook’s first voyage. For good reason – the Dutch had sent back one after another dozens of completely negative reports of the country. Tasman’s report of Van Diemen’s Land was also completely negative. So the voyage was one of hope that on the eastern side was at least some good land. Although Cook’s reports of Eastern Australia were positive, Banks’ report of Botany Bay was negative. Throughout Eastern Australia the coastal soil was found to be uniformly poor for growing crops, and harbours they saw were all inadequate.

——————

I have been wondering recently about what sealers would have discovered if they had ever made maps of where they went. Sealers were around before Cook, but don’t seem to have investigated the South Pacific until the 1790s. British, French and American whalers, sealers and traders started arriving then.

mollwollfumble said:

OK, OK. I slipped up, I thought I said “eastern Australia” in the OP.

Oh okay, no worries

OK, I’m getting there.

I’ve found diaries of the Endeavour’s voyage online at https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/results/r?_col=200&_p=1700&_hb=tna&_q=admiralty+endeavour Pay per view but not expensive.

• Masters Log
• Robert Molineux (ship’s master, in charge of navigation)
• Captain James Cook
• (Note, not Banks)

I’ve also found diaries of the Dolphin’s voyage online at https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/results/r?_col=200&_p=1700&_hb=tna&_q=admiralty+dolphin

• Wm Grosvenor (1764 to 1766) https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C2976706
• Captain S Wallis (1766 to 1768) https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C2976707

• Hold on, there is actually no overlap between the dates of the logs of William Grosvenor and Samuel Wallis. Is this two journeys?

Yes! According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Dolphin_(1751) “She was the first ship to circumnavigate the world twice. … she was used as a survey ship from 1764 and made two circumnavigations of the world under the successive commands of John Byron and Samuel Wallis”

I may have found the name of the final mystery ship. The Swallow. “SWALLOW: Journal kept by Captain P Carteret. Discovery: South America, Pacific, New Guinea”, 1766 July 7-1769 Apr 12 https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C2976802

The Endeavour, Dolphin and Swallow were the three ships sent out by the British admiralty to search for new lands in the South Pacific in 1764 to 1768. And the Dolphin sailed the route twice. I’m still looking for:

• Why the other three voyages didn’t discover eastern Australia
• How the other three captains were selected.

OK, I know what I ought to do. I ought to pay to download the diaries of William Grosvenor, Captain Samuel Wallis and Captain Philip Carteret.

The wikipedia entry on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Dolphin_(1751) is enlightening.

The Dolphin’s first circumnavigation was the fastest at that time, the Dolphin was the first ship ever to circumnavigate the world in less than two years. The Swallow and Dolphin sailed together, but got separated later. That means the Swallow was the slower ship of 1766, the one that Bougainville caught up with. It also means that the Dolphin had arrived back in England on her second circumnavigation before the Endeavour sailed, but the Swallow only arrived back in England in 1769, after the Endeavour had already sailed. “In December 1766, conflicts between the two captains (Swallow and Dolphin) led to the separation of the ships, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_and_American_voyages_of_scientific_exploration

“During this voyage, in 1765, Byron took possession of the Falkland Islands on behalf of Britain on the grounds of prior discovery, and in so doing was nearly the cause of a war between Great Britain and Spain, both countries having armed fleets ready to contest the sovereignty of the barren islands. Later Byron visited islands of Tuamotus, Tokelau and Nikunau in the Gilbert Islands, putting them on European maps for the first time (in European circles, Nikunau went by the name “Byron Island” for over 100 years); and visited Tinian in the Northern Marianas Islands.”

Here’s an amusing titbit. “Early on a large canoe approached Dolphin and at a signal its occupants launched a storm of stones at the British, who replied with grapeshot. Wallis then sent his carpenters ashore to cut the eighty-some canoes there in half. Eventually, friendly relations were established between the British sailors and the locals. The relationships became particularly friendly when the sailors discovered that the women were eager to exchange sex for iron. This trade became so extensive that the loss of nails started to threaten Dolphin’s physical integrity.”

Hold on, John Gore circumnavigated the world three times. Under Byron, under Wallis, then under Cook. Or was it four times, also on Cook’s third expedition?

Joseph Banks journal.
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks05/0501141h.html

Peak Warming Man said:

Joseph Banks journal.
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks05/0501141h.html

Good to see that Project Gutenberg is still going. I hadn’t visited for ages.

The Rev Dodgson said:

Peak Warming Man said:

Joseph Banks journal.
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks05/0501141h.html

Good to see that Project Gutenberg is still going. I hadn’t visited for ages.

No worries.

The Rev Dodgson said:

Peak Warming Man said:

Joseph Banks journal.
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks05/0501141h.html

Good to see that Project Gutenberg is still going. I hadn’t visited for ages.

Thanks. A must read – but not immediately. Did you know that Banks gave scientific names for the five species of vermin that infested the Endeavour’s “ships biscuit”, one of them rare? These vermin were described as “hotter than mustard”, and over 1000 could be shaken out of a single biscuit. The officers had the luxury of having their ships biscuit heated slowly in an oven, causing the vermin to abandon it. The other crew had no such luxury.
Banks hated Latin, but Solander didn’t. Some of Banks’ diary is writing down what Solander dictated to him.

Ever wonder how Banks’ scientific equipment managed to cost twice as much as the entire refitted ship Endeavour? Ask me if you want to know.

Ever wonder how he didn’t manage to lose everything when it was tossed overboard to help the ship float when it ran aground near Endeavour River? OK, I don’t know that, but I do know that a lot of his stuff got wet.

Have bit the bullet. Buying these.

Reading the diary for The Swallow first, because it’s the least known.

Difficult to read, not so much because of the poorness or antiquity of the writing, but because of fading.

22 Jul 1766, first boarded the Swallow in Chatham.
10 Aug 1766, met the Dolphin at Portsmouth.
8 Sep 1766, at the island of Madeira.
24 Sep 1766, at Porta Priya Bay (wherever the hell that is)
29 Sep 1766, passing St Jago (is this Santiago? can’t be)
8 Dec 1766, passing Penguin Island
16 Dec 1766, passing Cape Fair Weather (latitude 51˚37’S, longitude 69:06W from London). That’s just before the Straits of Magellan (latitude 52˚17’S).
19 Dec 1766, at Possession Bay
27 Dec 1766 to 17 Jan 1767, moored at Port Famine Bay (half way through the Straits of Magellan)
23 Jan to 27 Jan 1767, moored at Port Gallant Harbour
…
Lots of unfamiliar place names, aha, found something.
10 May 1767, Juan Fernando (I bet that’s Juan Fernandez Islands, 670 km off the coast of Chile, Latitude 33˚S)
Found this on the web about the Swallow’s journey.

Translates partly as “Bad situation of the Swallow” and “Discovery” of three islands.

Finally getting some latitudes and longitudes.
25 May 1767, Latitude 32˚5’S, Longitude 0˚46’E, (so sailing due west from Juan Fernandez Islands, compare Sydney at 34˚S).

15 Jun 1767, Latitude 27˚47’S, Longitude 20˚0’W.
Hold on, those longitudes can’t be right

12 Aug 1767, Latitude

13 Aug 1767, to be continued, not quite rivetting reading

mollwollfumble said:

Reading the diary for The Swallow first, because it’s the least known.

Difficult to read, not so much because of the poorness or antiquity of the writing, but because of fading.

22 Jul 1766, first boarded the Swallow in Chatham.
10 Aug 1766, met the Dolphin at Portsmouth.
8 Sep 1766, at the island of Madeira.
24 Sep 1766, at Porta Priya Bay (wherever the hell that is)
29 Sep 1766, passing St Jago (is this Santiago? can’t be)
8 Dec 1766, passing Penguin Island
16 Dec 1766, passing Cape Fair Weather (latitude 51˚37’S, longitude 69:06W from London). That’s just before the Straits of Magellan (latitude 52˚17’S).
19 Dec 1766, at Possession Bay
27 Dec 1766 to 17 Jan 1767, moored at Port Famine Bay (half way through the Straits of Magellan)
23 Jan to 27 Jan 1767, moored at Port Gallant Harbour
…
Lots of unfamiliar place names, aha, found something.
10 May 1767, Juan Fernando (I bet that’s Juan Fernandez Islands, 670 km off the coast of Chile, Latitude 33˚S)
Found this on the web about the Swallow’s journey.

Translates partly as “Bad situation of the Swallow” and “Discovery” of three islands.

Finally getting some latitudes and longitudes.
25 May 1767, Latitude 32˚5’S, Longitude 0˚46’E, (so sailing due west from Juan Fernandez Islands, compare Sydney at 34˚S).

15 Jun 1767, Latitude 27˚47’S, Longitude 20˚0’W.
Hold on, those longitudes can’t be right

12 Aug 1767, Latitude

13 Aug 1767, to be continued, not quite rivetting reading

Only one place mentioned before the Carteret Islands.

“The Carteret Islands (also known as Carteret Atoll, Tulun or Kilinailau Islands/Atoll) are Papua New Guinea islands located 86 km (53 mi) north-east of Bougainville in the South Pacific. The atoll has a scattering of low-lying islands called Han, Jangain, Yesila, Yolasa and Piul, in a horseshoe shape stretching 30 km (19 mi) in north-south direction, with a total land area of 0.6 square kilometres (0.2 sq mi) and a maximum elevation of 1.5 metres (4 ft 11.1 in) above sea level. The group is made up of islands collectively named after the British navigator Philip Carteret, who was the first European to discover them, arriving in the sloop Swallow in 1767.” 4°45′S 155°24′E

10 Sep 1767, Latitude 4˚14’S Longitude 0:55W. Longitudes still make no sense.

“New Hanover Island, also called Lavongai, is a large volcanic island in the New Ireland Province. This region is part of the Bismarck Archipelago of Papua New Guinea and lies at 2.5°S 150.25°E”.

2 Nov 1767, Mindanao in the Philippines.

“Carteret’s Voyage Round the World, 1766-1769, Volume 1” Google ebook – much more readable, too expensive. But we know that, unlike Cook, he did have big problems with scurvy.

14 Dec 1767, The Celebes

16 Dec 1767, Macassar

21 Dec 1767 to 21 May 1768 , Moored at Bonthain Bay, Celebes. Why five whole months? Probably make interesting reading.

3 Jun 1768, Batavia

etc. Hung around “Coopers island”, wherever that is, probably in Indonesia, until back to serious sea on 30 Sep 1768.

28 Nov 1768 to 6 Jan 1768, Table Bay, Cape of Good Hope

21 Jan 1769, Saint Helena

31 Jan 1769, Ascension Island

St Michael Island

25 Mar 1769, Portsmouth (home)

By then, the Endeavour with Cook would have been long gone. He was in Tahiti by 3 Jun.

The Rev Dodgson said:

Good to see that Project Gutenberg is still going. I hadn’t visited for ages.

It’s a fantastic resource

So the voyage of Carteret in the Swallow is, for the most part, boring. Difficult to read and most of the paces mentioned are unidentifiable.

Can’t see a map of the journey on the internet, yet. Hey, what’s this?

The blurb says: “This map follows the voyages of Cook and other explorers of the South Pacific Ocean between 1765 – 1769. The routes of Byron, Mouats, Wallis, Carteret, and Cook are depicted, with indications of the dates of their travels and their discoveries.”

Difficult to read. For sale at auction.
Who is Mouats?

Middle right is an Island off the coast of Chile that had a description that looks like Juan Fernandez islands, with two ship tracks past it. One of those tracks must be Carteret.

mollwollfumble said:

So the voyage of Carteret in the Swallow is, for the most part, boring. Difficult to read and most of the paces mentioned are unidentifiable.

Can’t see a map of the journey on the internet, yet. Hey, what’s this?

The blurb says: “This map follows the voyages of Cook and other explorers of the South Pacific Ocean between 1765 – 1769. The routes of Byron, Mouats, Wallis, Carteret, and Cook are depicted, with indications of the dates of their travels and their discoveries.”

Difficult to read. For sale at auction.
Who is Mouats?

Middle right is an Island off the coast of Chile that had a description that looks like Juan Fernandez islands, with two ship tracks past it. One of those tracks must be Carteret.

The map comes from https://www.wdl.org/en/item/2674/

“Wallis and Carteret set out in 1766 to find a rumoured, but non-existent, southern continent at 20º south latitude. Failing …”
They sure failed. There is one.

Available as a pdf on https://dl.wdl.org/2674/service/2674.pdf
Warning, pdf takes about an hour to download.

mollwollfumble said:

mollwollfumble said:

So the voyage of Carteret in the Swallow is, for the most part, boring. Difficult to read and most of the paces mentioned are unidentifiable.

Can’t see a map of the journey on the internet, yet. Hey, what’s this?

The blurb says: “This map follows the voyages of Cook and other explorers of the South Pacific Ocean between 1765 – 1769. The routes of Byron, Mouats, Wallis, Carteret, and Cook are depicted, with indications of the dates of their travels and their discoveries.”

Difficult to read. For sale at auction.
Who is Mouats?

Middle right is an Island off the coast of Chile that had a description that looks like Juan Fernandez islands, with two ship tracks past it. One of those tracks must be Carteret.

The map comes from https://www.wdl.org/en/item/2674/

“Wallis and Carteret set out in 1766 to find a rumoured, but non-existent, southern continent at 20º south latitude. Failing …”
They sure failed. There is one.

Available as a pdf on https://dl.wdl.org/2674/service/2674.pdf
Warning, pdf takes about an hour to download.

809 mb.

roughbarked said:

mollwollfumble said:

mollwollfumble said:

So the voyage of Carteret in the Swallow is, for the most part, boring. Difficult to read and most of the paces mentioned are unidentifiable.

Can’t see a map of the journey on the internet, yet. Hey, what’s this?

The blurb says: “This map follows the voyages of Cook and other explorers of the South Pacific Ocean between 1765 – 1769. The routes of Byron, Mouats, Wallis, Carteret, and Cook are depicted, with indications of the dates of their travels and their discoveries.”

Difficult to read. For sale at auction.
Who is Mouats?

Middle right is an Island off the coast of Chile that had a description that looks like Juan Fernandez islands, with two ship tracks past it. One of those tracks must be Carteret.

The map comes from https://www.wdl.org/en/item/2674/

“Wallis and Carteret set out in 1766 to find a rumoured, but non-existent, southern continent at 20º south latitude. Failing …”
They sure failed. There is one.

Available as a pdf on https://dl.wdl.org/2674/service/2674.pdf
Warning, pdf takes about an hour to download.

809 mb.

took me four minutes.

roughbarked said:

roughbarked said:

mollwollfumble said:

The map comes from https://www.wdl.org/en/item/2674/

“Wallis and Carteret set out in 1766 to find a rumoured, but non-existent, southern continent at 20º south latitude. Failing …”
They sure failed. There is one.

Available as a pdf on https://dl.wdl.org/2674/service/2674.pdf
Warning, pdf takes about an hour to download.

809 mb.

took me four minutes.

And me, after an hour, still only 320 mb downloaded. Going to take another hour and half to finish.

mollwollfumble said:

roughbarked said:

roughbarked said:

809 mb.

took me four minutes.

And me, after an hour, still only 320 mb downloaded. Going to take another hour and half to finish.

Nup. Frozen after 349 mb. Have to give up.

mollwollfumble said:

mollwollfumble said:

roughbarked said:

took me four minutes.

And me, after an hour, still only 320 mb downloaded. Going to take another hour and half to finish.

Nup. Frozen after 349 mb. Have to give up.

The first attempt failed almost immediately but after reloading the download, it took four minutes.

“Cook’s Third and Last Voyages” is out of order, being pp. 399 to 653. That’s the voyage to Kamchatka.

The following not look like much, but it compares the track of Cook’s first voyage to that of all three British ships that went just before him. In date order: Byron, Wallis and Carteret. Top, middle and bottom.

The following looks startlingly like a funeral ceremony in the Kimberleys of WA observed by and drawn by Idriess in “Over the Range”, but this one is in Tahiti! The similarity is too close to be accidental. In the Kimberleys it is disliked by whites because it is a prelude to ritual tribal murder, once the dead person’s ghost has pointed out which person cast the evil spell on him (by the random action of wind) that person in murdered.

A lot of the other images in here are famous, very familiar, the Maouri, the Kangaroo, the Endeavour beached on Endeavour River, etc.

That’s unexpected, in 1765, Byron on the Dolphin turned back from the middle of the Straits of Magellan to discover more of the Falkland Islands. Encountering Bougainville on the way. I didn’t know its mission included going backwards, or that Bougainville sailed before 1766.

“Masa Fuero” seems to be the Dolphin’s setting off point for first exploring the South Pacific (And Carteret’s for that matter). But where is it? Gotcha. 33°41’ S, 81°40’ W. Now known as Isla Alejandro Selkirk, a long way out to sea due west of Santiago.

Steered towards “Davis’s Land”, which may be Easter Island, but missed it passing well east at 26˚46’ S, 94˚45’ W. Steering NW from there “because of the long journey”.

Tried to find the Solomon Islands, but missed them.

Ended up at Byron’s Island 1°48′ S, 173°46’ E. That would put it in Kiribati.

——————

But in the meantime, feast your eyes on this. James Cook through the Bering Straits.

And here are all Cook’s tours in the South Pacific. See, he did get to Easter Island.

The world, as it was known in ~1780. Not too far off complete.

Dang it! I can not find the original or a good copy of the map I posted before, this one, can you find it, roughbarked? The copy below is illegible.