Endeavour by Peter Moore

Author:Peter Moore
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780143780274
Publisher: Penguin Random House Australia

The Shot man had a human tooth hanging at one ear and a girdle of Matting about four inches broad was passed twice round his loins & tied. He had a paddle in his hand which, tho’ drawing his last breath, he would not part with without the greatest reluctance.35

It was a calamitous end to a fraught meeting. To add a trivial disappointment to the personal tragedies, the ship’s company were not able to collect any water from the river, finding it brackish. In exasperation, Cook reboarded the pinnace with Banks, Solander and Tupaia, and they pushed off, aiming to skirt the bay to the south and round the headland in search of water. Cook also devised what Molyneux called ‘a generous christianlike Plan’, to surprise some of the Māori, ‘take them on board and by good treatment and presents endeavour to gain their friendship’. Approaching the headland, Cook saw his chance. A fishing canoe was standing in towards them. It was returning from a trip to sea. Behind it followed a second.

Thinking this the best time to spring his plan, Cook ordered the pinnace brought up, abreast of the canoes. He did not anticipate trouble. As fishermen they ‘probably were without arms’, reasoned Banks, and they were drawn up ‘in such a manner that they could not well escape us.’ The pinnace neared the canoes. As they approached, the first spotted them and ‘made immediately for the nearest land’. The second, though, continued as before. Almost alongside, Tupaia called over the water, to tell the fishermen they would not be hurt. Instead of submitting, the canoe struck sail and ‘began to paddle so briskly’, Banks wrote, ‘that she outran our boat’. Cook ordered a musket to be fired over the canoe. But rather than stopping, the fishermen ceased paddling and all seven of them began to strip their clothes. Banks thought they were poised to jump into the water, to make for shore. As soon as the pinnace ran alongside, they began to attack.

The fishermen fought desperately. They threw ‘Pikes or Spears from 18 to 10 feet long’, ‘and Fought as long as ever they had things to Throw’, even ‘a Parcel of Fish which they had in the Canoe they flung’.36 Those in the pinnace retaliated with gunfire. Cook estimated in his journal that ‘two or three’ were killed, while Banks set the number at four. Three other boys had leapt overboard, one swimming ‘with great agility’ towards the shore, ‘and when taken made every effort in his power to prevent being taken into the boat, the other two were more easily prevaild upon’.37

The boys were carried to Endeavour, where they cowered on the deck, anticipating death. An order was given for them to be clothed and ‘treated with all immaginable kindness’, and both Cook and Banks observed an immediate shift in their moods, they becoming ‘as cheerful and as merry as if they had been with their own friends’. They were young boys, the eldest about twenty, the youngest ten or twelve.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.