The early years
The three major voyages of discovery of Captain James Cook provided his European masters with unprecedented information about the Pacific Ocean, and about those who lived on its islands and shores. His achievements were the more remarkable because of his humble origins in an agricultural labouring family, from Marton, North Yorkshire.
'... he intended to go not only 'farther than any man has been before me, but as far as I think it possible for man to go'.'
Cook first went to sea at the age of 18. He spent ten years working in the coal trade of the east coast of England - with its shoreline of treacherous, shifting shoals, uncharted shallows, and difficult harbours. In 1755 he joined the Royal Navy, and within two years passed his master's examination to qualify for the navigation and handling of a royal ship. He gained surveying experience in North American waters during the Seven Years War - as Britain and France fought for supremacy in North America - and spent the first years of peace between 1763 and 1767 charting the fog-shrouded coastline of Newfoundland.
During those years he gained a practical training in mathematics and astronomy, and steadily accumulated the technical skills needed to make an effective explorer. The following years were to show that in addition he possessed those less tangible qualities, of leadership, determination and ambition, which made him the outstanding explorer of the 18th century. As he wrote, he intended to go not only 'farther than any man has been before me, but as far as I think it possible for man to go'.
Published: 2002-08-01
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