CAPTAIN COOK CAUGHT SHORT
Tuesday, August 15th, 2017‘The Royal Society had accepted the recommendation of [Maskelyne] the Astronomer [Royal] that [Dalrymple] the well-known hydrographer of the Pacific should be chosen as ‘a proper Person to be sent to the South Seas’. H.C. Cameron, Sir Joseph Banks, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1968
Greenwich: Rev. Nevil Maskelyne, Britain’s fifth Astronomer Royal judged Alexander Dalrumple, a Fellow of the Royal Society; ‘a proper Person’ but the Lords of the Admiralty would have none of Alexander Dalrymple. See: Malicious Maskelyne
South Seas: Instead Admiralty chose James Cook, then a lowly Warrant Officer of the Royal Navy, to lead a scientific expedition to the ‘South Seas’ to observe the Transit of Venus.
‘[Cook] Whose remarkable qualities as a seaman and as a navigator and cartographer the Admiralty had learned to value because of his outstanding service in the operation under [General] Wolfe in Canada [Seven Years War 1756-1763]. Cameron. ibid.
Earlier Edmond Haley of comet fame had predicted this celestial phenomenon would occur again in early June 1769.The expedition was a two-for-the-price-of-one venture.
The Royal Society favoured Tahiti as an ideal place to observe the Transit. But the Society could not bear the full cost of sending observers to Tahiti.
They went into partnership with the Lords of the Admiralty who agreed to supply a ship and pay its captain and crew.
After the Transit Endeavour’s Captain, now Lieutenant James Cook, was to open the Admiralty’s ‘secret instructions’. His task, sail HMS Endeavour deep into southern latitudes in search of the fabled Great South Land.