Community & Business
3 February, 2026
In defence of Captain James Cook: Final in our series
The Endeavour’s stay in Botany Bay had gone well for both Cook and the botanist Joseph Banks. Cook had filled his water barrels and taken fresh food on board and they had avoided bloodshed, unlike their New Zealand experience. Banks was astounded by the new species of plants and animals he encountered with his discoveries gaining him much fame on his return to England. The voyage along the coastline of New South Wales went without incident but once the Endeavour entered Queensland waters Cook would be forced to confront the dangers of sailing inside the world’s longest coral reef system.
Towards the Coral Coast
Banks and Solander naturally wanted to stay longer in Botany Bay but Cook was anxious to begin the task of mapping the coastline.
Two hours after leaving Botany Bay he viewed the rugged cliffs of the entrance of what today is Sydney Harbour.
Cook was in no mood for sightseeing, he wished to get as many miles under the Endeavour’s keel as quickly as possible and so avoided exploring the wonders of Sydney Harbour.
Unfortunately Cook’s luck was about to change as he would soon be sailing inside the Great Barrier Reef and he was totally unaware of its existence.
By daylight of 20th May he cleared the northern end of Fraser Island which was fortunate because on his port side was the mostly hidden Breaksea Spit a dangerous reef stretching to the north for many miles.
Unbeknown to Cook, on his starboard side, he sailed past the famous Lady Elliot and Lady Musgrave Islands which mark the beginning of the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef.
As Cook was diligently charting the coastline he sailed as close to it as possible and remained in blissful ignorance of the magnificent but dangerous reef that was slowly closing in on the coastline.
At 2pm on 10th June he anchored off Cape Grafton near the entrance to Trinity Inlet where the tourist city of Cairns now stands.
Green Island, surrounded by coral reef was within sight but Cook remained unaware as he sailed north.
He would soon reach the length of coastline near Cape Tribulation where the reef system comes closest to the coast.
At 6pm on 11th June the Endeavour was north of Cape Tribulation and looking further north Cook sighted what he eventually named Hope Islands.
He felt it safer to pass the islands to port of the Endeavour unaware this course would take him into the maze of coral reefs.
On this night there was to be a full moon and the breeze was light, East South East, the makings of a beautiful night’s sailing... if you know where all the small reefs are.
Cook did not know but was only concerned about the Hope Islands to the north.
Seduced by the Moon
So confident was Cook that the night held no fears he retired to his cabin in the early evening.
The full moon allowed good visibility for those on watch but allowed no vision below the water and the light breeze would create no white water breaking on coral reefs.
Men still cast out the lead line checking the depth and the crew took comfort that, as they headed away from the coastline, the depth increased.
Nobody on Endeavour was aware of the approaching danger.
Just before 11pm the ship, sailing at possibly 2 knots came to an abrupt and frightening halt as the it crashed its way onto a coral reef.
There is no more sickening noise to the ears of sailors than that of the grinding noise of a ship’s hull on a reef.
From his bed Cook heard and felt the collision and quickly pulled on his boots and ran on deck still in his underwear.
The fate of the Endeavour and its crew would be determined by the actions taken over the next hour.
The journal of Joseph Banks best describes the professional reaction of Cook and his crew to the immediate danger:
“The officers behaved with inimitable coolness void of all hurry and confusion;
a boat was got out in which the Master went and after sounding around the ship found that she had ran over a rock and consequently had shoal water all around her.”
Most important now was to get all sails down to stop the ship from grinding its way further up the reef.
Standing and running rigging (ropes) needed to be secured and this required numerous crew members to go aloft in the dark to untangle the maze of ropes.
Using the longboat and the pinnance the crew quickly laid out anchors in the hope they could haul the ship off the reef.
As the Endeavour had struck the reef almost at the top of the high tide, Cook instinctively knew he had to lighten the ship. At 3am the crew began to jettison any heavy items deemed unnecessary.
Eight tons of iron ballast and several cannons were manhandled into the sea along with firewood and finally in an act of desperation barrels of fresh water were pumped overboard.
Cook estimated by day light they had removed 40 to 50 tons of dead-weight and they now waited for the next high tide to try and haul the ship off the reef by straining against the kedge anchors.
Judging by the amount of seawater entering the ship the damage to the hull was considerable and all bilge pumps were constantly manned.
By the afternoon the tide returned and Cook prepared to re-float the Endeavour. Cook recorded the time in his journal:
“...... at 5 O’clock in the PM, the tide we observed began to rise and the leak increased upon us which obliged us to set the third pump to work. At 9 O’clock the ship righted and the leak gained upon the pumps considerably. This was an alarming and I may say terrible circumstance and threatened immediate destruction to us as soon as the ship was afloat. However, I resolved to risk all and heave her off.”
With men straining on the windlass and capstan the anchors held their position and with a frightening sound the Endeavour was hauled into deeper water around 10pm.
Now water streamed into the ship faster than the pumps could remove it.
To stop the inflow of water the crew set a sail under the ship’s hull in a process known as fothering.
As the intake of water decreased Endeavour headed back towards the mainland.
Cook was lucky to find a suitable river (appropriately named the Endeavour River) and with favourable weather the Endeavour was beached on Sunday morning 17th June 1770.
When the tide retreated inspection of the hull was possible and their worst fears were realised when they saw the extent of the damage.
Escaping the Reef
Shipwrights now set about finding suitable trees to source timber for repairs to the ship’s hull.
After seven weeks intensive work the Endeavour was ready to put to sea again.
The men were now longing for home but Cook had to find a way into the open sea through what seemed an endless wall of coral.
From a hill on Lizard Island Cook observed a gap in the reef and decided it was their escape route.
Known today as Cook’s Passage large ships often use it to enter and leave the Great Barrier Reef.
Eventually reaching the northern tip of Cape York, Cook went ashore on what he named Possession Island and claimed half the continent for Britain naming it New South Wales.
With the Endeavour in bad shape he headed for Batavia (Jakarta) but ultimately this stop would prove fatal.
Jakarta was infested with malaria-carrying mosquitoes and dysentery causing the death of many of the crew.
Eventually the Endeavour sailed into English waters and safety on 12th July 1771.
The voyage had taken almost three years to complete and one third of the crew had died before reaching home.
Cook’s Legacy
The death of so many of Cook’s crew in Batavia weighed heavily on Cook’s mind after his efforts to save them from scurvy.
Cook paid a huge personal price for the voyage as on return to England he was informed that while away two of his children had died.
During their time in Botany Bay the English and the Gweagal aboriginal tribe had kept their distance with only minimal interaction but importantly there was no bloodshed.
It might be argued that given the circumstances this was possibly the best result that could have been achieved and both Cook and the warriors of the Gweagal tribe should be given equal credit.
The sixty thousand years of isolation from the scientific and technological advancements the rest of the world had experienced was now a major disadvantage for the indigenous people of the island continent.
Europe was at the centre of these changes where gunpowder and new weapons such as muskets and cannons and advancements in ship design and navigation gave the Europeans a gigantic advantage.
James Cook could hardly be held responsible for this scenario, he was an instrument of these developments not a creator.
Cook’s voyage was certainly the catalyst for the later British convict settlement in Australia in 1788.
The blatant dumping of the unwanted of society onto newly discovered lands was a small part of the mass emigration of Europeans to new settlements in Africa, America and Australia.
People locked out of land ownership in Europe were desperate enough to become pioneers in harsh new lands.
This was a demographic movement that no person, on earth, certainly not Cook, had the power to stop.
In a strange, ironic twist the world is now in the grip of an even greater movement of emigrants and refugees and as a result the planet is experiencing social and political unrest.
However, this time the impoverished and war weary people of Africa, Asia and the Middle East are pouring into Europe, legally and illegally, in the hope of achieving a better life.
James Cook was a small cog in this mass emigration movement that began in the 18th century and continues today, but not the instigator.
He should be viewed as an outstanding seaman who explored more of the world than any other mariner.
His work as a cartographer producing charts of much of the Pacific allowed safer navigation of the oceans as did his work on new ways of calculating longitude at sea.
Cook brought the Endeavour back to England when many other ships perished in the wild, unexplored oceans of the world.
Cook’s Mental Decline
Much has been written recently, especially by his detractors, that towards the end of Cook’s 1779 voyage he was suffering some degree of mental illness.
Some historians believe he was in constant pain, from what disease or aliment we are not sure, but causing him to be short tempered and mentally unstable.
The breakdown of his relationship with the Hawaiians and his eventual violent death can be attributed largely to Cook’s mental instability.
Cook was knocked to the ground by a group of natives then beaten to death and his body mutilated.
Such was the danger he and his crew faced when interacting with indigenous societies.
However, surely it is unfair to totally condemn Cook as a result of the mental illness he suffered towards the end of his life and like all people suffering mental illness should be shown some compassion.
Cook’s mental illness should be viewed as another example of the price he paid for his three voyages of Pacific Ocean exploration where stress, loneliness and a totally unhealthy diet took its toll.
Surely vandalism of his statues should not be another price he pays for the many years he spent at sea serving his country and his many important discoveries during his three voyages of exploration between 1769 and 1779.
