All language subtitles for James Mays Great Explorers s01e03 Captain Cook.eng

Captain Cook was
the son of a humble farmworker

and because of the class system,

almost certainly destined to become
a humble farmworker himself.

But he was a bright boy, and
he was going to smash the system.

Now, his dad's boss noticed that
the lad had promise

and he arranged for him to have
an apprenticeship in a shop.

So now it seemed that
Cook was destined to spend his days

weighing out cheeses and herrings.

But he also spent time listening
to stories from the old seafarers.

And legend has it that
one day, one of them paid him

with a shiny, South Sea shilling

and that was the call.

BRIGHT MUSIC

'The Age of the Great Explorers was

'one of the most dramatic
in history.'

Ooh!

'When men risked their lives...'

Cast orff and set sail.
Whoa!

Take up on the peak!
'..to seek new lands.'

We're somewhere north
of the dog's arse.

Where the camera gone? Hello.

They crossed thousands of miles
of treacherous ocean,

they built floating fortresses,
they mapped the stars,

they developed
whole new branches of science.

Eurgh! Absolute pish.

'But were these explorers really
heroes or just a bunch of chancers?'

It's a miracle
he found anything at all, really.

Completely made-up,
the man was a charlatan.

'And is their legacy
one of triumph...'

Ooh!

'..or destruction?'
Crikey.

Now it's turning a little bit dark.

'I'm doing a bit of discovering
of my own...'

Unbelievably terrible.

Medieval sat-nav 2.0, a stick.

Oh, has he just shat on my trousers?
PIG SQUEALS

'..to learn how these explorers
conquered the oceans...'

Look at that.

I love it.

Nobody panic yet.

It's not just a map, it's a weapon!

'..and change the world forever.'
Whoa!

Dial out!
Ah, gold!

If you were in the Navy now, the
French would definitely have got us.

HE LAUGHS

SHATTERING

GULLS CALLING

'You join me at an exciting time,
viewers - the 18th Century.'

It was an age of wonder.

The mysteries of science
were being revealed,

the Industrial Revolution
was just around the corner.

And into this knowledge-hungry world

stepped a sailor
of extraordinary abilities.

His voyages would bring
massive advancements

in geography, navigation,
biology, medicine.

He would chart the final
unknown third of the globe

and he was also the last
great explorer of the Age of Sail.

He was Captain James Cook.

'Today, he divides opinion

'and in some parts of the world,
he's known as "Captain Crook".

'But back in 1746,

'he was just a 17-year-old
shopkeeper, longing to go to sea.

'And Whitby docks
in England's North East was

'the right place to be.

'Cook wangled himself
an apprenticeship on the coal ships

'and moved into the attic
of a local ship owner

'where he stayed up late each night,
poring over his books.'

Now, in Cook's time, Whitby was a
sort of a mariners' university town,

or it was referred to at the time
as the "nursery of the sea".

And considering how young
these apprentices would have been,

they did some remarkable homework.

'Being a sailor wasn't
all hauling ropes and guzzling rum -

'you had to be an A-plus student.'

It's full of
very complicated geometry,

mathematical calculations
about sailing and direction.

It's incredible.

And then right at the back,
when all else has failed -

geometry, astronomy -
there is a psalm.

A psalm for you to sing. Psalm 28.

'O Lord my rock to thee I cry
in sighs consume my breath.

'O answer or I shall become
like those that sleep in death.'

I didn't write that in the back of
my exercise books when I was a boy.

I drew pictures of flying cars
with machine guns on them.

'Young sailors of a delicate
disposition would not last long

'working the coal boats
on the perilous North Sea shore.'

This coast is strewn
with rocks and reefs.

Throw into that frequent fog,
wild storms, dangerous currents,

this is some of
the toughest sailing in the world.

Cook spent nine years here

learning to be
an expert sailor and navigator.

'But the coal run
wasn't enough for young Cook.

'He was envious of the dashing,
bewigged, naval officers he saw,

'fresh from adventures
in the Pacific South Seas.

'So, in 1755, aged 26,
he signed up for the Navy.'

Winston Churchill famously said

that life in the Royal Navy
was all "rum, sodomy and the lash",

and Dr Johnson said that a man
at sea was effectively in prison

but with the added risk of drowning.

"A man in prison," he said,
"had more space, better food

"and, commonly, better company."

'Right. All aboard.'

'This is the Bessie Ellen. Roughly
the same length as Cook's ships,

'but a mere youngster
at 120 years old.'

Right, crew, chop-chop.

OK, Tommy, go out on the bow sprit
and take off the gaskets.

'After nine years at sea, Cook
was able to command a ship himself.

'But that meant diddly squat
in the Navy.

'He had to start from the bottom,
like me.

'My commanding officer
is Nikki Alford...'

C'mon, Kim, put some effort into it.
'..and she runs a tight ship.'

So, hierarchy on board,

er, the captain, that's you,
is the boss. Yeah.

But it doesn't matter
who's on board.

If the king was on board,

you're still the boss.
That's true.

Yeah. Can you have Tom,
the director, flogged,

is that possible?
Well, possibly.

Right.
It's not a democracy.

So, when Cook made
that massive decision

to go and be just a lowly able
seaman, he was 26 years old,

so I mean in Navy terms,
that's quite middle-aged, isn't it?

Yeah. Yeah, it was.
But it must have been quite hard

for him being an old, knowledgeable,
already master of his own ship. Yes.

And there were
quite strict punishments.

Yeah, afraid so.

Hanging for insubordination.

Flogging...
Yes.

Cat o' nine tails.
It was a pretty mean life.

Erm...
DOG BARKS

Where did the dog come
in the hierarchy?

Most important crew member on board.

I'm talking to you
and asking you a lot of questions

because I suspect that
when this exchange ends,

you're going to give me some...
seaman-like jobs to do.

Enough chatting
and let's get this boat sailing.

'I've filibustered all I can.

'Time to impress the captain
with my naval know-how.'

OK, so, this is the mainsail

and the mizen is the...
No, no, no, no, no.

No?
Come on, wake up.

I do motorboats.
Engines. Brilliant invention.

We'll make a sailor of you
before the end of the day.

Right.
And we'll get you on the halyards.

They're over there, aren't they?
Well, I hope so.

'Suddenly, a spot of rum, sodomy,
and the lash seems preferable...

'especially as I really ought to be
in the sick bay.'

I need to explain that a few days
ago,

I fell off my bicycle
and slightly spaffed this arm,

which is... a great excuse.

Right, landlubber.
You can do this easy one.

Jump up there, and undo the knot.

'Cook, of course, could have done
all this in his sleep.'

Right, this one?
Crew, stand by.

'Me, not so much.'
Right.

'First, you have to release
the flappy white thing.'

Whoa!
Weyy. Take up on the peak.

'Then yank on a rope to get it up.'

God, have we got to pull it
all the way to the top? Yeah.

'Good teamwork is vital.'
I'm not really doing anything here.

CREW LAUGH

Put some effort into it.
Sorry.

I think
the dog does better than this.

'Mainsail raised...'

Four fifths of the way there.

OK, make fast the throat.
Carry on on the peak.

'..next up is the jib.
Speed is of the essence.'

James, take hold of the knot.
Now pull it.

There you go.
Oh!

Look at that.
Now keep pulling.

If you were in the Navy now, the
French would definitely have got us.

'With all Cook's skills, suddenly
being back near the bottom rung

'must have been pretty humiliating.'

I've done a double gunner's
daughter and a half shank.

I'll look that one up.
SHE LAUGHS

'Able seamen had to muck in
with everything.

'There were
no bogs or running water,

'so if you wanted to drink,
wash or cook,

'you needed one of these...'
There we go.

Oh, shot.
Yeah. It's lunchtime,

so we have to pull up
a bucket of seawater

and start chopping potatoes.

'Nikki's finally found
a job more my level.'

DOG GROWLS
No, Bracken.

Whoa, look at that! Bounty!

You can choose
what you want for lunch.

Well, it looks like
it's gonna be potatoes and onions.

DOG GROWLS

What's wrong with the dog?
SHE LAUGHS

Why does it?
Why does he hate that bucket?

He just hates buckets.

James, if you get the potatoes
and start peeling,

we'll get another bucket.
Aye-aye.

Bracken! Enough!

He's really angry.

GROWLING

'Now, I've proven myself
a bit of an unable seaman,

'but Cook, of course, was the very
model of a modern master mariner.'

Within two years,
he was a ship's master,

which meant
he was in charge of navigation

under the direction of the captain.

That was a big job
and a very, very important one.

Trouble is, Cook's career
then sort of ran aground a bit

because only the posh kids
could become commissioned officers,

and obviously, he wasn't a posh kid.

So he'd arrived
at the class glass ceiling.

He'd gone as far as, effectively,
being a non-commissioned officer.

Bit quicker on the potatoes.

'But you can't keep
a good swot down.

'Cook was destined
for far greater things.'

GROWLING
No! Bracken!

'That's quite enough shore leave,
viewers. Get back to work at once.'

Hurry up, we haven't got all day!

'Dreaming of the Pacific South Seas,

'young James Cook
had joined the Navy.

'But he wasn't going
to the South Seas on his first trip,

'he was going to war.'

Fire!

Now, you join me
below decks with some charts.

And the year is 1759.

Britain is having a massive scrap
with France over Canada.

And the French held Quebec.

And the British
wanted to mount an assault,

but doing it
was proving extremely difficult.

'The Brits were desperate

'for a sneaky way
to attack Quebec and take Canada.

'And Cook was
about to find them one,

'using his superpower - geometry.'

Cook went off and charted all this.

He charted all the elevations,
he did depth sounding,

all this stuff to produce

really a fantastically,
magnificently accurate chart.

'Using Cook's chart,

'the British ships sailed
all the way upriver past Quebec,

'the soldiers mounted
a sneak attack,

'and the French -
quelle surprise - surrendered.'

So, this chart that he produced,

it's not really just a map,
it's a weapon!

And it made Cook famous, his name
became a buzzword in London.

And pretty soon, he was asked
to go and chart all of Newfoundland,

which he did.

And remarkably, here,
on this acetate sheet,

I have a modern map of Newfoundland.

Now, that's been established

with satellites,
satnav, geo-positioning,

all that sort of stuff.

If I lay the modern one
over Cook's work...

..it is astonishingly accurate.

This actually isn't a chart,
this is a love poem in geometry.

Pretty bloody good.

'Cook's charts were so accurate,

'they were in use
for a further 200 years -

'and we'll see later on
just how he did it.'

Cook was granted
the title of "King's Surveyor".

That was the highest office
of surveyor you could attain

unless you were gonna become
God's Surveyor.

But his greatest adventures
still lay before him

because a third of the globe...
still needed to be charted.

Aah!

'Sorry,
I'm absolutely ruddered on rum.'

'At the other end
of the social spectrum, meanwhile,

'was another young science bod
looking to make his name...'

This is the Chelsea Physic Garden,

where a young man called
Joseph Banks came to study botany.

Now, he wasn't a typical student,

he was a very wealthy
playboy roustabout type

who'd inherited
a fortune from his father.

But he was very passionate
about his subject,

he was very meticulous,
and he bloody loved a pot plant.

'Banks saw thrilling new plants
from all around the world

'turning up here at Chelsea,

'and he decided to make a name
for himself

'by going and finding
some of his own.'

So, what he did,
since he was well minted,

was to buy his way
into an expedition

that had been organised
by the admiralty

and the Royal Society
to the Pacific.

He contributed �10,000 -
about 1.5 million in today's money.

Now, other young men of the time

were embarking on
the accepted grand tour of Europe,

but Banks said that
this was for blockheads.

"My grand tour," he said,
"will be of the world."

'The official purpose of this voyage

'was to travel to
the South Pacific island of Tahiti

'and study
a rare astronomical event -

'Venus passing in front of the sun.

'But there was
a second, top-secret mission.

'The bigwigs at the Admiralty
had much grander plans

'that would only be revealed
later on.

'Plans that would need a captain who
was especially talented at charting.

'Cook was finally going
to the South Seas.

'Now, what vessel would he be taking
on this historic voyage?

'A sleek Merchantman, perhaps?
A 24-gun naval frigate?'

KAZOOS PLAYING

No, it was one of these,
his old mate the Whitby coal ship.

Blunt nosed, purposeful.

If they'd been around at the time,

somebody would have called it
the Land Rover of the Seas.

Top speed, eight knots,
eight nautical miles an hour.

Average speed more like four knots.

Cook would be going
around the world, 25,000 miles,

at a brisk walk.

Something like this.

All the way to Tahiti.

'This ship is just a replica,

'but the same size
as the real Endeavour -

'just 105 feet for 95 sailors.'

The great thing
about using a coal ship is that

if you're not required to carry
the coal,

there is a great deal of space
on board for stuff.

And they brought a lot of stuff.

Permission to come aboard, skipper?

Thank you.

BEEP
By the way, if you're still running,

Endeavour didn't have a door
in the side like this.

You'd have to go, you know...
This is not accurate.

'Nor is this cafe bit.
Keep moving. Four knots.'

Up here, aft, below the poop deck...

'That's better.
Except it looks far too tidy.'

Banks brought along
tons of books, hooks, nets,

hunting equipment,
big barrels of preserving fluids,

salts, waxes, everything you need
for all that botanical guff.

And it's said
that the value of his kit

was roughly twice that
of the ship itself.

'Banks immediately demanded
use of the Captain's quarters

'for his science-ing.

'Cook told him they could share.'

But of course, Banks was a toff,

and he'd also done a great deal
to finance the whole expedition,

so he couldn't really turn him down.

Although I would have been tempted.

'Cooped up on a ship,
tempers can easily fray.'

He already sounds like
an irritating BLEEP, Joseph Banks.

LAUGHTER

'So, Cook took it upon himself
to make sure

'all his sailors were as happy and
jolly as jolly sailor boys can be.'

Cook clearly cared
about the welfare of his men.

In the Royal Navy,
the jolly sailor boys

worked four hours on,
four hours off.

But Cook's crew enjoyed
four hours on, eight hours off.

He insisted that
they ate their greens,

that they aired their bedding,

that they washed themselves
in lovely, fresh, salty seawater.

And he was also very keen
on vigorous exercise.

And to make exercise more "fun",
he brought along some musicians

and made the sailors
dance the hornpipe.

THEY PLAY
'BARNACLE BILL'

'They had to do this every day.'

'Every. Single. Day.'

Bravo.

You have to remember that
for the people of England,

things like yoga and Pilates of the
Caribbean hadn't been invented yet.

That's a shit joke.
No it's not, it's really good.

'I'm here all week, folks.
Try the sea biscuit.'

'Ah, this is more like it.

Even more vital to on-board morale

'than the incessant shrieking
of Satan's own song

'was alcohol - and lots of it.'

Details of the amount of booze
on board the Endeavour

are, unsurprisingly, a bit vague.

And I say "unsurprisingly"
because, as you'll see in a moment,

everybody on board
was absolutely gang-planked.

For the men, there was a ration
of half a pint of rum twice a day,

once at noon, once at 6pm.

They could instead, or maybe as
well as, have eight pints of beer.

And if you were a "hossifer",

you could have
a pint and a half of red wine.

'And that's just a normal day.

'On special occasions,
they got completely barnacled.'

The very polite Captain Cook says,

"Yesterday being Christmas Day,

the people were
none of the soberest."

Joseph Banks, on the same day, says,
"All hands got abominably drunk.

"Wind, thank God, very moderate

"or the Lord knows
what would have become of us."

And I sort of get it, to be honest,
because if you woke up every day,

knowing you'd have to spend it
with the same crew,

you'd wanna get pretty keel-hauled.

By the way, I should explain that

I've had a bit of an accident
and fractured my wrist,

but it's OK
because the nurse who set it for me

did it
in the beer-drinking position.

So, it only remains for me to say,

ow, "Cheers, me hearties."

BEEP
Have you definitely cut?

Yeah. Right.
I'm gonna have a few of these pints.

Actually, I'm the officer,
I'm having the wine.

You lot can have
the beer and the rum.

'So, science stuff - check.

'Hornpiper - check.

'Enough alcohol
to drown a hornpiper - check.'

'Just one last thing...'

Cook, of course,
was not yet a captain.

He had to be hastily commissioned
so that he could give orders.

And give orders he did. The orders
were to 'cast orff and set sail'.

95 permanently sloshed sailors
did that,

and the Endeavour would be
their home for the next three years.

'BARNACLE BILL' PLAYS

'Dear God.'

'At an average four knots,
they bimbled their way

'to Rio in Brazil
for some repairs,

'saw their first penguins
off the Falklands,

'and rounded Cape Horn
into the mysterious Pacific Ocean.

'Finally, in 1769,
after eight months at sea,

'the Endeavour reached Tahiti.

'The paradise beaches were
a dream come true for the sailors -

'not least because they'd heard
rumours from a previous voyage

'that it was
full of beautiful women

'who would offer sex for
the price of a single iron nail.'

Cook was very worried
about his sailors

spreading
sexually-transmitted diseases,

and he gave them all
a stern talking to,

like that rather awkward one you got

from a teacher
at sixth form college.

There was another problem as well.

The last ship to arrive,
HMS Dolphin,

had quite literally
started falling apart

because the sailors
had nicked so many of these.

'Cook's little talk didn't work.

'Some of the sailors seemed to think

'they were
on a particularly thuggish stag do.

'The Tahitian people
remained friendly,

'but there was
another friction point.'

The ship's tools and equipment
kept going missing.

Even Cook himself had a pair of
his socks stolen from under his head

while he was having a crafty kip
on the beach.

But to the people of Tahiti,

European ideas
about possession and ownership

were completely meaningless.

But to try and get his stuff back,

Cook did things
like held canoes to ransom.

But unfortunately, the marines
were rather less patient than him,

and when a musket was taken,

they immediately shot
the perpetrator dead.

And that set
a rather unfortunate pattern

of things to come on Cook's voyages.

'Cook got down to business,

'building a mini-observatory
to study the transit of Venus.

'But when the moment finally came,

'Venus's thick, gassy atmosphere
blurred the outline

'and made their measurements
useless.'

The mission had been
a complete failure.

But it didn't actually matter

because all that stuff about Venus
was a load of old bollocks,

it was just a cover story, really.

'It was time to reveal
the real mission -

'top secret orders
from the Admiralty.'

'There is reason to imagine
that a continent,

'or land of great extent,
may be found to the Southward.

'You are hereby required
and directed to put to sea

'to make discovery
of that continent.'

The hunt was on.

'It's 1769.

'James Cook and the Endeavour
are on a top-secret mission

'to find new land
in the South Pacific.'

And it's that way... roughly.

'All the nations of Europe believed

'there was
a vast undiscovered continent

'in the southern hemisphere.

'And whoever got there first

'would be rich and powerful
beyond imagination.

'100 years before,
Dutch explorer Abel Tasman

'had spotted
the tip of a promising landmass,

'but no European
had ever set foot there.

'Cook was about to "discover"
New Zealand,

'to the surprise
of everyone already living there.

'For the scientists onboard,
this new land was a dream come true.

'Cook studied the landscape

'and Banks
the miraculous flora and fauna.

'And of course,
they met the people.'

Cook was, very obviously,

the first European to meet
the Maori people

and the first person to see a haka,

which probably scared
the crap out of him.

And it gets a bit worse from thereon
because when Cook's men went ashore,

they were approached
by a local leader called Te Maro,

and one of the sailors got
into a bit of a panic

and shot him... dead.

And then another Maori was
apparently reaching for his weapon,

so the ship's surgeon also had
a bit of a panic

and shot him... dead.

A bit of a pattern was emerging now,

namely panicking
and shooting people dead.

And it so happens that
actually, Sean, our cameraman,

is in fact, a Kiwi
and has Maori ancestry.

So we can ask him, is Cook a popular
figure in, well, your family

and in New Zealand in general?

I grew up in a Maori community,

and it was known
that our grandparents suffered.

They weren't allowed to speak
their own language at school.

My grandfather
was beaten for speaking

his own native language.
Really?

Where I grew up, there was a statue
of Cook, but it's been taken down.

'Six months on, Cook set sail again,

'following his nose
to the east coast of Australia -

'another first for any European.

'Banks was in his element.

'He saw his first dingo,
lorikeet, and mudskipper,

'and found so much botany
that they named a bay after it.

'The Indigenous Australians,
probably quite wisely,

'mostly avoided the strangers
on their shores.

'But for the Europeans,
this voyage would go down in history

'as one of the most remarkable
ever made...

'as long as
nothing terrible happened.'

One night, the Endeavour
was sailing serenely along

just off the northern coast
of Australia.

Captain Cook was sound asleep
in his bunk.

Suddenly,
the ship came to a juddering halt.

Men were throwing from their
hammocks, there was absolute chaos.

They had hit the Great Barrier Reef
and become stuck.

'The hull was ripped to pieces
on the sharp coral,

'but the crew managed to wrap
a sail under it

'to slow the water coming in
and make it to shore,

'where they would undertake the most
important repairs of their lives.'

Most expeditions went with multiple
ships, but Endeavour was by herself.

So if anything went wrong,
the crew faced a stark choice -

mend it or perish.

'Dunno about you,
but I'd choose mend it.

'Especially as it involves
two of my favourite things -

'wood and tools.'

WOOD PLANE SWISHING

We have scaled down the Endeavour
for the purposes of demonstration.

This is a wooden-hulled boat,
exactly as she was.

'I'm helping boatbuilder
Jordan Kimpton

'replace a plank
on the good ship Shrinkle.'

Good afternoon.
Hello.

'We'll do it
just as the Endeavour's crew did.

'And with just as much urgency.'

I've got this exact plane.

It's a beautiful bit of kit.
These are lovely.

Oh, mine's got the screw adjuster
though, instead of the lever.

Oh, right.
I always find it difficult

working with the blade
in the front position

because unless
you hold it down firmly...

Er, can we talk about the boat?
BEEP

Now, this is, er, similar
to the damage to the Endeavour,

not quite as critical because
it's not down below the waterline,

but the principle is the same.

We have to replace and blend in
this plank.

Yeah, that's right.

And has a slight curve to it.
Does it have a slight taper as well?

Er, a very slight taper,
very slight curve,

and a couple of little bevels on it.

'The wooden shipbuilding technique
of Cook's era

'is still much the same today

'and involves a tool
I haven't seen before.'

This must have a name
in boat building.

It's a spiling baton.
Spiling baton. I love it.

Fancy stick.

Well, navigation was done
with fancy sticks

for a long time,
so there's no reason

why building the boat shouldn't be.

'The fancy stick is tacked on
so we can mark our measurements

'for the new plank
using callipers to...

'Oh, hello.'

They're rather nice, aren't they?
They're lovely.

If you go back, well, only 50 years,

the country was
full of tools like this. I mean...

Sorry, anyway,
I was slightly side-tracked there.

You carry on, sir.

'The Endeavour's crew had to replace

'seven planks that had been ripped
through by the sharp coral...'

You take dimensions from the top
and the bottom of the gap

and then mark the dimension
on the spiling baton.

'..a bit of a reminder of how
fragile their floating world was.'

We now have to join those marks
a bit like a dot-to-dot,

to form a curved line
that'll be the guide for sawing,

and then we can get it banged in.
Yeah.

SAW WHIRRING

'After some fine adjustments...'

Is that a number four
or a four and a half? It's a four.

'..comes
an absolutely riveting bit.'

Right,
we're about to do some riveting.

'Backing the nails with roves
pulls the new plank in tight.'

That is lovely.

'In theory, Cook could replace
every single part of the Endeavour.'

We come up against the paradox of
the ship of Theseus here, don't we?

Because at what point is it
no longer the original boat?

It's the age-old conundrum.

But, I mean, every cell in
your body changes every seven years.

Are you the same person?
Exactly. Mm, no. I'm not.

But in spirit,
this will always be the same boat

even if eventually,
you replace the whole thing.

It will have a history
of continuous use and development.

Yeah.
So it is still Shrinkle.

'Right, if you're of an excitable
disposition, cover your eyes.

'There's one final
magnificent tool.'

We use a Japanese saw.
Ohh!

Which, er, we can get
nice and tight onto the transom.

'I should probably be explaining
how Cook would have used iron nails

'rather than copper,

as the corrosive effects
of saline water

'from ferrous metals were only
analysed by the navy in the 1790s,

'but let's just watch instead.'

Beautiful.

Thank you.

After seven weeks, all the planking
on the Endeavour was mended,

and she was ready
to set sail for home.

And not before time, actually,
because, as Joseph Banks observed,

"The men were beginning to sigh
for roast beef."

So men, even engaged on

perhaps the greatest adventure
that humankind had yet campaigned,

were still thinking about supper.

Amazing.

'The first voyage
was something of a triumph.

'Cook had explored parts of the
world totally unknown to Europeans,

'and he had charted them.'

We're going to talk about how Cook
managed to map so much of the world.

But basically,
it's all about triangles.

Now, I have here...
You would call this a...

A hand-bearing compass.
A hand-bearing compass.

Essentially,
I'm going to take three points...

Over there is the lighthouse.

And if I sight the lighthouse
first...

'Cook loved geometry so much that
he divided the world up into angles.

'And I'm doing the same - taking
a compass bearing to a landmark...'

And that is zero, three, five.

'..and drawing a line
along that bearing on the chart.

Zero, three, five.

'We are somewhere on that line.'

Pendennis Castle is...

zero, zero, four.

'And if we do this three times...'

The beach.
OK.

Two, eight, one.

'..where the lines meet
must be where we are.'

So now you can see,
we are in the triangle here.

We're somewhere in there.

Reasonably accurate, really,
for a handheld device, isn't it?

'And this is exactly what Cook did.
Except, the exact opposite.

'O-level trigonometry maths fans
- this one's for you.'

Now, Cook, of course,
did not have this handy chart.

He was drawing the chart,

but the way he did it
is similar to what we just did.

It's all about triangles.

Let's say there is a coastline here.

We don't know the shape of it yet,
we can't draw it.

Cook's ship is here

and he picks, say, three points
on the coastline over here,

He then takes bearings, like this,

so he knows where they are
relative to his ship,

but he then sails his ship forward,

so, say, a quarter
of a nautical mile to here.

And then he does
those sightings again,

so he's building up
a series of triangles

that will tell him
exactly where all those points are.

And he does this time
and time and time again

on thousands and thousands of points
along the coastline

until he can eventually determine
the shape of the coastline.

It was very, very meticulous work.

'And Cook was a meticulous man.

'He would chart
4,500 miles of coast on this voyage.

'But these were
no mere geometrical love poems.

'They would make
Britain a superpower.'

So, what does this coloured piece
of cloth on a stick actually mean?

Well, let's consult Cook's
rather verbose instructions again.

Er, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

"You are,
with the Consent of the Natives,

"to take Possession of
Convenient Situations in the Country

"in the Name of
the King of Great Britain.

"Or, if you find
the Country uninhabited,

"take Possession for his Majesty

"by setting up
Proper Marks and Inscriptions."

So what this is really
is a land grab.

It's an act by an Empire
hellbent on world domination,

and a warning to the people
like the Spanish and the French

to bugger oeuf.

But, quite obviously,
a lot of the places

where this flag was planted
weren't uninhabited.

And the following years of
various shootings and other mishaps

suggest that
the consent of the natives thing

wasn't quite what we were expecting.

In the following decades,
more ships arrived,

helped, obviously,
by Cook's excellent charts.

And they brought with them
European disease, war, settlement,

and the systematic destruction
of whole civilisations.

'It's 1771,

'and after three years away at sea
and exploring two new countries,

'Captain Cook and the ship's
scientist, Joseph Banks,

'returned to a hero's welcome.

'And what everyone
was desperate to know was -

'what had they brought home
with them?

'Time for a visit
to the hallowed halls

'of London's Natural History Museum.

'Because these explorers
didn't care about gold...'

'..their treasure was
scientific knowledge,

'and it's kept
in the museum's murky depths.'

I'm sure this one just moved.

'Even the most hideous residents
are beautiful

'to fish mortician
and senior curator, James Maclaine.

'And some of his favourites
were brought back

'on board the Endeavour.'

I think the estimate's
about 500 fish specimens

were collected
during the first voyage.

'Many of these had never
before been seen by Europeans

'and were brand new to biologists.'

So, when somebody describes
a new species for the first time,

forever after, those specimens
then represent that species.

So these are all
incredibly important for science,

so, some of them
are very bizarre as well.

So, there's a really nice thing here
which is called a box fish.

You're actually gonna get it out?
I'll be very gentle with it.

Look at that!

And it's got this like very hard,
box-like, er, shell to it.

Let's see if I can...
It's got a face like a dog.

Joseph Banks touched that
and thought, "This is very hard,

"this box-like fish
that we'll call a box fish."

He touched that,
and now I'm touching it.

That's really weird, isn't it?

Possibly my favourite
of all the things here are these.

So, these are called frog fish.

And they have a lure
on their forehead.

Oh, yes.

That there is
its little fishing rod.

It will attract
some little fish over

and then they can sort of inflate
their whole head

and then the fish
just gets sucked in.

If part of this falls off,
I'll be just...

We'll delete the footage
if that happens.

Delete myself.

'Frog fish intact
and safely stowed away,

'which is more than can be said
for Banks' collecting methods.'

They can be very vague.

This thing here, it just says
"Islands of the Pacific Ocean".

That's precise (!)

I've read that the whole business of
collecting on board was quite untidy

because Cook and Banks
shared a big cabin.

But Banks
would bring all his specimens

and string them out to dry
or dissect them on the map table,

so the whole thing
was just covered in slime.

Well, I think
there was, yes, so much going on.

The sailors got very much involved
with the collecting as well.

So they'd be
in the middle of something

and then some guy would run in,
"I've just caught this."

And, er, I mean, I've been
on a collecting expedition myself,

and it does get very excitable
when the net comes in,

and everyone sort of gathers around.

'The liquid
the fish were preserved in

'got the sailors quite excited too.'

They used to use something called
spirits of wine,

which was completely drinkable.

I think on one of the voyages,

there was an issue
with the rum running out.

The preserving alcohol

would suddenly be
of great interest to the sailors.

'The best way to stop
the sailors drinking it

'was to stick
a load of dead fish in it.

'And those dead fish changed
the course of science forever.'

When all these came back,

the scientific community of Europe

must have suddenly flocked to London
to see all this stuff.

This... this was a massive boost
to our scientific esteem,

wasn't it, having all this stuff?
Oh, absolutely.

It laid the groundwork for
so many of the things that followed,

like the Beagle with Charles Darwin
and the Challenger expedition.

So our ideas about evolution
and the origin of species...

..are all linked
into these yellow-topped jars

that Cook and Banks
had in their cabin

and chucked
in a big barrel of alcohol.

Very much, yeah.

'And they still have a place at
the cutting edge of science today.'

There are many, many, many uses
for a dead fish in a jar

and some of them
you just cannot predict.

So recently,
somebody wanted a bit of shark skin

so that they could design a tyre
for use on the surface of Mars.

So you just cannot tell

what people are gonna want to do
with a dead fish.

'Now, delightful
as our fishy friends are,

'they all look a bit drab.

'Preserving dulls the colours...

'which is why art was
an all-important part of science.

'And why ship's scientist Banks

'brought an artist on the expedition
to capture things in the moment.'

This is the work of Sidney
Parkinson, artist to the expedition.

This is actually the photography
of the era, isn't it? Yes.

'And Library Collections Manager
Andrea Hart

'is giving me a peek
at the negatives.'

Oh, cripes!

'While Banks was onshore collecting
an astonishing 30,000 specimens,

'Parkinson was back on the ship
with cramp in his drawing hand.'

They had very small cabins,

there's reference
in Banks' journal to,

especially some times when
there were particularly foul seas,

that his pots would go leeward.

And then also in Tahiti,

it was very, very warm
so they were plagued by mosquitos.

There was reports
of flies eating the paint

before it could dry on the paper.

'More than 1,300 of Parkinson's
artworks came back on the Endeavour,

'which is more than can be said
for Parkinson.'

Tragically, Parkinson died

six months before
the voyage returned to England.

What actually killed Parkinson?
Dysentery.

Oh, dear.

But he did record all this stuff,
which is a remarkable legacy,

something that's advanced science

and our understanding
of a completely new world.

And to do all that
before you shit yourself to death

is... is quite an achievement.

'Just before his final visit
to the khazi,

'Parkinson also painted
Sean's family album.'

This is literally recounting
the discovery of my tribe.

This is where my guys are from.
Really?

Yeah. This is actually
quite a cool moment.

Sorry, I'm gonna bathe in it
for a sec.

'Once we get our cameraman back,

'we can film some of Parkinson's
rather special last drawings.'

Ahh.

They are the first
European drawings of a kangaroo.

Are they?
Mm.

So I expect the first time somebody
said, "I've seen this animal,

"but it only hops around
on its back legs

"and it looks
a bit like a giant mouse

"and it's got
a little version of itself and..."

they'd have said, "Don't be stupid."

And probably given him 50 lashes.

'The kangaroo looks
lovely and peaceful, doesn't it?

'There's a reason for that.'

To be able to draw
any living species,

there was an element
of having to shoot them.

And that is
part of the scientific process.

So this is... this is
the first European record

of what a kangaroo is
and looks like.

And it would have been
the first time -

probably an hour or two after this -

that Europeans knew
what a kangaroo tasted like.

Exactly.

Which is a bit like chicken,
obviously.

SHE LAUGHS

'Parkinson's drawings
caused a sensation,

'and Joseph Banks
became a very influential man.

'But while he clearly loved nature,

'he was no peace-and-love,
plant-based hippy.

'Like many of his day,
he was a firm believer

'in colonies, plantations,
and slavery.'

And here he is, look,
unceremoniously dumped

in a corner of the Chelsea Physic
Garden, rendered immortal in...

Oh, actually,
it feels a bit like resin.

He hasn't actually been cancelled
yet, but give it another few years,

and he'll be completely overgrown
with Santolina villosa.

'Not long after the voyage, there
was a crisis in British prisons.

They were bursting
at the seams with convicts.

'And Banks suggested
shipping them off

'to a lovely little spot he knew -

'Botany Bay, Australia.

'Within 100 years,
160,000 prisoners had been shipped.

'Britain would pave paradise
and put up a penal colony.'

A whole new and obviously
completely alien society emerged,

and the Aboriginal Australians,

who had lived there presumably
untroubled for 60,000 years,

found their land seized

and their ancient culture
just torn apart and cast aside.

All that happened in just a century,
one and a bit lifetimes.

Cook's little voyage
left quite a big wake.

'And that was
only his first voyage.'

'Welcome to Greenwich
in the mid-18th century.' Lovely.

'Captain Cook is home from his first
voyage to New Zealand and Australia.

'New lands down under!

'But now the Admiralty wanted
newer lands under down under.

'They believed in a mysterious
Great Southern Continent,

'still out there,
waiting to be discovered.

'And in 1772, Cook was given
two new ships and sent to find it.'

But there was a problem
because sailors at sea

still couldn't work out
exactly where they were.

Latitude - how far south
or north you are,

that's not such an issue because
it's a matter of observation.

You can simply see

how high the noonday sun is
above the horizon.

But longitude -
how far east or west you were,

that's altogether more difficult.

And that was the great
navigational challenge of the day.

'Until now, longitude was
essentially an educated guess.

'It was an age-old problem,

'and back in 1675,

'the Royal Greenwich Observatory
was built just to try and solve it.'

This is the prime meridian.

It is, if you like,
longitude ground zero.

This is the line from which
all other lines of longitude -

east and west -
are measured and established.

It's here, because the British
invented time, it's ours.

'Right, viewers,
strap in for science.

'Longitude is
inextricably linked with time.

'In 24 hours, the Earth turns a full
360 degrees through the sun's beam.

'And in one hour, it turns through
15 degrees. Everyone with me?

'So if, onboard your ship,
the midday sun is at its highest

'one hour later
than midday back at Greenwich,

'you must be 15 degrees west.

'Two hours later, then you must be
30 degrees west, and so on.

'Now. if this is all making
your brain ache, you're not alone.

Sir Isaac Newton said that
longitude was the only problem

that had ever made his head hurt.

And he invented gravity.

'The obvious way to know
what time it was back home

'was to bring a clock on the ship.

'But it wasn't that easy.'

CLOCKS CHIME

'Nor it turns out,
is filming in clock shop.'

CLOCKS CHIME

And, action!

The problem was that pendulum clocks
like this one wouldn't work at sea

because...

if you're at sea, you get swell.

Pendulum has stopped,

beat of the clock becomes irregular.

That isn't going to work.

But then, of course,
you have this sort of mechanism.

But all of these intricate parts

would be subject
to extremes of heat and cold at sea.

They would expand,
they would contract.

Moisture would get in,

salt would form crystals,
bung up the mechanism

and cause the steel parts like
these shafts and arbours to corrode.

'And a slow clock would mean
a major cock-up for Cook.'

Your ship's clock only had to be
a couple of minutes out

for you to miss an entire island.

And then no rum for you,

lost at sea
just because your clock's wrong.

CLOCKS CHIME

'Clocks were not the answer.

'The longitude problem
drove men mad.

'The government offered
a huge reward

'to anyone who could come up
with a longitude solution.

'And I've got special access
to see some attempts...

'under strict supervision
from these two.'

I'm now privileged to be
in a very special place,

the top secret storeroom of
the Royal Museums, comma, Greenwich.

This is the place where they hide
the bits of maritime history

they don't want you to know about.

Follow me.

TENSE MUSIC

'These dusty vaults hold
long-forgotten inventions,

'enough firepower
to sink the Bismarck,

'and what appears to be
a private army of nautical daleks.

'I'm under strict instructions
not to touch anything,

'which always makes me
want to touch everything.

'I think they can probably tell.'

I'm very used to putting those on
cos I wear them a lot at home.

Great.

LAUGHTER
In the workshop! Come on!

Oh, right. Yeah, yeah. Fine.

This is Louise, who is Senior
Curator of the Royal Observatory

and therefore
a curator of time itself.

'Time Lord Louise is showing me
the leading longitude contenders.

'There's a very fiddly one
that used the differences

'in the Earth's magnetic field...'

The magnetic compass
doesn't always point true north

compared to the North Star, Polaris.

Sometimes, it varies by
about four degrees or ten degrees.

And the idea was that you could
match up your compass with a chart

and figure out where you are.
It's beautifully made.

It requires
quite a lot of arithmetic...

'Fraid so. Yeah.
..doesn't it?

'There's a rather complicated one

'that used the position of the moon
relative to the stars...'

What they used to do is send
that data from the observatory

to a whole network
of mathematicians,

known as human computers.

They number-crunched all the data,
sent it back,

and then this book gives you
the position of the moon

every three hours,
every day for the year ahead.

This must have taken
months and months to compile.

'And there's a rather intriguing one
that we can demonstrate with...'

An orrery.
Correct.

Orrery. Is that right?
Yes.

So you've got the sun
in the centre with Mercury, Venus.

You've got Earth
and its little moon. Yes.

But I really like it because it
shows Jupiter with its four moons.

So, back in 1610,
the Italian astronomer Galileo

used a newly-invented telescope like
this one here to look at Jupiter.

And he noticed
four little dots of light.

And if you look at the model,

you can see that
sometimes, the moons go behind,

and sometimes,
they go in front of the planet.

And Galileo realised
that if you knew

the configuration of those moons
at one location

and you compared it to
what you could see at your location,

you could work out the difference
in time and longitudes.

'The simplicity of the theory
is irresistible.

'As is the orrerrerr...erry.'

Am I allowed to touch that one?
I'm afraid not.

That's absolutely fabulous, yes.
Am I allowed to touch that?

No.
Now, this is all great

because it's based on very, very
sound scientific reasoning.

But once you take it to sea,

you come face-to-face
with what is sometimes called,

in scientific circles,
the crapness of reality.

'Over to Bessie Ellen
for that reality check.'

Ow. Where's the end?

BLEEP

'Yes, it is a bit crap.'

Where's the camera gone? Hello.

'I have not come to exterminate you.

'I'm demonstrating
the reality of viewing

'Jupiter's moons at sea...'

This is absolutely hopeless.

'..using this model of a celatone,

'inspired by a Galileo design
to help

'sailors keep
their telescope steady.'

I mean, obviously this wouldn't work
in the day, it's got to be at night.

But it's not gonna work anyway

because it's
absolutely bloody useless.

One report said that at best,

you could hope to hold Jupiter
in your sights for about a second,

which is nothing like long enough.

I mean, apart from it
making you look like a total berk,

it simply didn't work.

Ow!

'In the end, the answer
to the biggest headscratcher

'of the sailing age
was straightforward.

'Just make better clocks.

'And someone did.

'A genius carpenter called
John Harrison replaced the pendulum

'with swinging balances,
anti-friction bearings,

'and the grasshopper escapement.

'And I think
he deserves a phwoarrr.'

'It took him almost 30 years,

'and four goes
to achieve perfection in the H4.

'You're probably wondering what all
this has to do with Captain Cook.

'Well, for the first time
in history,

'the Navy were on to a solution -

'and they needed
their top navigator to test it

'on his round-the-world voyage.'

Wow, look at that!

That is actually what you need,
to know where you are at sea.

That is Cook's actual sextant,
absolutely immaculate.

And this is K1,

which is an exact copy
of Harrison's H4.

They took the original apart,
measured it precisely

and then made a new one,
and it's absolutely fabulous.

I mean, imagine having that in your
pocket, and somebody saying to you,

"Have you got the time on you?"

"Well, as a matter of fact, I have.
And it's exactly right."

Can I really not touch this?

'This time,
they've sent in the big guns.'

Sorry!
Can you touch it for me, please?

This is fantastic. I never thought
I'd arrive at a time in my life

when I had someone to touch things
on my behalf.

Ooh, look at the back.
Oh, yes!

Can you open it?

Go on!
SHE LAUGHS

Well, thank you for touching it
for me. It's appreciated.

After hundreds and thousands
of years of people being lost at sea

and perishing horribly
and being consumed by monsters

and all the rest of it,
you just need that -

that elaborate
school metalwork project

and the world's most valuable clock.

That's it. Job done.

'And there's one final Cook treasure
that I can't touch.'

This is Cook's actual logbook.

Look at his writing. It's so neat!

And this was written on a ship,
remember, pitching about.

And his most famous quote is
on this page. Here it is, look.

"I had ambition not only to go
further than anyone had been before,

"but as far as it is possible
for man to go."

Another captain later on put it
a little more succinctly -

"to boldly go
where no man has gone before".

BRIGHT MUSIC

And on Cook's second voyage,
he would do just that.

'Welcome back to 1772,
Cook's second voyage,

'and the search
for the Great Southern Continent.

'Now with new-fangled, cutting-edge
navigational instruments...'

There is the sun.

'..for superbly accurate
longitude calculation.'

We're somewhere
north of the dog's arse.

'For the first time,
Cook knew exactly where he was.

'But unfortunately,
where he was was the Antarctic.

'This isn't authentic
18th century footage,

'but the misery of sub-zero
sailing transcends time.'

It was utterly crap.

The ropes turned to solid ice,
the sails turned to sheets of steel,

the animals froze to death,
the crew had to stay below deck

and were miserable and moaned
constantly, as crews often do.

But Cook fought bravely on.

He went below 70 degrees south,

and he became the first person
to cross the Antarctic Circle.

'Cook had gone further
than any man had gone before.

'And it sounds bloody awful.

'The ships pushed on south,

'through howling gales
and stormy seas.

'But thick fog and a great wall
of sea ice blocked their path,

'and the Great Southern Continent
eluded them.

'They didn't see land
for four months,

'which meant they were stalked
by a terrible maritime menace.'

Scurvy had been the sailor's scourge

since the first ocean crossings
were attempted.

In fact, on one naval expedition
to the Pacific during Cook's time,

two thirds of the crew died from it.

Here are some pictures
of the symptoms for you to enjoy.

"Those affected have skin as
black as ink, rictus of the limbs,

"a strange plethora of gum tissue
sprouting out of the mouth,

"which immediately rotted

"and lent the victim's breath
an abominable odour."

Wow!

'While we all know
a lack of vitamin C was to blame,

'back then,
there was just a vague idea

'that it was something
to do with diet. But what?

'Cook decided to use his sailors
as human guinea pigs.'

Now, here on the counter
in front of me,

'I have a range of possible cures.

'So I'm going to test Cook's cures
with some...'

Dichloro...phenolindophenol.

'Even though the sound of it
is something quite atrocious,

'it's just an inky blue liquid

'that goes clear
when you add enough vitamin C.

'Scientists of the day
recommended lemon juice,

'which had been boiled down
to preserve it.'

One, two, three.

'Sadly for the sailors...'
Oh, dear.

'..boiling kills off
most of the vitamin C.'

That's hopeless. Right, sauerkraut.

'Fermented cabbage sounds
promising.'

No, that's not looking good
for the jolly sailor boys.

'Unfortunately,
they boiled that too.'

OK. Carrot marmalade.

'Delicious! But that's vitamin A,
wrong vitamin.'

Point nine. It's just rubbish.

'It seems most of Cook's cures had
only very low levels of vitamin C.

'And yet, not a single one
of his sailors would die of scurvy.

'He believed it was all thanks
to this final cure -

'an unfermented beer called wort.'

"He took a quart of the wort.

"This gave him three stools
in the 24 hours -

"plentiful, loose and offensive.

"The discharge became less putrid,
his pains went gradually off.

"Not a man in the ship
was more in spirits

"and lively than him."

'Delightful. Let's see.'

Greatly championed by Cook.

He thought
this was the mother of all cures.

One, two, three, four, five...

'Cook was right
about most things...'

68, 69.

Absolute pish!

Better off just drinking the beer.

'..but wort wasn't one of them.'

There is no vitamin C whatsoever
in the wort.

'So, how to explain
the mystery of no-one carking it?'

Cook, being a fastidious man

and being very concerned
about the welfare of his crew,

insisted on gathering fresh plants
to eat every time they went ashore.

That would have made a difference.

The other thing he did

was insist that the men washed up
the pans from the cooking

very, very thoroughly
because if they didn't,

there was a residue of animal fat
in them,

that would get into people's guts,

and that would impede
the absorption of vitamin C.

'Cook's crew might not have been
getting much extra vitamin C,

'but unlike other sailors,
they could properly digest

'the tiny amounts of it
in their normal food.

'Cook was clueless, though.

'He reported back to the Navy
that the miracle cure was wort.'

So, in reality,

Cook probably set the war on scurvy
back by a number of years.

Sorry.

'When he finally arrived home
in 1775,

'Cook was celebrated
as the greatest captain of the age.

'He could retire a happy man.'

Cook was famous, the first person on
Earth to cross the Antarctic Circle.

He was splashed on front pages,
he dined with nobility,

his portrait was painted
by the great artists of the age.

But he was now 46 years old,

that was a ripe old age
for a mariner at the time.

So he decided on a gentler command.

He came and he took charge

of the Naval Hospital for
Retired Sailors here in Greenwich.

That lasted for three months.

'You just can't keep
a good salty seadog down.

'One last challenge awaited Cook.

'Off he went, via his old haunts
of New Zealand and Tahiti,

'in search
of the Northwest Passage -

'a sea route linking Europe
with Asia

'over the top
of the frozen north of Canada.

'But by this third voyage,
something was different about Cook.

'He was becoming a bit of a tyrant.'

His temper became
violent and uncontrollable,

and the punishments
he dished out grew in severity.

12 lashes became 24 lashes,
then 48 lashes and then 72.

And he had some bloke's ears cut off
because he'd nicked something.

And on one island, he burned
a whole village to the ground

over a dispute
about two stolen goats.

'There are various theories

'on illness or infection
affecting Cook's behaviour.

'And whilst it's in no way
an excuse,

'spending most of your life at sea

'must have sent you
off the deep end a bit.

'Let's ask
the scariest captain I know.'

Out in the middle of the ocean,

has either of you ever gone
a bit mad?

You know, thick fog for days,
cold and fog.

You're restrained to your quarters,
it's miserable.

I think on the longer passages,

everyone is gonna go
a little bit mad.

Yeah.
It's like you almost feel

like you're in a goldfish bowl.

Except that you know that
no-one's looking in.

I mean, if you were
with just your film crew,

how long would it take you
to go mad with them?

About 15 minutes usually.
Yeah, exactly.

So can you imagine, you know,
three weeks in a sort of...

Yeah, but what about three years?

'Royal Navy physicians of the time
calculated that

'sailors were seven times more
likely to go mad than landlubbers.

'And for captains,
it was even worse.'

I suppose command is lonely
anyway, isn't it?

Because you have to maintain
a distance

to maintain your authority.

Yeah, they do call it
"the lonely burden of command"

and the responsibility
on your shoulders

is a great deal more than
when you're just a deckhand.

And you don't sleep

because you are responsible
for everybody and the boat.

But I haven't gone mad yet...
I don't think.

It's not really for you to judge,
though, is it?

No, not really.
I suppose not. Good point.

'Cook's displeasure cruise
finally reached the Arctic.

'He pushed his crew hard -
to the very edge of mutiny -

'and once more, went further
than any man had gone before...

'..but no further.

'Only 50 miles south of where
the North West Passage begins,

'ice forced them to retreat south
for winter.

'And handily, they'd stumbled
across the Hawaiian Islands -

'another first for Europeans.

'But a last for Cook.'

At first, it was just like
the early days in Tahiti.

The Hawaiians welcomed
these weird sailors

and fed them
and threw great parties for them.

And when the ships finally departed,
everybody was the best of mates.

But then a mast broke,
and the ships had to return,

and this time, the reception
was not quite so friendly.

And soon, all the old tensions
started to emerge.

One of Cook's rowing boats
disappeared,

and in one of his increasingly
violent and unreasonable rages,

he set off with a party to a local
village to try and kidnap the king.

'There was panicking,
and there was shooting.

'Blades were brandished,
bullets were fired,

'and four marines
and dozens of Hawaiians were killed.

'Cook was stabbed to death
and his body burned.'

Cook's powdered wig
would never be found.

'How to sum up
a man of so many contradictions?

'A son of a farmer, who rose to
the greatest heights of celebrity?

'A conscientious captain, on whose
watch terrible things happened?

'A symbol of national pride
or of the evils of Empire?'

Captain James Cook is
a British legend.

SOMBRE MUSIC

Here is his statue
looking out over Whitby

where he learned
so much of his craft.

Elsewhere in the world,

in Australia and New Zealand and
some of the islands where he landed,

he's sometimes referred to
as "Captain Crook".

And many of his statues
have been pulled down

for all the usual reasons.

But hang on a minute.
It has been said that

we should live in the present
for the sake of progress,

but with an eye to the future
for the sake of humanity.

And I think that's
how Captain Cook lived and worked.

I mean he... he enormously advanced
the sciences of navigation,

map-making, surveying,
even crew welfare.

But at the same time,

his diary is riddled with self-doubt
about what he's doing

and the effect
it might have on people.

In truth, I don't think Cook
was interested in wealth or power,

he was a nerd.

Look at his work,
look at his journal,

look at his books
of navigation homework.

Captain Cook's legacy is enormous.

He completed our view of the world

and with it, perhaps,
our view of ourselves.

Right. Let's explore fish and chips.

'BARNACLE BILL' PLAYS

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