COOK’S DIARY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16987, 10 March 1923, Page 5 (Supplement)

COOK’S DIARY.

WILL MANUSCRIPT GO ABROAD? BID FROM SYDNEY. On Wednesday fortnight there will be sold by auction at Sotheby’s, London, some of the most important manuscripts of the famous navigator Captain James Cook. There is no mane more intimately connected with the discovery and early history of New Zealand, as well a.s of numerous other islands in these parts, than that of Captain Cook. There is already in the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington much valuable material connected with Cook’s voyages to the South Seas and is held that it will be a great pity if the important manuscripts which are about to be sold in London are not seeureel. In a letter recently published in the Wellington “ Post ” the Librarian of the Alexander Turnbull Library, Air Johannes C. Andersen, described the manuscripts which are about to be disposed of, and expressed the hope that Cook’s Journal might come to New Zealand. The Mitchell Library, Sydney, has already offered £SOOO for the Cook manuscripts, but the offer has been refused on the ground that private offers cannot be entertained. It is intended, apparently in accordance with a will or from a desire to get the market price, that the manuscripts shall bo disposed of by auction. WRITING THE JOURNALS. “The Mitchell Library,” said Mr Andersen, in the “ Post ” on Saturday. “ has already offered the sum mentioned. The Mitchell Library is able to make the offer because it has a fund which it is compulsory for it to expend every year. It has an endowment of £30,000, and the interest on that is available for purchasing books or manuscripts. The first lot being offered for sale on the 21st instant is the Cook journal, which had been in th© possession of H. AY. F. Bolckow (now deceased) for some fifty years. It seems strange t-hat a manuscript of Captain Cook should remain hidden so long—practically unknown —but the fact is.” added Mr Anderson, “that there are several manuscript journals of Cook. One appears to be only the rough notes kept from day to day. Another is a oopy of these rough notes with slightly more information, evidently written up from the daily notes from time to time. Then there is the official log, writen up by one of Cook’s officers from Cook’s notes; and other logs by other officers on board. APMII?.\ T ORB! “ All th© noal board th m sent r • ■ • 4 ro v v pos r , rise -'turn •*; .no diips .-» T.ng.Ued • - . to Vs have been re.imals the accounts of ■-he were written which fore--11, - Vdmiraltv account. This is ~e rea. - no doubt, for the existence of several accounts of the voyages other than the official account.” “The journal of Captain Cook now about to he sold in London seems to have been slightly fuller than the manuscript journal of Cook already known. In the letter published in ‘ The Post ’ I gave the wording of the first rough notes written by Captain , Cook of the discovery and naming of Botany Bay. It will have been noticed that in his second oopy Captain Took made several slight corrections. He first called the harbour Stingray Bay. and then, on the return of Air I Banks and Dr Solander to the ship with specimens of plants, Cook decided | to change the name. [ - “ The original manuscripts now ! about to be sold in London were in j the library of Marton Hall for upwards of fifty years, having been purchased bv the late Mr Bolckow’s uncle, from whom and in what circumstances is unknown. Captain Cook was born in a labourer’s cottage on the estate at Alar ton Hall. FIRST TERRESTRIAL GLOBE. “ The autograph manuscript of Captain Cook is the second rough draft : from which the official journal was I written. As already stated, in the ! Alexander Turnbull Library there are. I many manuscripts and printed copies I connected with the Cook voyages, j Also, which was not noted in my letI ter, there is the first terrestrial globe issued after Cook’s journal, with the routes of the various voyages shown j ° n <this late date it would be neoesx sary, if a bid is to be made from i New Zealand to obtain those valuable i manuscripts, to cable the authority either to the High Commissioner or to one of the dealers in London. Unless a bid is made for these manuscripts now. they will be gone irrevocably—as the American collectors are in the field and they do not allow money to stand in the way when good things are to be obtained.” COOK’S FIRST VOYAGE. Th© autograph manuscript of Cook’s diary kept during his first voyage to the South Seas contains many interesting emendations and variations from the printed journal. It was during this voyage, by far the most important of the three undertaker, by Cook, that he charted the coasts of New Zealand and the eastern coast of Australia. For manv years the existence of this autograph manuscript was unknown to scholars, who were compelled to be content with the three contemporary manuscript copies—one at "Windsor, one- in the Public Record Office, and the third, known as the Corner Journal, because formerly in the possession of Mr John Corner, from which the version printed by Admiral AYharton in 1893 was chiefly taken. This copy is now in the Australian Museum, Sydney. A single leaf of another autograph journal, describing two days of the stay at Botany Bay (May 5 and 6, 1770) was sold in 1911 for £451. Throughout the manuscript there are numerous corrections. The name New South Wales was an afterthought, being written over some words which have been erased. On the othc: hand, there is no sign that the name Poverty Bay, applied to the first anchor-

age in New Zealand. is an afterthought, so that Cook’s first intention to call it Endeavour Bay cannot have lasted long. SURVEY OF NEW ZEALAND COAST. Contemporary copies of Cook’s correspondence with the Admiralty relating to his first voyage are included in the manuscripts to be sold in London shortly. The instructions say: “ You J arc to proceed to the southward in ! order to make discovery of the con’-r- i nent supposed to exist in the South ; Pacific, until you arrive in the latitude ot 40 degrees, unless you sooner fall i ' with it. But not having discovered if. or any evident signs of it in that run. you are to proceed in search of it 1. 1 the westward between the latitude before-mentioned, and the latitude of 8:> degrees until you discover it. or fall ; in with the ©astern side of the land j discovered by Tasman and now called New Zealand.” Tf he dn«c not discover ; the unknown continent he is to survey j the coasts of New Zealand.