Irishmen were to be found among the crew of all of Captain Cook’s voyages of discovery. I’ve identified four who played not insubstantial roles in his second voyage.
This set out with the aim of discovering a southern continent. It consisted of two ships; the Endeavour, captained by Cook himself, and the Adventure, a former collier, commanded by Tobias Furneaux.
The Adventure became separated from the Endeavour early in 1773. The two ships endured a much longer separation beginning in October of the same year off the New Zealand coast, and were not destined to be reunited. The Adventure landed at Queen Charlotte Sound on the north-eastern extremity of New Zealand’s South Island at the end of November 1773, only a few days after the Endeavour had sailed a way. On December 17th a party of experienced seamen was sent, several days’ later, to the nearby Grass Cove (called Wharehunga by the local Maoris), to collect information and foodstuffs. They were expected to be stay for only a few hours, but night fell without their return. The next day a search party commanded by Lieutenant Burney found the grisly indications of what had happened to them. They first found fresh meat which they wrongly identified as dog meat, but the discovery of ten headless and disembowelled corpses showed that the men had been murdered. What’s more there were indications that they were being prepared for eating. (Anyone interested in reading more about he Grass Cove Massacre should visit New Zealand History online
Those on board included Francis Murphy, the ship’s quartermaster, and John Cavenaugh. I don’t know where in Ireland they came from, but their surnames give us some clues. The surname Murphy is common throughout the island, but is especially numerous in Co. Cork. Cavenaugh or Kavanagh is common in the southeast, especially in counties Carlow and Wexford.
Murphy and Cavenaugh can, I believe, hold the rather dubious accolade of being the fire Irishmen killed in New Zealand.
The company of Cook’s ship Endeavour included an Irish gunner’s mate named John Marra (probably O’Meara). The surname is common in Co. Tipperary. He had previously joined the Dutch naval service, or probably the Dutch East India Company, which brought him to Java and Batavia (now Djakarta). It was there Captain Cook first met him, while returning from his first voyage of discovery. Marra professed to having no friends or contacts in Europe, and when the Endeavour stopped off at Tahiti in 1773 he exhibited a strong indication to stay there. This may have been enhanced by the low cost of living and the welcome of the natives, especially the women. Cook however impressed upon him the need of staying with the ship. We don’t know how he did it but maybe the threat of flogging or the cat o’ nine tails did the trick for he returned to England with Cook. Once there he did not initially go gentle into that good night of obscurity. All of the officers and crew promised Cook they would not publish accounts of the voyage until the Admiralty had given its consent. Public interest in their findings was intense and rumours abounded about what he had discovered and their appetite for information could not be assuaged by then non-existent media like television. It was therefore with considerable unease that in September 1775 Captain Cook learned that an account of the voyage, written by one of the participants, was at a London printers and was awaiting publication. Suspicion initially fell on the Endeavour’s gunner, Robert Anderson, but when Cook challenged him he denied all knowledge and undertook to find out who had written about the voyage. A visit to the bookseller and printer Francis Newbury provided him with the necessary information: it was \Anderson’s old friend John Marra, then residing at the Angel Inn, Angel Court, Southwark. Anderson left him in no doubt that he had earned the displeasure of the captain. Although he denied involvement he travelled with Anderson to the publisher where he insisted that the account of the voyage they had should only be published under hi8s name. But he was still anxious to retain the patronage of Captain Cook so he paid him a visit, again denying any involvement in the publication scheme himself but pointing the finger of blame at others, including a coxswain named Reardon – a surname of Counties Cork and Limerick. These people had already supplied drafts to the publisher who had rejected them because they were so badly written. Cook was content that if these were the only publications then pending, they did not think they were “worth regarding”. But he intended to pay a visit to the printers to discover the truth of the matter. This would be made3 easier by his knowledge of all the handwriting of his crew.
Whether he ever made this trip I do not know. Certainly at the time Cook had other, and bigger fish to fry, not the least was the invitation to lead yet another voyage to the South Pacific. This was the prove his last, from which he was not to return. I have found no references to Marra being one of the crew.
© Ciaran Parker 2010
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