Byron, Wallis, Carteret and Philatelic Licence

John Byron by Joshua Reynolds, 1759, National Maritime Museum Greenwich

Byron and Dolphin June 1764 to May 1766

On the 21st June 1764 Commodore John Byron sailed HMS Dolphin from the Downs, sent by the British Admiralty, who had been persuaded by George III, to search for the great southern continent, believed to lie in the South Pacific.  With Dolphin were HMS Tamar captained by Patrick Mouat and the supply ship Florida.

Byron was accompanied on Dolphin by midshipman Charles Clerke later to sail on all three of Cook’s voyages and, following Cook’s death in 1779, took over command of Resolution.  Also sailing with Byron was master's mate John Gore who would sail on Dolphin’s second circumnavigation and on Cook’s first and third voyages.  When Clerke died (on his thirty-eighth birthday) from tuberculosis en route to Kamchatka in August 1779 Gore commanded the Resolution and Discovery expedition back to England.  Starting out on the Tamar before being promoted to First Lieutenant on the Dolphin was Philip Carteret, of whom more later.

Late 1764 and early 1765 were spent surveying Patagonia, the Straits of Magellan and the Falkland Islands., from where Florida returned to England with a message recommending that the islands be colonised.  This was nearly the cause of war between Great Britain and Spain, both countries having armed fleets ready to contest the sovereignty of the barren islands.

Byron had previously been in the area as a midshipman on HMS Wager, part of George Anson’s ill-fated 1740 to1744 expedition.  In May 1741 Wager was wrecked on the coast of Patagonia and it wasn’t until February 1746 that he was able to return to England.

Getting through the Straits of Magellan and into the Pacific took six frustrating weeks and by the time the ships came to what is now French Polynesia, the crew were suffering quite badly from scurvy, and this had a major influence on the conduct of the voyage through the Pacific.  They were desperate to restock with fresh supplies, in particular coconuts and fresh vegetables for the sick.  However, the local inhabitants opposed any landings with shows of arms, and coupled with the difficulty of anchoring near to the coral atolls, prompted Byron to name the first of them the Islands of Disappointment.  The ships went on to the Cook Islands, the Gilbert Islands and the Marianas, before heading back to Britain via the Philippines, Batavia, the Cape of Good Hope and St. Helena, which they passed on Sunday March 16th 1766 without stopping.

On April 1st after sustaining damage to her rudder, Tamar was diverted to Antigua to be fitted with a new one.  One of Byron's last official acts before entering port was to confiscate the journals kept by his crew members, a matter of routine on Navy voyages that was intended to guard against security leaks and guarantee that only the official, government-sanctioned version of the voyage would reach the public. Dolphin reached the Downs on the 9th May, Tamar a month later, the journey having taken just over 22 months which at the time was the fastest ever circumnavigation of the globe, but the discoveries made were very limited and the Admiralty made rapid plans to send the Dolphin back to the Pacific.

Samuel Wallis by Henry Stubble, ca 1785, National Library of Australia

Wallis and Dolphin August 1766 to May 1768

Losing no time, on the 19th August the Admiralty recalled Captain Samuel Wallis to active service and gave him sailing orders to take HMS Dolphin back to the Pacific for a second expedition.  Accompanying him was HMS Swallow under the command of Philip Carteret, (who had only been back in England three months), and the store-ship Prince Frederick.  Wallis kept his orders secret from Carteret until they were three weeks out at sea. Carteret thought that the fleet was going to re-provision the settlement at Port Egmont in the Falkland Islands but the real objective of the fleet was to sail for Magellan Straits where the Prince Frederick would head back to the Falklands and the Dolphin and the Swallow were to sail west for further exploration in the Pacific.  After struggling through the Magellan Straits for 115 days, they reached the Pacific Ocean where on 11th April 1767 the Swallow, in no fit state to undertake the journey in the first place, was separated from the Dolphin.  On 23rd June Dolphin arrived at Tahiti and Wallis sent Tobias Furneaux, the second lieutenant, ashore to claim it for England naming it King George Island.  Furneaux would return to Tahiti in 1773 as Captain of Adventure accompanying Resolution on Cook's second voyage.

Wallis and his crew had communication and cultural difficulties and sailed from Tahiti on 27th July after having refitted the Dolphin and loaded up with water and fresh food.  They sailed to the islands to the west of Samoa that now bear his name, to Tinian and on to Batavia where Wallis lost forty men to smallpox and most of his crew were unfit for duty on the crossing of the Indian Ocean to the Cape of Good Hope. 

 The Dolphin had to spend a month in South Africa so that the crew could recover their health. On the 17th March 1768 Dolphin arrived at Jamestown but left at noon the following day.

“At six o’ clock in the evening of Wednesday the 16^th we saw the Island of St. Helena, at the distance of about four leagues and at one the next morning brought to.  At break of day we made sail for the island and at nine anchored in the bay.  The fort saluted us with thirteen guns and we returned the same number.  We found riding here the Northumberland Indiaman, Captain Milford, who saluted us with eleven guns and we returned nine.  We got out all the boats as soon as possible and sent the empty casks to be filled with water; at the same time several of the people were employed to gather purslain (purslane) which grows here in great plenty.  About two o’ clock I went on shore myself and was saluted by the fort with thirteen guns, which I returned. The Governor and the principal gentlemen of the island did me the honour to meet me at the water-side, and having conducted me to the fort, told me, that it was expected that I should make it my home during my stay.  By noon the next day our water was completed and the ship was made ready for sea; soon after she was unmoored to take advantage of the first breeze, and at five in the afternoon I returned on board.  Upon my leaving the shore I was saluted with thirteen guns, and soon after upon getting under way I was saluted with thirteen more, both of which I returned; the Northumberland Indiaman then saluted me with thirteen guns, so did the Ollery, which arrived her the evening before I made sail, and I returned the compliment with the same number.”

St Helena, Jamestown, Dolphin Postal Stone 1645

The postal stone outside the Castle in Jamestown refers to a much earlier ship.  Dolphin finally reached England on the 18th May 1768 after a twenty-one month circumnavigation becoming the first ship to sail twice around the world.  It was presumed by Wallis that the Swallow had been lost; it was reported as such when they reached Britain and James Cook believed this to be the case when he left Plymouth for Tahiti in the Endeavour with Joseph Banks in August of that year. 

Why Tahiti?  Dr Nevil Maskelyne, Astronomer Royal and fellow of the Royal Society, had calculated that the best possible vantage point south of the equator to observe the 1769 Transit of Venus was between the Marquesas Islands and Tonga.  The preferred site within this large area had not yet been determined when Wallis returned to England having “discovered” Tahiti, located almost at the centre of the area identified by Maskelyne.  Tahiti’s longitude had been established by the Dolphin’s purser, John Harrison, (not the John Harrison of Longitude fame) using Maskelyne’s astronomical tables to perform the mathematically complicated but effective method of calculating lunar distances.  Thus it was that the Royal Society informed the Admiralty that Tahiti was its desired site for the Pacific observation of the transit, and Cook set sail accompanied by John Gore who knew more about the Pacific than anyone else on the ship and three other Dolphin seamen, Molyneaux, Pickersgill and Wilkinson.

Philip Carteret

Carteret and Swallow April 1767 to March 1769

But Swallow was not lost, just abandoned and Carteret felt bitter and angry about having been left with a slug of a ship and an inadequate crew.  He sailed for Juan Fernandez Island intending to refit but it was occupied by Spanish colonists and he was forced to sail to the island of Mas Afuera where there was no safe anchorage and they had trouble getting water.  (Mas Afuera is one of a group of islands about 600km from the coast of Chile and, since they are mainly known for having been the home to the sailor Alexander Selkirk for four years, which may have inspired the novel Robinson Crusoe, have been renamed Alejandro Selkirk Island, Santa Clara Island and Robinson Crusoe Island).  They left on the 31st May with only half a supply of food and water and sailed north in order to pick up the trade winds to get them across the Pacific.

Sailing west just south of the tropics Carteret describes in his log the discovery for which this expedition is best remembered:

“We continued our course westward till the evening of Thursday the 2nd of July, when we discovered land to the northward of us.  Upon approaching it the next day, it appeared like a great rock rising out of the sea.  It was not more than five miles in circumference, and seemed to be uninhabited.  It was however covered with trees, and we saw a small stream of fresh water running down one side of it.  I would have landed upon it, but the surf, which at this season broke upon it with great violence, rendered it impossible.  I got soundings on the west side of it, at somewhat less than a mile from shore, in twenty five fathoms, with a bottom of coral and sand, and it is probable that in fine summer weather, landing here may not only be practicable, but very easy.  We saw a great number of sea birds hovering about it, at somewhat less than a mile from the shore, and the sea here seemed to have fish.  It lies in latitude 25°, 2′ south, longitude 133°, 21′ west, and about a thousand leagues to the westward of the continent of America.  It is so high that we saw it at the distance of more than fifteen leagues; and it having been discovered by a young gentleman, son to Major Pitcairn of the marines, who was unfortunately lost in the Aurora, we called it PITCAIRN'S ISLAND."

Carteret, sailing without a chronometer was unable to precisely determine longitude so his recorded position of 133.21 W placed Pitcairn over 200 miles from its true position of 130.06 W.  That twenty-three years later Pitcairn was able to provide a refuge for the mutineers from HMS Bounty, not finally being discovered until 1808 is undoubtedly due in part to the fact that nobody in the Royal Navy knew precisely where the island was.  The error was also compounded in the first edition of Hawkesworth where the latitude in the text disagreed with the map position by an additional 350 miles.  Following the Mutiny on April 28th 1789 Fletcher Christian not only took over Bligh's cabin but his library.  Thus the mutineers of the Bounty were able to seek Pitcairn Island as their refuge in January 1790 because they had on board Hawkesworth's volumes and read therein the report of Carteret's discovery in 1767.  That they found the island despite the errors is remarkable but of such errors are legends born.

Carteret turned north and sailed west of the Society Islands and east of Samoa.  At about 10 00 S 167.00 W Dolphin veered to the west, looking for the Solomon Islands. He found Santa Cruz, but had to sail away without all the supplies they needed.  Leaving New Ireland on 9th September 1767 they made for Mindanao in the southern Philippines where the natives fired guns to signal them not to land so Carteret moved on and sailed between Sulawesi and Borneo to Batavia where the Swallow was repaired and re-provisioned for the voyage home.  Carteret could not wait to get away from Batavia because of the sickness and left on 15th September with many of his crew sick with malaria or dysentery.  The Swallow took two months to cross the Indian Ocean to Cape Town.  Leaving in the new year of 1769, from the 20^th to 24^th January they were at St Helena some ten months after Wallis. 

Following closely behind Carteret, passing St. Helena on 29th January, was Bougainville in the Boudeuse returning to France from his own 1766 to 1769 circumnavigation. 

 Bougainville had received news of Carteret at Batavia and at the Cape and reaching the (then) uninhabited Ascension on the 4th February he read a note left in a bottle informing him that the Swallow had departed on 1st February.  After collecting turtles, as Carteret had done, on the 19^th February Swallow was sighted and Bougainville offered Carteret assistance, which was politely declined.  Bougainville described Swallow as being in poor condition and wondered how it had sailed so far and how miserable it must have been on the ship.  In any event Carteret finally arrived back in England on 20th March.

Which brings us to the philatelic licence of Swallow and Dolphin together at St Helena.



Flax

St. Helena, Peakdale, Footpaths through the Flax, May 2010

Among the many hundreds of plants first seen by Europeans on James Cook’s 1768 to 1771 Endeavour Voyage was one described, but not named, by Joseph Banks in his March 1770 “Account of New Zealand”:

“But of all the plants we have seen among these people that which is the most excellent in its kind, and which really excels most if not all that are put to the same uses in other Countries, is the plant which serves them instead of Hemp and flax.  Of this there are two sorts: the leaves of both much resemble those of flags: the flowers are smaller and grow many more together, in one sort they are Yellowish in the other of a deep red.  Of the leaves of these plants with very little preparation all their common wearing apparel are made and all strings, lines, and cordage for every purpose, and that of a strength so much superior to hemp as scarce to bear a comparison with it.”

Not long after returning to England Banks had his portrait painted by Benjamin West which shows him standing by a pillar wearing a Maori flax cloak.  At his feet are an adze and a book containing plant specimens.

1773 mezzotint by JR Smith from the original 1771 Portrait by Benjamin West

British Museum.  Registration Number 1841.0809.1507

In October 1774 during Cook’s 1772 to 1775 Resolution voyage a landing was made on Norfolk Island.  William Wales, the ship’s astronomer, noted that: “Near the shore the ground is covered so thick with the New Zealand Flax Plant that it is scarce possible to get through it.

The expedition’s botanists, father and son team Johann and Georg Forster collected specimens of the flax plant on Norfolk Island and in 1775 formally named it Phormium tenax, in allusion to baskets which the Maoris made from the leaves–phormium from the Greek phormos, a basket, and the Latin tenax, strong.  It should be noted that botanically New Zealand Flax is separated by an enormous distance from European Flax, Linum usatissimum, the only similarity being in supplying a fibre suitable for textile manufacture.  Its presence was, however, directly responsible for the island’s inclusion as an auxiliary settlement in the British Government’s plan for the colonisation of New South Wales.

Cook had been impressed by the potential of Norfolk Island to provide timber and fibre for the Royal Navy.  The timber of the “pines” was “exactly of the same nature as the Quebeck pines” and the trees were huge and straight.  They seemed ideal for masts and spars.  Cook already knew how highly the Maoris in New Zealand valued the flax as a fibre plant and thought it would be invaluable for making ropes and sails.  Accordingly, of all the islands discovered on the voyage, tiny Norfolk stood out for its potential value to Britain, largely because of its flax.  Because of Cook’s enthusiasm for the potential value of the flax, the British Government’s 1787 instructions to Arthur Phillip, commodore of the "First Fleet" and first Governor of New South Wales, described the flax “not only as a means of acquiring Clothing for the Convicts and other persons who may become settlers, but from its superior excellence for a variety of maritime purposes and as it may ultimately may become an Article of Export.”  Phillip was instructed: “you are, as soon as circumstances will admit of it, to send a small Establishment [to Norfolk Island] to secure the same to us, and prevent its being occupied by the subjects of any other European Power.”  On March 6^th 1788 a party of 15 convicts and seven free men arrived to take control of Norfolk Island and prepare for its commercial development, though in the event it became more of a penal settlement than a source of fibre.

Flax, Tree Ferns and a solitary Norflolk Island Pine.

Diana's Peak National Park, May 2010

In June 1776, immediately prior to his third, and final, voyage, Cook wrote to his friend Commodore Wilson at Great Ayton.  “I am sorry I cannot furnish you with some New Zealand flax seed, having not one grain of it left.  Indeed, I brought hardly one grain of it home with me, but left the most of what I had at the Cape, to try to cultivate it there; for of all that was brought home in my former voyage, I have not heard of a single grain vegetating.  It is much to be feared, that this fine plant will never be raised in England.”
 In New Zealand Europeans were quick to appreciate the commercial possibilities of phormium fibre and between the 1820’s and the 1860’s a considerable trade in hand-dressed fibre was carried on between Maori and European.  In the 1860’s the invention of the flax stripper led to the development of the flax milling industry and by 1870 there were 161 flax mills nationwide, with 1,766 workers.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries British imperial administrators saw flax as a possible cash crop for various outposts of the empire and they tried to establish flax industries on islands such as Tristan da Cunha and the Isle of Man.  On Tristan da Cunha, where other materials were in short supply, the flax was used for roofing – it bleached in the weather to give the stone cottages a fine blonde thatch.

Ashmole and Ashmole offer the following in regard to flax on St. Helena:

It was introduced in the first half of the 19^th century, probably by an American whaler or by a ship returning from delivering convict to Australia.  It was already growing wild in December 1852 when Fred Moss wrote to the St. Helena Advocate suggesting that it could be developed into an industry.  They also give 1860 as the date for the introduction of the Norfolk Island Pine

Peakdale, Phormium Tenax, May 2010

On St. Helena Benjamin Grant wrote in 1883:

New Zealand Flax grows luxuriantly in almost all parts of the Island.  Ten years ago a Company called the Foreign Fibre Company, was formed for the purpose of preparing the fibre of this useful plant.  Machines were sent from England, a Factory established on the Jamestown Lines for that purpose and the Company purchased in the Island a fine large estate of 156 acres called “Woody Ridge,” under 60 acres of Flax and 15 acres of Aloe, for £1,200 sterling.  But after five years incessant work the Company ceased its operations, thus many men and boys were thrown out of employment. Mr. W. Erridge (of the Firm of W. Erridge, & Co. of this Island) then hired the Factory and commenced operations again, but after twelve months he too closed the Works, alleging as a reason for so doing that preparing the fibre did not pay.  So at the present day the Foreign Fibre Company’s Works are closed, which is a great pity, as there are thousands of tons of Flax encumbering several plantations.

Grant’s book “A few notes on St. Helena” is “Respectfully inscribed” to Governor Janisch who Trevor Hearl described as someone “who worked hard to counter the colony's economic decline, and encouraged the development of the first flax industry in 1874.”

Jackson gives some more detail:

Early in1874 The Colonial & Foreign Fibre Company was formed to cultivate flax on the island and a flax works with a steam flax machine was erected in Jamestown close to the sea.  In July 1876 the first shipment of flax from The Company left the island.  The consignment was 100 bales, each weighing 4 cwt.  In February 1881 the company closed being unprofitable.  “The flax was brought in its raw state by donkeys to the flax works and had the works been built near where the flax grew, the experiment might have succeeded, for the flax is undoubtedly of good strength, but the difficulty was the water power required.”

In December 1907 a flax processing mill was set up by the Government at Longwood under the supervision of a New Zealand expert, Mr. Fulton, and in a few years the product became the only staple industry on the island.

The Marlborough Express published the following article on his visit in early 1908.

New Zealand Flax in St. Helena.  Interview with Mr. Fulton.130 Fleet Street, London, Feb. 14.

"As a matter of fact." said Mr C. J. Fulton, chief fibre expert of the New Zealand Department of Agriculture, Wellington, when he called upon me the day before yesterday, (writes a London correspondent), "I have been lent by the Government of New Zealand to the Imperial Government in order that I may do what can be done to establish on a practical and profitable footing in the island of St. Helena, a flax industry.  That is to say, I had first to satisfy myself that the soil and other conditions were suitable to the growth of phormium tenax, and if so to show the islanders how to work the fibre."

"But it was stated lately that the experiment had been made, and had failed?"

"Ah, but that failure was inevitable," answered Mr Fulton, "because the promoters used quite the wrong sort of machinery.  Certainly they did fail, and lost some £30,000 over the attempt.  But nowadays anyone would know that an attempt on that basis was bound and doomed to fail. What I am now doing is on very different lines."

"You have been visiting St. Helena, have you not?"

"Oh, yes," replied Mr Fulton.  “I left New Zealand in March last, and, of course, had to travel by a very roundabout route, as St. Helena is quite off the beaten track, or at any rate away from any regular steamship route.  But I got there at last, and spent five months in the island.  I had brought with me the flax-dressing machinery which is peculiar to New Zealand, and having made a full inspection of the place and its capabilities I came on to England to obtain the rest of the requisite appliances, and then returned to St. Helena, where I erected a mill and superintended its working for some time."

"But was the raw material available?  Does the phormium grow already in St. Helena?"

“Certainly," replied Mr Fulton. The so-called New Zealand flax has grown there for more than half a century—perhaps 54 or 55 years.  It was introduced and cultivated for hedges and for shelter in the more exposed portions of the island.  At the present time there is- only a comparatively small lot there, but the soil is very suitable for its propagation, and it will now be cultivated in large fields.  Even now, however, the big flax hedges greatly need thinning, and so a considerable quantity will be available-quite enough to go a small way while the method of working is being practiced.  Then the hedges will be thinned out not only by cutting but also by transplantation of the roots.  There will be fields of the flax instead of merely hedges.  At present the new industry gives employment to thirty men, viz, sixteen at the mill, and the others at conveying the material to the mill with bullocks and donkeys.  The formal opening of the new mill took place on the 5th December.  It was regarded as quite an historic event, and the whole population turned out to witness and celebrate it.  They might well deem the occasion an important one, for the flax industry is really the only chance for them—that is, to grow the flax and mill it.”

“So what did you think of the island itself?”

"It is exceedingly picturesque in the interior, at any rate.  There are plenty of trees and the soil is fertile.  Thus in the best parts two crops of potatoes can be grown in each year.  But they are quite unsaleable owing to the absence of a market and only those needed for domestic consumption can be used.  It is the same with the cattle; there are some fair herds, but there, is no market, and so it does not pay to breed them as their produce is unsaleable."

"How did you find the people themselves?"

"Most hospitable and kind and well conducted.  They gave me an awfully good time.  There is only one actually rich man in the whole island, a merchant named Thorpe.  Everyone else is in a small way.  By the bye, there is a cable staff of 35 in St. Helena.  The means of communication are very defective.  Only two steamers call there now and then.  There is no good harbour, only a roadstead."

"When do you return to New Zealand?"

"I was due there next month," said Mr Fulton. "But my Government I cabled to me to stay longer and visit the United States of America.  I am also going to all the principal centres of the textile industry in the United Kingdom, including Belfast, Dundee, Edinburgh, Liverpool, etc."

Flax machinery by Booth MacDonald, Christchurch, Fairyland Flax Mill, May 2010

In July 1913 Solomon’s opened a flax mill at Bamboo Hedge and by the end of 1917 one hundred and seventy five men and forty-two women were employed in the flax industry.  The flax industry had experienced a boom during the 1914 - 1918 Great War, everyone who was able began to plant and grow flax and grants of small plots of crown land were made for the further planting of this commodity, but after 1921 it had a setback from competition with low-priced sisal fibre from Africa and Java.  By 1923 there were six mills working, that of the Government, two Solomon’s mills at Sandy Bay and Broad Bottom Gut, two of Deason’s at Hutts Gate and Woody Ridge and a new one erected below Francis Plain by Thorpes.  In 1925 Solomon & Company had enough faith in the industry to set up a stripper mill on a site only about 200 yards along the Levelwood road from the old residence of Rock Rose which had become a ruin.  Unfortunately this new mill was often hampered by a shortage of water and did not operate in the early 1930's but was back in production by 1935.  In July 1932 all nine of the island’s flax mills were closed due to a fall in the price of hemp causing serious unemployment and privation, but following a Government subsidy of £3.15s a ton on manufactured fibre, re-opened in November of the same year.

Flax Mill, Bamboo Hedge, Date unknown

Gosse records that in 1938 3,253 acres of flax were under cultivation.  Three families owned the land and almost all the industry’s profits went to them.  The flax industry eventually employed 300 to 400 people who worked 50 hours per week for low wages.  Work in the fields and mill was hard, repetitive, noisy and dirty and workers were often injured in the machines used to process the fibre.   Gosse describes the Ridge, the highest part of the island as “still clothed by the primeval forest of the island, at least by what little of it has been spared by the greedy goats and more recently by the even greedier growers of New Zealand flax.  On both the steep sides of the Ridge the ruthless and rapacious flax growers have hacked down and grubbed up wild olive, tree ferns, cabbage trees, lobelia and everything else which God planted there, in order to grow their flax which would grow just as well in many other parts of the island.”

Flax Fibre drying at Fairyland, Gosse 1938

 Fairyland Flax Mill with Bamboo Hedge in the distance, May 2010

Twenty years later, concern was being expressed in the House of Commons.  Having returned from a visit to St. Helena in the summer of 1958 Cledwyn Hughes spoke in a debate held on the 8th December and described the Island’s economic position with particular reference to the flax industry.

St Helena, he stated, is not a self-supporting community, and so far as can be seen it will not be self-supporting in the foreseeable future.  Flax growing and agriculture are two main industries of the island and both are at present in a serious condition.  The hemp produced there is not of the best quality, and both its price and the demand for it have fallen progressively since 1951.  The price of hemp was at its peak in May, 1951, when it sold at £180 a ton.  In June of this year the price had fallen to as low as £55 a ton.  Four out of the five flax mills on the island are closed, which means that about 230 men and women have been thrown out of work.  There are no alternative sources of employment on the island, and these people cannot, therefore, be absorbed in any other sort of work.  In addition to that, the work is arduous and ill-paid. The basic wage is £1 13s. 0d. a week. I should like it borne in mind by the House that the cost of living on the island is relatively high.   This is what the Social Welfare Officer for St. Helena has to say in his report for 1957.  "I have found a strong feeling of resentment tempered only by the fear of unemployment among flax workers who regard their basic wage of £1 13s. 6d. a week as totally inadequate."  The Minister will probably know that the future of the flax industry in St. Helena is obscure.  One of the obvious tragedies of the island at present is that its staple industry should be in this condition.  I must mention that the Government of St. Helena have on their Statute Book a minimum wage ordinance.  They have had it on the Statute Book for many years, but I was amazed to find that it had never been implemented.  One must bear in mind that fortunes have been made out of the island's flax industry in the past, but wages have been kept as low as possible.

I found that the workers in the industry—I spoke to many of them when I was there—have been afraid to complain about their conditions of work and wages because of the fear of victimisation and unemployment.  The basic wage paid by the Government of St. Helena to their own workers is only £2 5s. a week.  Such a wage does not enable people to attain anything approaching a decent standard of living in this British Colony.  As I have said, the cost of living in the island is high and prices are comparable with United Kingdom prices.  I would ask the House to mark that the requirements of the people of St. Helena are similar to our requirements.  Here we have a British people—their only language is English—who have an attitude to life similar in general to ours and their demands are similar to our demands.  How can Her Majesty's Government or the St. Helena Government justify this gross neglect of their own employees?  In simple terms it means that the ordinary people of St. Helena—by that I mean about 95 per cent of the population—do not know what it is from one year's end to another to eat meat, butter, eggs and cheese or to have milk.  None of the basic requirements of life is available to them, and that is a shame and disgrace.  Why are these facts not given in the official Report published by the Colonial Office about this island so that the House and the people of this country may know the true position there?

Rock Rose Flax Mill, May 2010

The Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, Mr. Julian Amery replied:

Since the turn of the last century our problem has been how to put the economy of the island and of its nearly 5,000 people on to a new foundation.  As the hon. Member said, St. Helena has few resources for which there is any world demand.  One crop alone, phormium tenax, a flax indigenous to New Zealand, has proved itself as a serious export.  But the world market for this and similar fibres is, and has for some time been, seriously depressed. The industry which until recently employed 200 people is at present employing only 120.  The Hon. Member spoke of the fear of unemployment and of the grievance felt by some working in the flax industry at the level of their wages.  I understand that; but there is always a danger that any further depression in prices or any rise in production costs would lead to the flax mills closing down completely.  This would cause very serious hardship to the island, and more especially to the employees and their families in the industry.

This in fact is precisely what happened.  Flax mills continued to operate intermittently until the entire industry ended in 1966 when the last Mill on the island closed.

Woody Ridge Flax Mill, May 2010

Broadbottom Flax Mill, May 2010

The commonly held belief is that the demise of the industry was precipitated when an official in the British Post Office, which was a major buyer, decided to use synthetic string thus killing off St. Helena’s flax industry and even with government subsidies, St Helena flax could not compete in the world market.

A more plausible explanation is that this outcome was exactly as was foreseen.  In the mid-1960s some of the flax mills were government-owned and others were private and in 1965, after a government review of wages, a decision was made to nearly double the wages in the government mills.  Wages were felt to be too low for workers to live on adequately.  The private mills were not able to match these wage increases and closed.  Meanwhile, world prices for hemp continued to fall, so the higher production costs of the government-owned mills meant that they were operating at a large loss and within a few months they too closed.

The Endeavour Voyage of Sir Joseph Banks:

http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks05/0501141h.html

The discovery of Flax on Norfolk Island:

http://www.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0012/103116/Cun112167Coy.pdf

Benjamin Grant:

http://www.bweaver.nom.sh/grant/grant.htm

Parliamentary Debate on St. Helena:

http://yourdemocracy.newstatesman.com/parliament/st-helena/HAN5526416

Interview with Mr. Fulton:

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=MEX19080331.2.51&l=mi&e=-------10--51----0beer+advertisement--

Cook, Hawkesworth and Wheelbarrows, 1775

The most Striking Likeness of the late Captain James Cook.

From A new, genuine and complete history of the whole of Capt. Cook's Voyages.

London 1790.

James Cook’s first voyage between 1768 and 1771 was a collaboration between the British Admiralty and The Royal Society to send an expedition to the South Pacific aboard the renamed and refitted ex-Whitby Collier HMS Endeavour.  The aims of the expedition were to observe the 1769 Transit of Venus across the sun and, given sealed and secret orders so that Cook did not know his ultimate objective until well into the voyage, to seek evidence of the postulated Terra Australis Incognito or “unknown Southern land”.  Sailing with Cook were the naturalist Daniel Solander and the wealthy amateur botanist and Fellow of the Royal Society Joseph Banks.  The three year voyage achieved much, the identification of Botany Bay, (first named Stingray Bay, later Botanists' Harbour and Botanists’ Bay, and finally Botany Bay in his journal, probably to honour the botanists aboard), taking possession of the east coast of Australia, mapping the coasts of New Zealand and defining the shape of the southern hemisphere. Returning home to England Endeavour stopped, from the 1st to 4th May 1771, at St. Helena.

On the 12th July 1771 Cook wrote to the Commissioners of His Majesty’s Navy from Endeavour in the Downs formally passing the records of the voyage, in seven parcels of documents, to the Commissioners.  These included the monthly muster books, reports of surveys and the public papers of five men who died on the voyage.  Log books and other papers from the voyage had been given to HMS Portland off Ascension on May 10th and had arrived in England three days before Endeavour.

The Admiralty at this time did not publish official accounts of the expeditions it financed, relying on the private sector to do so.  Following a process that relied upon a mix of author capabilities and political patronage, the Admiralty would select a writer who would then take the logs and journals from the voyage and work them into a coherent narrative of the voyages being published.  The selected author, as copyright holder, was then free to arrange whatever deal was possible with printers and booksellers.



Dr. John Hawkesworth, c. 1715 - 1733,  from The British Essayists, London, 1802

In September 1771, the British Admiralty chose John Hawkesworth to compile the official account of Cook’s first voyage and provided him with his logs and journals.  The plan was to include accounts of the voyages of Byron, Wallis and Carteret in a single volume and that of Cook in a second which, in fact, became two.  Hawkesworth was a literary critic, essayist, editor of the Gentleman’s Magazine, associate of Samuel Johnson and man about town in 18th century London.  Although he was by no means a literary giant, Hawkesworth had, according to biographer John Abbott, “a gift for understanding the public taste and writing for it.”  Free to secure the best publishing arrangement he could, Hawkesworth sold the rights to William Strahan and Thomas Cadell for the, then, enormous sum of £6,000, the highest amount paid for a copyright in the 18th century plus twenty-five sets of the final published work.

However such was the interest in Cook’s expedition that in September 1771, within two months of his return, a “Journal of a Voyage round the World in His Majesty’s Ship Endeavour, in the years 1769, 1769, 1770 and 1771” was published anonymously in London.  Usually attributed to James Magra or Matra, an American midshipman on the Endeavour the first edition contained a dedication to the Lords of the Admiralty and to Mr. Banks and Dr Solander.  Following complaints by the latter two this dedication was withdrawn and the Admiralty placed advertisements in the papers cautioning the public against spurious accounts of the voyage.

To read the “official” version the public had to wait until June 9th 1773 when the first edition of 2,000 sets of the three volumes of “An Account of the Voyages undertaken by the order of His present Majesty for making Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere” was published.  Selling out very quickly a second edition of 2,500 sets was issued on August 3rd and the work became so popular that in 1774 German, French, and Dutch translations were published.

However eagerly anticipated by the public widespread criticism in the press made the publication a personal disaster for Hawkesworth.  Reviewers complained that the reader had no way of telling which part of the account was Cook’s, which Banks’ and which Hawkesworth’s.  Others objected to Hawkesworth’s minimizing the role of Providence in Cook’s avoidance of several disasters and others were offended by the books’ descriptions of sexual encounters with the Tahitians.

In November of that year he was dead, The Edinburgh Magazine recording:

“...his mind was wounded deeper than he was willing to confess, by the clamours and censures to which his work had exposed him.  His spirits sunk under the blow.  Bodily illness was added to passionate, desponding affliction of mind.  He had disdained to be thought the imitator even of Johnson; and he now saw his labour reprobated as the disgrace of his country.  His life terminated on the 16th of November 1773 and we are not certain that this good man, did not, such is human frailty, actually perish by his own hand.

Cook would not have been aware of the furore nor of Hawkesworth’s death having departed Plymouth in HMS Resolution, July 13th 1772, on his second voyage during which, in addition to testing Larcum Kendall’s 1769 K1 copy of Harrison’s H4 Chronometer, his was the first ship to cross the Antarctic Circle, he sailed further south than any previous mariner (71°10′ S) and also discovered South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands.

Homeward bound he arrived in Cape Town on March 22nd 1775 and saw, for the first time, a copy of “Voyages”.  Hawkesworth had, as we know, written in the first person in Cook’s name with much of Banks’ journal appearing to be by Cook which was to prove particularly embarrassing on his arrival at Jamestown in May.  He had also altered or omitted from the original text, shifted paragraphs and added thoughts of his own.  Cook was particularly unhappy that most of the navigational detail had been removed, making the journal practically useless for other mariners.  He later wrote: “It is no wonder that the account which is given of (St. Helena) in the narrative of my former voyage should have given offence to all the principle inhabitants.  It was not less mortifying to me when I first read it, which was not till I arrived now at the Cape of Good Hope; for I never had the perusal of the Manuscript nor did I ever hear the whole of it read in the mode it was written, notwithstanding what Dr Hawkesworth has said to the Contrary in the Interduction.  How these things came to be thus misrepresented, I can not say, as they came not from me".

The primary cause of his embarrassment was the following passage. (Hawkesworth, 1773 Vol. III, page 797)

Hawkesworth had taken this from Banks’ original journal, now in the State Library of New South Wales.  http://www2.sl.nsw.gov.au/banks/series_03/essays/03_890mr.cfm

All kinds of Labour is here performd by Man, indeed he is the only animal that works except a few Saddle Horses nor has he the least assistance of art to enable him to perform his task.  Supposing the Roads to be too steep and narrow for Carts, an objection which lies against only one part of the Island, yet the simple contrivance of Wheelbarrows would Doub[t]less be far preferable to carrying burthens upon the head, and yet even that expedient was never tried.  Their slaves indeed are very numerous: they have them from most parts of the World, but they appeard to me a miserable race worn out almost with the severity of the punishments of which they frequently complaind.  I am sorry to say that it appeard to me that far more frequent and more wanton Cruelty were excercisd by my countrey men over these unfortunate people than even their neighbours the Dutch, fam'd for inhumanity, are guilty of.  One rule however they strictly observe which is never to Punish when ships are there.

Banks was to have participated in the second voyage but withdrew at the last minute after the alterations he had demanded to be made to Endeavour rendered the ship unstable and had to be dismantled.  Johann Forster was appointed to fill the vacant position and his son Georg was appointed as a draughtsman to his father.   Though the expedition was rich in scientific results the relationship between the Forsters and Cook and his officers was often problematic, due to the elder Forster's fractious temperament.  After his experience with the Forsters Cook refused to take scientists on his third journey.

Parts of the notes below have been adapted from Richard Aulie’s 1999 papers on “The Voyages of Captain Cook” accessible at http://www.captaincooksociety.com/ccsu25.htm and “The Three Voyages of Captain Cook” Vol. I.

Arriving off Jamestown on the 15th May his second visit to St. Helena, departing on the 21st May, was as brief as his 1771 visit had been, but this time he spent several days ashore: "I received a very pressing invitation, both from "Governor Skottowe and his Lady to take up my aboad with them during my stay". John Skottowe, Governor from 1764 to 1782, was a son of Thomas Skottowe, on whose farm at Great Ayton Cook had spent his early years.  Cook took up the offer of "the use of a Horse to ride out whenever I thought proper", which he did every day.  His journal entries were long and glowing about the countryside, the industriousness of the men, and the women, who he described as “celebrated beauties, possessed of "an easy and genteel deportment and bloom of Colour."

On disembarking at Jamestown Cook soon found that the inhabitants of St. Helena Island were not altogether happy with him.  The Hawkesworth edition of the Endeavour voyage had already arrived and naturally the section on St. Helena was looked at first, with a good deal of interest, and “his” comments on wheelbarrows and the treatment of slaves were not to anyone's approval.  The English ladies lost no time in pointing out that they really knew the wheel and Cook was mortified.  His hostesses were good-natured, but all the same an ocean storm was easier to face than their badinage.  George Forster enjoyed Cook’s discomfiture and Mrs. John Skottowe, the St. Helena born, wife of the Governor, displayed her talents at pleasant raillery from which the sea captain had no escape except to blame the "absent philosophers" who had not consulted him.  Although his explanation was sufficient and the hospitality cordial, Forster noted that "there are many wheelbarrows and several carts on the island, some of which seemed to be studiously placed before Captain Cook's lodgings every day".

How the slaves were treated was far more serious a question than whether wheelbarrows were used and the English settlers were upset by the published charge of cruelty which in Banks’ journal, above, was plain enough.  Quite likely Cook had forgotten Banks' outrage, otherwise he would not have been surprised to find that the English settlers were offended because Hawkesworth had tarnished their reputation.

“In order... to gain some knowlidge of” St Helena, Cook “took a ride into the Country in company with Mr Stuart [a passenger on the Dutton] and Mr George Forster... I was agreeably surprised with the prospect of a Country finely diversified with hill and vally, Wood and Lawn and all laid out in inclosures." “I visited a small Garden the Governor has in Town.  In the afternoon paid a visit to Capt Tippet Chief Engineer of the Isle & Commander of the Artillery".

Two days later Cook wrote "the two Mr Forsters and myself dined with a party at the Country house of one Mr Masons, at a remote part of the island, which gave me an oppertunity to see the greatest part of it, and I am well convinced that the island in many particulars has been misrepresented.  He also tramped and on his ride into the country observed the slaves repairing the roads and tending the pastures, and asking them how they were getting on.  Not unexpectedly they told him what their masters wished him to hear.

Some fourteen hundred slaves did the bidding of the four hundred or so of the "Principal Inhabitants," who no doubt were relieved to find how easily Cook dismissed the charge of cruelty.  He had no wish to stir up trouble for his compatriots, and his statement that "there is not a European settlement in the world where slaves are better treated and better fed than here" might have been technically correct.  As compared with Banks, however, he was more than a little disingenuous, especially because he observed, with typical perspicacity, that the slaves "subsist chiefly on Yams, Rice and Fish" even while the island teemed with 2,500 cattle, 3,000 sheep, besides hogs, poultry, and goats--animals rarely of benefit to the slaves, as he noticed, but rather reserved for the settlers and the company ships.  Although the English were obviously industrious, Cook could see that they really should be setting aside more land for fresh vegetables, "articles that are always wanting to Shipping”.

Arrival at St. Helena also confirmed the utility of Kendall’s K1 watch.  On both voyages Cook had approached St. Helena from the Cape of Good Hope.  Using the lunar distance method on his first voyage he followed the common practice of aiming for a point well to the east and then, when the island's latitude was reached, latitude being easy to find, steered west until land was sighted.  On the second voyage "depending on the goodness of Mr Kendals Watch, I resolved to try to make the island by a direct course, it did not deceive us".  The passage was made in company with an East Indiaman, and one incident was recorded by John Elliott, able seaman: "The day before we saw St Helena, the Dutton spoke us, and said they were afraid that we should miss the Island, but Capt Cook laugh'd at them, and told them that he would run their jibboom on the Island if they choose".  Cook’s log is full of praise for the watch and the charts of the southern Pacific Ocean he made with its use are remarkably accurate.

The K1 watch was also taken by Cook on his third and final voyage in 1776 and, in 1788, went with Captain Arthur Phillip on the "First Fleet" voyage that began the British colonisation of Australia.

Kendall's K1 Watch, now in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich

He also noted the changes since his previous visit.  “Within these three years a new church has been built; some other new buildings were in hand; a commodious landing-place for boats has been made; and several other improvements, which add both strength and beauty to the place”.

During his stay the necessary repairs which had not been made at the Cape were carried out, all the empty water casks were filled and the crew were served with fresh beef, purchased at five-pence per pound.  “Their beef is exceedingly good, and is the only refreshment to be had worth mentioning.”

Stamps issued in 1995 to Commemorate Cook's Second Visit*

Leaving St. Helena on 21st May Cook disembarked at Portsmouth the 30th July 1771 and travelled to London.  Unlike his reception four years earlier, Cook was welcomed as a hero by the general population, as well as by the Admiralty.  A notable absentee, though, was Joseph Banks, who stayed away for a month, probably embarrassed at his behaviour prior to the voyage in 1772.  When the two men eventually met, all was forgotten and their good friendship resumed.

Not wishing to have the account of his second voyage ghost-written, though by this time Hawkesworth had been dead for three years, the Admiralty allowed Cook to publish, and receive all proceeds from the journal of his second voyage, which he duly did with the editorial assistance of Dr John Douglas, Canon of Windsor.  Cook was happy with the collaboration, later writing to Douglas that ‘I shall always have a due sence of the favors you have done.’

In the year before its publication Cook commented, "It will want those flourishes which Dr. Hawkesworth gave the other, but it will be illustrated and ornamented with about sixty copper plates, which, I am of opinion, will exceed everything that has been done in a work of this kind . . . As to the journal, it must speak for itself. I can only say that it is my own narrative, and as it was written during the voyage."

In the published narrative of this second voyage, Cook was determined to prevent the kind of editorial license that John Hawkesworth had enjoyed with his first. Despite the literary limitations acknowledged here, he assumed full authorial control:

“I shall therefore conclude this introductory discourse with desiring the reader to excuse the inaccuracies of style, which doubtless he will frequently meet with in the following narrative; and that, when such occur, he will recollect that it is the production of a man, who has not had the advantage of much school education, but who has been constantly at sea from his youth; and though, with the assistance of a few good friends, he has passed through all the stations belonging to a seaman, from an apprentice boy in the coal trade, to a Post Captain in the Royal Navy, he has had no opportunity of cultivating letters.  After this account of myself, the Public must not expect from me the elegance of a fine writer, or the plausibility of a professed book-maker; but will, I hope, consider me as a plain man, zealously exerting himself in the service of his Country, and determining to give the best account he is able of his proceedings”. He also added a footnote near the conclusion:

“In the account given of St. Helena, in the narrative of my former voyage, I find some mistakes. Its inhabitants are far from exercising a wanton cruelty over their slaves; and they have had wheel carriages and porters' knots for many years.  This note I insert with pleasure.”

In 1777 “A Voyage towards the South Pole and round the world, performed in His Majesty's Ships the Resolution and Adventure, in the years 1772, 1773, 1774, and 1775 was published in two volumes and contained sixty-three engravings, including portraits, maps, charts, and views.   Its immediate popularity exceeded even that of Hawkesworth's account of the first voyage.  Four English editions were published in 1777 and four additional editions in English were printed between 1778 and 1784.  Translations were also published in Dutch, French, Italian, German, Swedish, and Russian by the end of the eighteenth century.

* So far as I am aware no stamps have been issued depicting wheelbarrows.

Other sources of information used:

http://www.captaincooksociety.com/  General Background

http://www.captaincooksociety.com/ccsu4148.pdf  The Hawkesworth Copy