1. NOTE ON THE DATING: the dating of the Journal is according to ‘ship time’, by which the twenty-four hour day begins twelve hours before the day of civil time, and runs from noon to noon. Cook's p.m. therefore precedes his a.m., and his a.m. alone is identical with civil a.m. Thus his Friday, May 27 (with which the Journal opens) corresponds with civil Thursday, May 26 p.m. and civil Friday, May 27 a.m.; his Saturday begins on civil Friday afternoon; and so on. At Tahiti, as he explains, he abandons this convention for civil time, reverting thereafter to ship time for the rest of the voyage. [B]
2. Banks and Solander joined the ship on the day she sailed, 26 August.
3. The Articles of War were contained within the Act of Parliament which described all laws for the government of His Majesty's ships at sea, relating particularly to conduct, discipline and punishment.
4. Bearings are now from Bonavista Island, Cape Verde Islands.
5. About 250 miles off the Brazilian coast.
6. Dom António Rolim de Moura (1709–82).
7. ‘Pepys Island’ was the arbitrary positioning in a 1699 collection of voyages of a sighting reported by Cowley in 1684. Probably Jason Island, in the north-western Falkland Islands.
10. Cook had correctly located Cape Horn. It is the southern end of Horn Island, the southernmost of the Hermite group.
11. Matavai Bay, on the northern coast of Tahiti. Cook now had seven weeks in hand before the transit of Venus.
12. Cook first wrote ‘a damn'd honest fellow’.
13. These classical names were supplied by Banks.
14. The midshipman in charge was Jonathan Monkhouse.
15. Minor damage to the quadrant was put right by Spöring.
18. The blur which made precision about the moment of contact difficult put a question mark against the observations, but in the end made no serious difference to their value.
19. This was Bougainville, with La Boudeuse and L'Étoile, in April 1768. Cook learned about the French expedition when he reached Batavia. Orette (Ereti) was the name of the chief. The brother who went with the French was Ahutoru.
20. The boy was Temarii, or Teriirere, the arii rahi or nui (chieftain of the highest rank) of the Papara region. The young woman was his intended bride.
21. The midshipman Monkhouse.
22. Huahine and Raiatea. The other two islands mentioned are Tetiaroa and Tubuai Manu (or Maïao).
23. Raiatea, Tahaa, Bora-bora.
24. In an earlier version of his much rewritten account of this encounter, Cook said that on his order to fire at the man who had stolen Green's hanger (or sword), Banks fired first, with small shot, which had no effect. He then ordered the surgeon, Monkhouse, whose piece was loaded with ball, to fire. When the Maoris rallied, it was Cook himself, with Green and Tupaia, who fired at them with small shot.
25. In an earlier version, Cook continued: ‘or else retire and let them gone off in triumph and this last they would of Course have attribited to their own bravery and our timorousness.’ Banks summed up these events by saying ‘thus ended the most disagreeable day my life has yet seen. Black be the mark for it, and heaven send that such may never return to embitter future reflection.’
26. Nicholas Young, about twelve years old.
27. ‘A Cluster of small Islands and Rocks’, named on 3 November.
28. Cook Bay, within Mercury Bay.
29. Cook's spelling of arii rihi, ‘high chief’.
30. The kahikatea or white pine, Podocarpus dacrydioides – now alas! all gone. [B]
33. Banks's journal shows his irritation at passing by seemingly good harbours which would have allowed him ‘to examine the mineral appearances’.
34. The name ‘Cape Farewell’ was inserted later, as were the words ‘(afterwards so call'd)’ – an interlinear insertion.
35. Stephens Island.
36. This was off D'Urville Island, just south of Old Man's Point.
37. Blind Bay is now Tasman Bay. Murderers Bay, later Massacre Bay and then Golden Bay, is in fact the north-westerly continuation of the main bay, beyond Separation Point.
38. It had earlier been given the name Stingray Harbour, and then Botanist Harbour, and Botanist Bay.
39. Three weeks later Cook decided that Magra was innocent and restored him to duty. The midshipman Patrick Saunders was disrated to AB on this day, presumably because of his part in the affair. At Batavia, a reward was offered for information about the person responsible. Saunders deserted (never to be heard of again) and it was assumed that it was he who mutilated Orton.
40. Cook has borrowed this last sentence from Banks's journal.
41. Two boats were ahead sounding; the ship was being towed by the other two, and had the assistance of the sweeps (large oars) out of the gunroom ports.
42. Possession Island.
43. This name is written in over another deleted and indecipherable name, and it is clear that the name New South Wales was bestowed at some time after possession was taken.
44. Philip Carteret had become separated from Wallis in the Dolphin and was feared lost. He reached England in the Swallow in March 1769, six months after Cook had sailed.
45. L'Agulhas. Cape Agulhas is the most southerly point of Africa.
46. The muster-books record the deaths of John Dozey and John Lorrain, both seamen, at the Cape. Banks records the death of ‘Theodosio’, a seaman, on 3 April. [E]
47. A reference to the colonial non-importation agreements of 1768–9, which set American patriots to wearing home-spun. [B]