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James Webber's Views of the South Seas, 1808

Webber James (1752-1793), Views of the South Seas from drawings by the Late James Webber, Draftsman on Board the Resolution Captain James Cooke*, from the year 1776 to 1780. 

Webber produced the most comprehensive visual record of the Pacific made to that time. This publication is important because it contains beautiful hand-coloured softground etchings of native sailing craft, landscapes, village scenes and people with accompanying descriptions taken from Cook's Last Voyage.

* There is some confusion over names. The title page carries the names James Webber and Captain James Cooke. The former is usually referred to elsewhere as John Webber and the latter always as Captain James Cook.

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James (John) Webber (1751-1793) was educated in Berne and studied painting in Paris. He accompanied Captain James Cook on his third and final voyage to the Pacific and was the first European artist to visit Hawaii where Cook was murdered on the 14th February 1779. Webber was famous for his painting The Death of Captain Cook.

This book contains coloured lithographs of Webbers' sketches and letterpress by Cook himself taken from the Journal of Captain Cook's last voyage to the Pacific Ocean on Discovery 1776, 1777, 1778, 1779, 1780. 

Here is an example -

Plates II and III The Boats of the Friendly Islands - A Sailing Canoe of Otaheite-

In the accompanying letterpress Cook considers the way the Pacific islanders navigate vast distances - here are some extracts -

"I have mentioned, that Feejee lies three days sail from Tongataboo, because these people have no other method of measuring the distance from island to island, but by expressing the time required to make the voyage in one of their canoes. In order to ascertain this, with some precision or, at least, to form some judgment, how far these canoes can sail, in a moderate gale, in any given time, I went on board one of them when under sail, and by several trials with the log, found that she went seven knots-- close hauled in a gentle gale. Vide Cook's Last Voyage Vol.1 Book ii. Chap.x p375"

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The expedition was under the command of Captain James Cook who also captained HMS Resolution while HMS Discovery was under the command of Captain Charles Clerke. The two ships sailed from Plymouth in mid-1776 and, after reprovisioning in Cape Town, sailed across the Indian Ocean to Van Diemen's Land. Sailing via New Zealand and Tahiti they reached Hawaii on 18 January 1778 - the first Europeans to do so. They then sailed up the west coast of America preparing the first charts to be made of this coastline. Sailing north through the Bering Strait they found their way blocked by ice and so had to turn south spending three weeks on the Aleutian Islands re-caulking the two ships.

They then sailed south back to the Hawaiian Islands where Cook and four marines were killed on 14 February 1779 during a dispute over a stolen boat. Clarke then took over the expedition and tried once more to sail through the Bering Strait but again had to turn back. He died on the Siberian coast 22 May 1779. James Gore took over command of the expedition in HMS Resolution and together with James King in HMS Discovery sailed for home reaching Sheerness 4 October 1780 having completed an epic voyage and the suffered loss of two commanders. 

Reference: John Webber: Biography at Design and Art Australia, Online.

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