The Day the World Discovered the Sun (37 page)

14
. RS: CMB, 5:183.

15
. RS: CMB, 5:184–198.

16
. RS: CMB, 5:282–285.

17
. Brian Lavery, “Slade, Sir Thomas (1703/4–1771),” in
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
, 2004; Brian Lavery,
The 74-gun Ship
Bellona (London: Conway Maritime Press, 1985), 7–9.

18
. Alexander Dalrymple, “Memoirs of Alexander Dalrymple,”
European Magazine and London Review
42 (November 1802): 325.

19
. Dalrymple,
Account
(London, 1767), ii–iv.

20
. Dalrymple, an easy target, has nevertheless been slandered by history. In his defense, see Howard T. Fry, “Alexander Dalrymple and Captain Cook: The Creative Interplay of Two Careers,” in
Captain James Cook and His Times
, ed. Robin Fisher and Hugh Johnston (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1979), 44–47 fn. 17.

21
. Patrick Brown, “The Civil and Natural History of Jamaica,”
Monthly Review or Literary Journal
15 (1756): 340.

22
. Warrant Entry Book entry, cited in Arthur Kitson,
Captain James Cook
(New York: E.P. Dutton, 1907), 89.

23
. Karl Heinz Marquardt,
Captain Cook's
Endeavour:
Anatomy of the Ship
, rev. ed. (London: Conway Maritime Press, 2001), 11–14.

24
. Marquardt,
Captain Cook's
Endeavour, 14–18.

25
. Lieutenant (later Captain) James Cook letter to John Walker, August 17, 1770, in Kitson,
Captain James Cook
, 219.

26
. Philip Stephens,
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004),
http://www.oxforddnb.com/index/26/101026391
.

27
. RSA: MSs (General) MS.633 in Andrew S. Cook, “James Cook and the Royal Society,” in
Captain Cook: Explorations and Reassessments
, ed. Glyndwr Williams (Suffolk, UK: Boydell, 2004), 46 fn. 38.

28
. RS: CMB, 5:299.

29
. Andrew Kippis,
The Life of Captain James Cook
(Paris: J.J. Tourneisen, 1788), 1:209–212 fn.

30
. It was a good thing, too. The
Aurora
's forthcoming passage to India would end in a gruesome shipwreck off the Cape of Good Hope. And in a crowning irony, the man who'd lobbied ultimately to die in Green's place, William Falconer, was the best-selling author of an epic seafaring poem. “The Shipwreck, by William Falconer,” National Maritime Museum (UK),
www.nmm.ac.uk/explore/collections/by-type/archive-and-library/item-of-the-month/previous/the-shipwreck,-by-william-falconer
.

31
. For example,
The Public Advertiser
(May 25–26, 1768), in Glyndwr Williams, “The
Endeavour
Voyage: A Coincidence of Motives,” in
Science and Exploration in the Pacific
, ed. Margarette Lincoln (Suffolk, UK: Boydell & Brewer, 1998), 11.

32
.
The London Magazine, or Gentleman's Monthly Intelligencer
37 (June 1768): 328.

33
. Wayne Orchiston, “James Cook's 1769 Transit of Venus Expedition to Tahiti,” in
Transits of Venus: New Views of the Solar System and Galaxy
, ed. D. W. Kurtz (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 54; “An Account of Jesse Ramsden,”
European Magazine and London Review
15 (1789): 92.

34
. Gowin Knight, in
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
,
http://www.oxforddnb.com/index/15/101015719
.

35
. RS: CMB, 5:289–290.

36
. James Bruce,
Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile
(Edinburgh: James Ballantyne, 1805), 7:361.

37
. Patrick O'Brian,
Joseph Banks: A Life
(Boston: David R. Godine, 1993), 68–69.

38
. George Robertson,
The Discovery of Tahiti: A Journal
, ed. Hugh Carrington (London: Hakluyt Society, 1948), 207–208.

39
. Edward Smith,
The Life of Sir Joseph Banks
(London: John Lane, 1911), 15–16.

40
.
The St. James's Chronicle
(June 11–14, 1768), in Williams,
“Endeavour
Voyage,” 13.

41
.
The Journals of Captain James Cook on His Voyages of Discovery
, ed. J. C. Beaglehole (Cambridge: Hakluyt Society/Cambridge University Press, 1955), 1:4. Entry for August 26, 1768.

42
.
The
Endeavour
Journal of Joseph Banks, 1768–1771
, ed. J. C. Beaglehole (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1962), 1:158. Entry for September 10, 1768.

C
HAPTER
6: V
OYAGE EN
C
ALIFORNIE

1
. Chappe,
A Voyage to California: To Observe the Transit of Venus
(London: Edward & Charles Dilly, 1778) 13–14; James J. Fusco, “Abbé Chappe d'Auteroche: Eighteenth Century Modernizer,” master's thesis, Columbia University, 1969, 13–14.

2
. Andrew Dickson White,
The Warfare of Science
(New York: D. Appleton, 1876), 114–115; Johann Gottlieb Georgi,
Russia: Or, a Compleat Historical Account of All the Nations Which Compose That Empire
(London: J. Nichols, 1780), 3:355.

3
. Benjamin Franklin, letter to Jean Chappe d'Auteroche, January 31, 1768 (15:33b),
www.franklinpapers.org
. Chappe's reply to Franklin, if any, has not been found. Chappe mentioned Franklin's correspondence in
A Journey into Siberia: Made by Order of the King of France
(London: T. Jefferys, 1770), 227.

4
. Alexandre Guy Pingré,
Mémoire sur le choix et l'état des lieux où le passage de Vénus du 3 Juin 1769 pourra être observé avec le plus d'avantage
(Paris: P. Cavelier, 1767), 17. Translation by Mark Anderson.

5
. Ibid., 78.

6
. Académie Royale des Sciences, Proc. Verb. fol. 242 v. in Harry Woolf,
The Transits of Venus
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959), 157 fn. 22.

7
. Jean-Dominique de Cassini, “Histoire Abrégée de la Parallaxe du Soleil,” in Chappe,
Voyage en Californie pour l'observation du passage de Vénus sur le disque du soleil
(Paris: Charles-Antoine Jombert, 1772), 155; translation by Mark Anderson; Woolf,
Transits
, 157.

8
. Angus Armitage, “Chappe D'Auteroche: A Pathfinder for Astronomy,”
Annals of Science
10, no. 4 (1954): 288–291.

9
. Jean-Dominique de Cassini, “Description of Cadiz,” in Chappe,
Voyage to California
, 206.

10
. Chappe,
Voyage to California
, 7–8.

11
. Chappe,
Voyage to California
, 9, 15, citing Horace,
Horati Carmina
I.iii.9–11, trans. Samuel Maunder, in
The Treasury of Knowledge and Library of Reference
(New York: J.W. Bell, 1855), 2:100.

12
. Water density, Chappe discovered, is not a useful proxy for longitude. It only changed substantially when the ship approached a freshwater source, such as a river that feeds into a bay.

13
. Armitage, “Chappe D'Auteroche”; Chappe,
Voyage to California
, 11.

14
. Vera Cruz's real traffic never approached the city gates. “In point of trade,” one contemporary chronicler wrote, “[Vera Cruz] is one of the most considerable places not only in the New but perhaps in the whole world.
From this port it is that the great wealth of Mexico is poured out upon the old world.” John Campbell,
An Account of the Spanish Settlements in America
(Edinburgh: A. Donaldson & J. Reid, 1762), 142. Vertiginous piles of Mexican gold and silver passed through Vera Cruz on their way to Spain—but only via a more navigable nearby island fortress, San Juan de Ulua, where Spain's plundered loot was stored and offloaded to awaiting galleons.

15
. Chappe,
Voyage to California
, 15; “Vera-Cruz,” in John Purdy,
The Columbian Navigator, or Sailing Dictionary
(London: R.H. Laurie, 1823), 128.

16
. Campbell,
Account of the Spanish Settlements
, 141–142.

17
. Ibid., 31–32.

18
. Ibid., 36.

19
. Fortunately the travelers found themselves on de Croix's good side. Church authorities leeward to the viceroy's favor had once demanded a meeting inside the cathedral. The former general arrived at the cathedral with an artillery detachment—informing his holy audience that the proceedings would need to be brief as his soldiers were under orders to reduce the building to rubble if de Croix didn't emerge from the church within ten minutes. Campbell,
Account of the Spanish Settlements
, 39–40; Henry Charles Lea,
The Inquisition in the Spanish Dependencies
(New York: Macmillan, 1908), 270 fn. 1.

20
. Chappe,
Voyage to California
, 42–45; Lea,
Inquisition
, 272.

21
. Chappe,
Voyage to California
, 77–105.

22
. Ibid., 45–47.

23
. Ibid., 47.

24
. Steven Hales, “[On] the Late Earthquakes in London and Some Other Parts of England,”
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society Abridged
, April 5, 1750, 10:539; Martin Uman, “Positive Lightning,” in
The Lightning Discharge
(New York: Academic, 1987), 8–9, 188–204.

25
. Chappe,
Voyage to California
, 49.

26
. Ann Zwinger,
A Desert Country Near the Sea: A Natural History of the Cape Region of Baja California
(New York: Harper & Row, 1983), 111–119.

27
. S. F. Cook, “The Extent and Significance of Disease Among the Indians of Baja California, 1697–1773,”
Ibero-Americana
12 (1937): 25–27.

C
HAPTER
7: G
REAT
E
XPEDITION

1
. Joannes Sajnovics, travel diary entry for May 1, 1768, in
Sajnovics Naplója: 1768–1769–1770
, trans. Deák András, ed. Szíj Enikő (Budapest: ELTE Department of Finno-Ugric Linguistics, 1990). Translated
into English for the author by Ilona Dénes. This volume will hereafter be referred to as
Sajnovics's Travel Diary
.

2
. Helge Kragh,
The Moon That Wasn't: The Saga of Venus' Spurious Satellite
(Berlin: Springer, 2008), 80–84.

3
. Per Pippin Aspaas, “Maximilian Hell's Invitation to Norway,”
Comm. in Asteroseismology
149 (2008): 15.

4
. Sajnovics, letter to unnamed correspondent, Vienna, April 16, 1768,
Sajnovics's Travel Diary
, 205.

5
. Pinzger Ferenc,
Hell Miksa Emékezete . . . II. Rész
[To the Memory of Maximilian Hell, part II] (Budapest: Kiadja a Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1927): 31–32. Translated in Truls Lynne Hansen and Per Pippin Aspaas, “Maximilian Hell's Geomagnetic Observations in Norway 1769,”
Tromsø Geophysical Observatory Reports
2 (2005): 16.

6
.
Sajnovics's Travel Diary
, May 3, 1768.

7
. Ibid., May 4–6, 1768.

8
. Ibid., May 30, 1768.

9
. “The treaty by which Russia exchanged her claims on ducal Schleswig and Holstein for the counties of Oldenburg and Delmenhorst, which were intended to form an appanage for a junior branch of the Holstein family, was signed in 1768.” C. F. Lascelles Wraxall,
Life and Times of Her Majesty Caroline Matilda
(London: Wm. H Allen, 1864), 130; W. F. Reddaway, “Don Sebastian de Llano and the Danish Revolution,”
English Historical Review
41, no. 161 (1926): 79.

10
.
The Cambridge Modern History
, ed. A.W. Ward, G.W. Prothero, and Stanley Leathes (New York: Macmillan, 1909), 6:740–741.

11
.
Sajnovics's Travel Diary
, May 31, 1768. Bernstorff had just turned fifty-six when Sajnovics and Hell met him.

12
. On July 4, 1768, at Helsingor (Elsinore), the last Danish port of call before Hell and Sajnovics's party had to cross through Sweden en route to Norway, Sajnovics wrote that they had to leave Apropos behind “because it was forbidden to take dogs out of Denmark on account of a dangerous disease going around.” However, the astronomers evidently spirited Apropos across the border anyway, as Hell's correspondence from Vardø includes mention of the dog's behavior. (Per Pippin Aspaas, personal communication with author, January 2, 2012.)

13
. Maximilian Hell, letter to “Father Höller,” April 6, 1769,
www.kfki.hu/~tudtor/tallozo1/hell/hell2.html
. Translated by Ilona Dénes.

14
. Viggo Christiansen,
Christian den VII's Sindssygdom
(Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1906), 62.

15
. Wraxall,
Life
, 112–114; Karl Shaw,
Royal Babylon: The Alarming History of European Royalty
(New York: Broadway Books, 1999), 52–55.