On this day 250
years ago James Cook aboard the HMS Endeavour
landed at what is now known as Botany Bay. In primary school Social Studies
during the 1960s it was called a ‘discovery’. When I later sat in a university
history course in the 1980s, taught by an Indigenous Australian, the lecturer
referred to the same event as an ‘invasion’. Regardless of your perspective Lieutenant
James Cook, an officer of the Royal Navy, changed this ancient land’s history. Cook’s
extraordinary life has many lessons to teach us today, not least was his
ability to humbly lead through adversity.
Cook
circumnavigated what is now known as New Zealand and then sailed west. After
landing at Botany Bay, Cook continued his extraordinary journey heading north
and charting the east coast of Australia. At 11pm on 11 June 1770 disaster
struck when Endeavour ran aground on
what we now call The Great Barrier Reef. Fortunately, after discarding 40
tonnes of equipment overboard, including an anchor which is on display in the
Cooktown Museum, the ship was floated off the reef on the next high tide.
However, a large gaping hole was left in the ship’s hull. The ship’s company
including Cook rallied to the task of manning the pumps, but with over 20
nautical miles to land, and water coming in faster than could be pumped out, it
seemed certain that Endeavour was
doomed.
In the midst of
such terrible adversity the ship’s young midshipman Jonathon Monkhouse
hesitantly approached his Captain with a suggestion. He had previously witnessed
a successful technique on a merchant vessel called fothering the ship. The idea
was that a sail would be slung under the hull and then sucked into the hole to
cap the leak. Cook accepted the suggestion and entrusted the midshipman to
supervise the task of sewing bits of oakum and wool into an old sail, which was
then drawn under the hull allowing water pressure to force it into the gap. It
worked. The ship was saved. And the rest is history.
A midshipman is
the lowest ranked officer and in some sense not really an officer at all. Today
our trainee officers begin at the rank of midshipman. For Cook, a brilliant
navigator and successful ship’s captain, to take the advice of his midshipman,
in the midst of a life threatening catastrophe shows his extraordinary
humility. Here was a leader willing to trust his life, the life of his crew and
the success of his mission on the advice of one whose rank was lowly, but whose
experience was great. Cook did not pretend to be a leader who knew all the
answers, rather in humility he accepted the wisdom of another and in the
process saved many.
Humility listens
to the advice of experience. It accepts the best wisdom. It trusts. It risks
doing something different. Cook did not save his ship by pretending to be the
wisest man in the room. He rescued his ship by following wise counsel.
Humility remains
an undervalued virtue.
The way of fools seems right to them, but the wise listen to advice. Proverbs 12: 15
I really appreciate your sharing of the gift or wisdom through this remarkable story, Richard.
ReplyDeleteI have seen the anchor in the Cooktown museum up the hill from the mighty Endeavour River. The Museum was originally the Mercy Convent, St Mary's; the first house of the Sisters of Mercy in FNQ who sailed there from Dungarvan, Ireland.