Sailing with Cook

Sailing with Cook: Inside the Private Journal of James Burney RN is about the young James Burney’s experience of shipboard life and the momentous events that took place during the second voyage of exploration when he sailed with Captain Cook on the Resolution and then on the Adventure between 1772 and 1773.

At the age of 22, James Burney (1750-1821) was promoted to the rank of 2nd Lieutenant. Embarking on a great voyage he decided to keep a private journal written not for officialdom but for the delight and information of his family and friends. It was an aide-memoire, a record of his coming of age and the getting of wisdom. He claimed at the outset, ‘my chief aim is your amusement’.

Under the command of Captain James Cook and Captain Tobias Furneaux on the Adventure, Burney crossed the Antarctic Circle, he was one of the first Englishmen to walk on Tasmania’s southern beaches, he endured raging seas and icy weather, he sailed to New Zealand’s South Island and into its beautiful sounds, and then he sailed further north to explore the tropical waters of the islands and atolls of Polynesia. PB 264 pages