Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/37

 other places are named for special reasons assigned, and it was morally certain that if Port Jackson had been named after one of the ship's company the fact would have been noted.

There was, moreover, internal evidence in Cook's narrative, which, though not conclusive, pointed strongly to another origin of the naming of Port Jackson. In "Cook's Journal" we find that shortly before he left New Zealand, in 1770, he wrote:—"This bay I have named Admiralty Bay, the N.W. point Cape Stephens, and the E. Point Jackson, after the two secretaries." Even if no other evidence were available it would not have been a daring assumption to suppose that Cook attached the name of the Admiralty Secretary to Port Jackson, especially when it is seen that, omitting Broken Bay and Cape Three Points (named after their configuration), the very next name given by Cook on the Australian coast, but without special reason assigned, was that of the other Admiralty Secretary to Port Stephens. Moreover, it has been ascertained that no sailor named Jackson was rated in the books of the Endeavour. The error which carelessness created was fostered perhaps by the fact that Sir George Jackson changed his name to Duckett to meet the provisions of a will. The noble harbour of Sydney still rejoices in the surname given by Cook. The Duckett family endeavoured to keep alive the connection of their ancestor with the navigator by inscribing on a tombstone the fact that "Captain Cook, of whom he was a zealous friend and early patron, named after him Point Jackson in New Zealand and Port Jackson in New South Wales," but carelessness and credulity almost annulled their doings. Quandoquidem data sunt ipsis quoque fata sepulcris. Of Cook's exploits there could be no doubt. The names fixed by him still remain.

The chapter of his troubles when the Endeavour struck near Cape Tribulation, must be read in his own journal. The resolute constancy with which in that lonely spot he