Captain Cook (1826 ship) Captain Cook (1826 ship) Captain Cook was a 452-ton merchant ship built at Whitby, England in 1826. She made three voyages transporting convicts from Ireland and England to Australia. On her first convict voyage, under the command of William Steward and surgeon Eben Johnson, she departed Dublin, Ireland on 5 November 1831, with 200 male convicts. She arrived in Sydney arriving on 2 April 1832. There were two convict deaths en route. "Captain Cook" left Port Jackson on 15 May 1832 bound for Launceston. The second convict voyage, under the command of William Thompson and surgeon John Morgan, she departed
History of the Cook Islands Mendaña in 1595 who called it "San Bernardo" (Saint Bernard). Portuguese-Spaniard Pedro Fernández de Quirós made the first recorded European landing in the islands when he set foot on Rakahanga in 1606, calling it "Gente Hermosa" (Beautiful People). British navigator Captain James Cook arrived in 1773 and 1777. Cook named the islands the 'Hervey Islands' to honour a British Lord of the Admiralty. Half a century later the Russian Baltic German Admiral Adam Johann von Krusenstern published the "Atlas de l'Ocean Pacifique", in which he renamed the islands the Cook Islands to honour Cook. Captain Cook navigated and mapped much