Cornish-born naval officer and Pacific explorer Samuel Wallis (1728–1795) was commissioned as a lieutenant in October 1748 after serving as a midshipman and master's mate. He received his first command (a 14-gun sloop, H.M.S. Swan) in June 1756.
From there, he moved upwards through the 24-gun sixth-rate frigate Port Mahon (April 1757) to the 60-gun Prince of Orange (September 1758). In the latter, he took part in the Quebec campaign under Vice-Admiral Charles Saunders, wintered in North American waters, and then returned to home waters until the end of the Seven Years' War.
Saunders' presence as Second Lord of the Admiralty may explain Wallis's appointment to the 24-gun frigate Dolphin in the wake of Commodore John Byron's circumnavigation. The voyage became Wallis's sole claim to fame.
His instructions from the Admiralty pointed Wallis towards the great continent Terra Australis Incognita.
Byron's wishful reading of the swell and birdlife he sighted while sailing through the Tuamotus in June 1765 was seen as evidence of a land mass over the southern horizon in the Pacific's temperate latitudes:
there is reason to believe that Lands or Islands of Great Extent, hitherto unvisited by any European Power may be found in the Southern Hemisphere between Cape Horn and New Zeeland, in Latitudes convenient for Navigation, and in Climates adapted to the produce of Commodities useful in Commerce.
This was Davis Land, west of Peru, sighted by English buccaneer Edward Davis in the Bachelor's Delight in 1687 and mentioned in the writings of fellow buccaneer William Dampier.
To find it, Wallis was directed to sail westwards from the Horn for around one hundred degrees of longitude, as nearly as possible in the latitude of the cape.
After he located the continent, if its coast took him too far northwards, he was to return via the East Indies. Otherwise, he should return by way of Cape Horn and the Falklands. He should cultivate friendships with any people not previously visited by Europeans and, with their permission, take Possession of convenient Situations in the Country.
If the newly discovered land was uninhabited, he should take possession of it for His Majesty by setting up proper Marks and Inscriptions as first Discoverers and Possessors.
If contrary to Expectation, the quest was unsuccessful, Wallis was to proceed across the Pacific to China or the East Indies, seeking out islands on the way.
The Dolphin sailed from the Nore on 21 August 1766, accompanied by the 30-year-old sloop H.M.S. Swallow under Philip Carteret, who had sailed with Byron. Carteret had some idea of what the expedition was in for and thought the Swallow would be unlikely to reach the Falklands.
By 17 December 1766, they were off Cape Virgins, where Wallis had the opportunity to measure the heights of several Patagonians. The results—the tallest was 6 feet 7 inches, and most came in under 6 feet—dispelled Byron's notion of Patagonian giants to whom The Stoutest of our Grenadiers would appear nothing.
Their passage through the Strait of Magellan, seventeen weeks of struggle against strong, contrary winds, was particularly gruelling as far as the Swallow was concerned. She was in bad shape and continuously lagged behind as Carteret urged that she should be sent home.
Wallis replied that, since their orders tasked the Swallow with accompanying the Dolphin, she would have to do so for as long as possible. He promised to wait when Swallow fell behind and offer assistance if necessary. However, three weeks later, off Cape Pillar at the western exit of the strait, the two vessels separated in conditions which discouraged Wallis from waiting in the vicinity. While Carteret suspected he had been abandoned, the two captains went on to complete their voyages independently.
Carteret crossed the Pacific further south in an unsuccessful search for Davis Land, discovering Pitcairn Island. He also made the first European sighting of the New Hebrides since Mendaña two hundred years earlier. In the process, he sliced a fair chunk off the mythical undiscovered continent and carried out valuable surveys around New Britain.
Meanwhile, Wallis could not steer directly westward, loosing as little Southing as possible. Still, he did keep well west of previous voyages, crossing the reputed location of Davis Land.
By the end of April, contrary winds and scurvy among the crew forced him northwards into warmer waters. He reached the Tuamotus on 6 June and, on 17 June, encountered the first of the Society Islands (Mehetia). The next day saw his most significant discovery, Tahiti, where he anchored at Royal Bay after grounding on a reef. The Dolphin stayed for five weeks while the sick recovered. However, Wallis and his first lieutenant came down with a Bilious Disorder.
For most of the stay, Wallis was confined below deck. Though he did his best to respond to courtesies, strenuous activity was out of the question. The ship was effectively in the hands of the master, George Robertson, and second lieutenant Tobias Furneaux,
While their first encounter with the local people was peaceful, if thievish, relations moved through menaces into actual hostility. Blasts of grapeshot from the ship's cannon left many Tahitians dead and wounded.
The outbreaks of violence thwarted Wallis's ambitions to avoid using force. Still, after initial disturbances, relations became more than merely amicable as the crew availed themselves of the sexual hospitality for which the island would become notorious.
Depictions of the island as an earthly paradise did not stem solely from sexual interaction. The climate was balmy, and food was fresh and plentiful. While the inhabitants were light-fingered, they were usually friendly.
While the Dolphin sailed with a high opinion of Tahiti and the Tahitians, communication must have been limited, as they were not there long enough to learn the language.
The most important information they took with them when they sailed came from purser John Harrison. His astronomical observations using Dr Masculines Method, which we did not understand, were remarkably accurate. Harrison fixed the island's position at 17°30'S and 150°W (today: 17°37'S 149°27'W). That placed it almost in the centre of the zone south of the Equator that Astronomer Royal Nevil Maskelyne figured was most favourable for observing the Transit of Venus.
Less definite were sightings of land to the south that helped shape the secret instructions given to Cook before he departed from England in 1768. They subsequently resulted in the commissioning of the second voyage, which saw Cook hound Terra Australis Incognita into oblivion.
In his journal, on 19 June 1767, George Robertson, master of the Dolphin, recorded a sighting:
Land bearing W 1/2 S [that] appeared to be a great high mountain covered with clouds on the top; at 6 A.M. the Extreme of this Land bore from W 1/2 S to W.B.N. 1/2 N distance about 14 Leags at same time we saw the tops of several mountains the Extreems bearing from South to S.W. upwards of twenty Leags ... we now suposed we saw the long wishd for Southern Continent, which has been often talkd of, but neaver before seen by any Europeans.
Various expedition members kept eighteen different journals; Robertson's is the only one that mentions such a sighting.
What Robertson recorded was almost certainly a cloud bank on the horizon that he interpreted as cloud-covered mountaintops. Tahiti, according to Robertson, was a peninsula of the southern continent. While the Tahitians indicated the insularity of their homeland, Robertson was dismayed when Wallis decided to head west when he left Tahiti rather than pursue mirages on the horizon.
However, in the long run, Robertson's impressions shaped Cook's instructions.
When Wallis returned to England, Lord Egmont, no longer in office but still a figure of significance, interviewed him. Egmont found him evasive and concluded he was dealing with concealment and failure.
A handwritten note thought to have come from the former First Lord suggested Wallis and his First Lieutenant deemed it too hazardous under these circumstances to coast the Continent (which they had then actually in view) and afterwards thought most prudent on their return not to take notice that they had ever seen it at all.
So Wallis did not attempt to explore to the south when he left Tahiti on a westerly course on 27 July 1767. He passed Moorea and three smaller islands and was in northern Tongan waters by mid-August. From there, Wallis made for Tinian and spent a month there, from 19 September. He spent another three weeks at Batavia and then sailed for home via the Cape.
The Dolphin reached the Downs on 28 May 1768, with Wallis still seriously ill. Carteret, at that point, was dealing with obstinate Dutch bureaucrats in Makassar who refused to allow the Swallow to reach Batavia for a much-needed refit. While he eventually got his way, it would be almost another year before the Swallow managed to return home. Bougainville passed her on the home stretch on 19 February 1769. Carteret finally reached Spithead on 20 March. By then, Cook and the Endeavour had been at sea for eight months and were less than a month away from Tahiti.
Although he had been in wretched health for months, Wallis had achieved much that helped shape Cook's Endeavour voyage. While there may not have been contact between Wallis and Cook, many measures Cook employed to keep his crews healthy had been put into practice by Wallis.
While there had been debilitating outbreaks of scurvy aboard the Dolphin, there were no fatalities from the disease. The mortality rate on the twenty-one-month voyage was remarkably low, with two deaths caused by accidents and three due to malaria and dysentery.
Still, Wallis took a long time to recover from the voyage. In February 1770, he told the Admiralty he was still enduring bouts of ill health. The Board awarded him a gratuity of £525. Then, in November 1770, he was given command of the 74-gun third rate Torbay and later of the 98-gun second rate Queen (October 1780)
Wallis served as extra commissioner of the navy from 1782 to 1783. A second term from 1787 lasted until he died in London in January 1795.
Sources:
Felipe Fernandez-Armesto (ed.) The Times Atlas of World Exploration;
Felipe Fernandez Armesto, Pathfinders: A Global History of Exploration;
Michael Cannon, The Exploration of Australia: From First Voyages to Satellite Discoveries;
Vanessa Collingridge, Captain Cook: Obsession and Betrayal in the New World;
Alan Frost, Science For Political Purposes: The European Nations' Exploration of the Pacific Ocean 1764-1806;
J. C. H. Gill The Missing Coast: The Queensland Coast Takes Shape;
Alan G. Jamieson, John Byron;
David Mackay, The Great Era of Pacific Exploration;
G. A. Mawer Incognita: The Invention and Discovery of Terra Australis;
Evan McHugh 1606: An Epic Adventure;
Michael Pearson, Great Southern Land: the maritime exploration of Terra Australis;
O.H.K. Spate The Pacific Since Magellan, Volume III: Paradise Found and Lost;
Avan Judd Stallard, Antipodes: In Search of the Southern Continent;
Robert Tiley, Australian Navigators: Picking Up Shells and Catching Butterflies in an Age of Revolution;
W.J.L. Wharton (ed.), Captain Cook's Journal During His First Voyage Round the World Made in H.M. Bark' Endeavour' 1768-71;
Glyndwr Williams, Samuel Wallis (1728–1795)