Richard Hergest

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Richard Hergest (* 1754 in London ; † May 11, 1792 in Oahu ) was a British naval officer and explorer . For a few years he was considered to be the first European discoverer of some of the islands in the Marquesas , until it turned out that they had been sighted by the Spaniard Alvaro Mendana de Neira in 1595 and by Joseph Ingraham in 1791 . Hergest made the first complete and reliable map of the Marquesas Islands, which also shows details such as Cape Tikapo and the bays of Taipivai and Taiohae.

Life

Hergest was born the eldest son of Jeremiah and Margaret Hergest in Whitechapel , east London. He still had six siblings. His father was a cloth merchant. The family probably originally came from Herefordshire in the west of England, as there is a mountain on the Anglo-Welsh border called Hergest Ridge .

As a simple seaman he entered the Royal Navy at the age of 16 and served first on the ships of the line HMS Augusta and later as " able seaman " on the HMS Marlborough . He took part in James Cook's second South Seas voyage from 1772 to 1775 on the HMS Adventure , initially also as AB, later as a midshipman . A handwritten journal from Hergest of this voyage has been preserved in the archives of the British Admiralty.

When Captain Cook set out on his third voyage to the South Seas in 1776, Hergest was again a midshipman on the Resolution . On that trip he befriended George Vancouver , who also served on the Resolution . Vancouver would later call him “my best friend for many years” in a letter. Hergest was an immediate witness to the assassination of James Cook on February 14, 1779 in Hawaii . Immediately after completing the journey, he was promoted to lieutenant on October 14, 1780.

On April 1, 1791, Vancouver set sail with the HMS Discovery and the escort ship HMS Chatham from Falmouth on its three-year expedition to the Pacific . In 1792 Hergest was given command of the Daedalus , a supply ship that belonged to the ship's agent Alexander Davison from London. Hergest was to meet with the Vancouver expedition in Nootka Sound in the North Pacific to supply the men with supplies. The Daedalus circled Cap Horn and sailed into the Pacific. The voyage was arduous, the rigging was badly damaged in a storm and, worse, the ship caught fire. The accidents also damaged the cargo that is so important for the Vancouver expedition.

On March 30, 1792, Hergest sighted three islands of the Marquesas group, which he named Riou's Island ( Ua Huka ), Trevenens Island ( Ua Pou ) and Sir Henry Martins Island ( Nuku Hiva ). It later emerged that the American trade captain Joseph Ingraham had discovered the islands a year earlier. Soon afterwards he sighted the island of Motu Iti , which he called Hergest Rocks and landed on the island of Eiao (Roberts Island), on which he discovered traces of the indigenous people, although the island was already uninhabited at that time.

The Daedalus sailed on to Hawaii and anchored on May 11, 1792 in Waimea Bay on the island of Oahu to take in fresh water. Although Hergest was warned by two Hawaiians on board that “bad people” lived in the valley, he went ashore with the astronomer William Gooch and two sailors. While the two sailors were filling the water barrels, the group was attacked by tattooed and armed warriors who killed Hergest, Gooch and one of the sailors. The second seaman was able to get to safety on board. Richard Hergest suffered the same fate as his role model James Cook thirteen years earlier. The first officer Thomas New sailed with the Daedalus immediately to Nootka and informed Vancouver of the events on Oahu.

On March 20, 1793, Vancouver arrived in Waimea Bay and, with the help of a local chief, identified three men whom he had accused of murdering his friend Hergest. After a hearing with their tribal chief, they were shot. Vancouver included a report by Hergest in his book Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean, and Round the World in the Years 1791-95 .

Remarks

  1. ↑ Able seaman, abbreviation AB, was a rank in the British Navy for ordinary sailors (ordinary seaman) with at least two years of practical experience

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Karl von den Steinen : The Marquesans and their art. Volume 1, Berlin 1925, p. 25
  2. ↑ John Robson's Captain Cook pages ( Memento June 11, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ^ John Dunmore: Who's Who in Pacific Navigation. Honolulu 1991, p. 130
  4. ↑ http://www.oha.org/index.php?Itemid=225&id=180&option=com_content&task=view
personal data
SURNAME Hergest, Richard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British naval officer and explorer
DATE OF BIRTH 1754
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH May 11, 1792
Place of death Oahu