Everything about Charles Clerke totally explained
Captain Charles Clerke RN (
August 22,
1741 – August 1779) was an officer in the
Royal Navy who sailed on four voyages of exploration.
Clerke started studying at the
Royal Naval Academy in
Portsmouth when he was 13. During the
Seven Years' War he served aboard the
HMS Dorsetshire and
HMS Bellona.
In 1764 he joined
Captain John Byron, aboard
HMS Dolphin, on Byron's expedition to explore the Pacific.
The Dolphin returned in 1766. Its circumnavigation of 22 months was the shortest up to that point. Upon his return Clerke published an account of encountering
Patagonian giants, which the
Dictionary of Canadian Biography attributed to his high spirits.
Clerke's last three voyages were all under the command of Captain
James Cook.
Clerke started the first voyage aboard
HM Bark Endeavour (1768–1771) as a
master's mate. Cook promoted him to acting
lieutenant in 1771.
Clerke was
HMS Resolution's second lieutenant on Cook's second voyage (1772–1775).
While ashore between Cook's 2nd and 3rd voyages Clerke agreed to serve time in the
Fleet debtor's prison for a debt one of his brothers, Sir
John Clerke, incurred. While in debtor's prison he was infected with the
tuberculosis that eventually killed him.
Clerke took command of the expedition and of
HMS Resolution, when Cook was killed in a skirmish with
Hawaiians on
February 14,
1779.
Clerke continued the expedition's exploration of the Northern Pacific coast, searching for a navigable
Northwest Passage. The expedition then proceeded to the Pacific coast of Siberia.
James King, one of his subordinates, wrote that Clerke's illness had reduced him to skeletal thinness. Clerke died enroute to
Kamchatka from tuberculosis. Clerke was buried in Kamchatka on
August 29,
1779.
Clerke's second in command,
John Gore, took command and took the expedition home to Britain.
Further Information
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