Spears stolen by Captain Cook, returned home

History has nurtured a version of the landing of Lieutenant James Cook and the crew of HMB Endeavour in 1770 through paintings, such as E Phillips Fox’s Landing of Captain Cook at Botany Bay 1770 (1902), where British naval officers overshadow two Aboriginal men with spears raised at the rear of the painting. It couldn’t be clearer their alarm at this occupation. It is even more clearly depicted in a lithograph in the National Library’s Collection, Captain Cook’s Landing at Botany, AD 1770, which shows Cook, yet to disembark, being deterred by two Gweagal men on shore with raised spears.