Editing Georg Forster (section)

== Around the world with Captain Cook ==
[[File:Captainjamescookportrait.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.15|James Cook, portrait by Nathaniel Dance, c. 1775, [[National Maritime Museum]], Greenwich]]

The Forsters moved back to London in 1770,{{sfn|Hoare|1976|p=67}} where Reinhold Forster cultivated scientific contacts and became a member of the [[Royal Society]] in 1772.{{sfn|Hoare|1976|pp=68–69}} After the withdrawal of [[Joseph Banks]], he was invited by the [[British Admiralty]] to join [[James Cook]]'s [[Second voyage of James Cook|second expedition]] to the [[Pacific Ocean|Pacific]] (1772–75). Georg Forster joined his father in the expedition again and was appointed as a [[technical drawing|draughtsman]] to his father. Johann Reinhold Forster's task was to work on a scientific report of the journey's discoveries that was to be published after their return.{{sfn|Aulie|1999a}}<!-- replace -->

They embarked [[HMS Resolution (Cook)|HMS ''Resolution'']] on 13 July 1772, in [[Plymouth]]. The ship's route led first to the [[Atlantic Ocean|South Atlantic]], then through the Indian Ocean and the [[Southern Ocean]] to the islands of [[Polynesia]] and finally around [[Cape Horn]] back to England, returning on 30 July 1775. During the three-year journey, the explorers visited New Zealand, the [[Tonga]] islands, [[New Caledonia]], [[Tahiti]], the [[Marquesas Islands]] and [[Easter Island]]. They went further south than anybody before them, almost discovering [[Antarctica]]. The journey conclusively disproved the ''[[Terra Australis]] Incognita'' theory, which claimed there was a big, habitable continent in the South.{{sfn|Thomas|Berghof|2000|p=xxii}}

Supervised by his father, Georg Forster first undertook studies of the [[zoology]] and [[botanics]] of the southern seas, mostly by drawing animals and plants. However, Georg also pursued his own interests, which led to completely independent explorations in comparative [[geography]] and [[ethnology]].{{sfn|Daum|2019a}}<!-- check--> He quickly learned the languages of the Polynesian islands. His reports on the people of Polynesia are well regarded today, as they describe the inhabitants of the southern islands with empathy, sympathy and largely without [[Western culture|Western]] or Christian bias.{{sfn|Ackerknecht|1955|pp=85–86}}<!-- modernise-->

[[File:Hodges, Resolution and Adventure in Matavai Bay.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|''[[HMS Resolution (1771)|Resolution]] and [[HMS Adventure (1771)|Adventure]] in [[Matavai Bay]]'' by [[William Hodges]]]]

Unlike [[Louis Antoine de Bougainville]], whose reports from a journey to Tahiti a few years earlier had initiated uncritical ''[[noble savage]]'' romanticism, Forster developed a sophisticated picture of the societies of the South Pacific islands.{{sfn|Ackerknecht|1955|pp=86–87}} He described various [[social structure]]s and religions that he encountered on the [[Society Islands]], Easter Island and in Tonga and New Zealand, and ascribed this diversity to the difference in living conditions of these people. At the same time, he also observed that the languages of these fairly widely scattered islands were similar. About the inhabitants of the [[Nomuka]] islands (in the [[Ha'apai]] island group of present-day Tonga), he wrote that their languages, vehicles, weapons, furniture, clothes, tattoos, style of beard, in short all of their being matched perfectly with what he had already seen while studying tribes on [[Tongatapu]]. However, he wrote, "we could not observe any subordination among them, though this had strongly characterised the natives of Tonga-Tabboo, who seemed to descend even to servility in their obeisance to the king."<ref name="VTW TT">Forster, Georg. ''A Voyage Round the World'', Book II, Chapter VIII</ref>

The journey was rich in scientific results. However, the relationship between the Forsters and Cook and his officers was often problematic, due to the elder Forster's fractious temperament{{sfn|Thomas|Berghof|2000|pp=xxii–xxvi}}<!-- it would be great to have some quotes from Michael Hoare: "The Tactless Philosopher", a bio of JR Forster--> as well as Cook's refusal to allow more time for botanical and other scientific observation. Cook refused scientists on his third journey after his experiences with the Forsters.{{sfn|Saine|1972|p=22}}