D. P. Dodd
The death of Captain James Cook, F.R.S. at Owhyhee in MDCCLXXIX
London: printed for John Stockdale, Scatcherd and Whitaker, John Fielding, and John Hardy, 1784
RCS.Case.c.152 (opposite p. 199)

This print was published as a foldout in the abridged and affordable octavo edition of the official account of Cook’s third voyage. Dodd gives a certain attention to the depiction of original artefacts, such as the feathered capes of the warriors, responding to the growing interest in the accurate depiction of the Polynesians’ environment. In the foreground, Dodd shows Hawaiians struggling for the weapon that killed, or is about to kill, Cook, some of them visibly trying to pacify the figure holding the dagger. Dodd therefore makes the important distinction between the actions of one wicked individual to that of the group, seeking to preserve the myth of the ‘noble savage.’