OF

CAPTAIN JAMES COOK,

FOR MAKING DISCOVERIES

IN THE

NORTHERN HEMISPHERE.

IN

N the preceding voyage, the question respecting the existence of a fouthern continent was fully determined; but the practicability of a northern paffage to the Pacific Ocean was still an object of sufficient importance to excite a spirit of investigation.

It had long been a favourite scheme with the most celebrated navigators, to discover a fhorter and more commodious courfe to the oriental regions, than by the Cape of Good Hope. This had been attempted, as has been feen in the former volumes of this work, in various directions; but the completion of this favourite object was as diftant as ever.

To fettle this point too, of fo much importance to navigation and geography, was referved for the glory of the prefent reign. For the conduct of fuch an enterprife, it was evident, that VOL. VII.

B

great

great skill and abilities were requifite; and, though, by the universal voice of mankind, Captain Cook was the beft qualified, no one could prefume to folicit him on the subject. The services he had already rendered to his country, the labours he had fuftained, and the dangers he had encountered, were fo many and so various, that it was deemed not reasonable to defire him to engage in fresh perils.

As an honourable teftimony, however, to his merit and knowledge, it was refolved to afk his advice refpecting the moft proper perfon to be entrufted with the conduct of this voyage; and to determine this point, fome of the moft diftinguished naval characters were invited to meet Captain Cook at the house of Lord Sandwich, who then prefided over the Board of Admiralty.

While the converfation became animated on the fubject, Cook's mind was fired with the magnitude of the defign, and the confequences likely to refult from it. He fuddenly started up, under the impreflion of a noble enthufiafm, and offered. his beft fervices to direct the important objects in view. No propofal could have been more grateful. Captain Cook was immediately invested with the command.

This preliminary step fettled, the exact plan of the undertaking was next taken into ferious confideration. All former navigators round the globe had returned by the Cape of Good Hope; but to Captain Cook was affigned the arduous talk of attempting the fame thing by reaching the high northern latitudes between Afia and America; and it appears, that this plan was adopted in confequence of his own fuggeftions.

His inftructions were, to proceed on the Pacific Ocean through that cluster of islands he had before vifited within the fouthern tropic, and thence, if practicable, to make his way into the Atlantic.

To give every ftimulus to the profecution of this great defign, motives of intereft were fuperadded to the obligations of duty. An act of parliament, which paffed in 1745, offering a reward of twenty thousand pounds to fuch as fhould difcover a paffage through Hudfon's Bay, was enlarged and explained; and it was now enacted, that if any fhip belonging to his majesty, or his fubjects, fhould find and fail through any paffage, by fea, between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, in any direction, or parallel, of the northern hemisphere to the northward of the 52d deg. of northern latitude, the sum of twenty thousand pounds was to reward fuch difcovery.

The veffels defined for this fervice were the Refolution and the Discovery. The command of the former was given to Captain Cook, and that of the latter to Captain Clerke, who had been our navigator's fecond lieutenant in his former voyage. Nearly the fame complement of men and officers was affigned to each as before; and feveral months were spent in their equipment and preparation, that the health of the feamen, and the fuccefs of the expedition might have every advantage which a liberal and enlightened attention could beftow. And in order that the inhabitants of Otaheite, and other iflands in the South Seas, where the English had been treated with fo much hofpitality, might be benefited by the voyage, his majefty was graciously pleased to order fome of the most useful EuroB 2

pean

3

pean animals to be put on board, for the ufe of those countries.

Befides thefe, the captain was furnished with a quantity of garden feeds, and the Board of Admiralty added fuch articles of commerce as were most likely to promote a friendly intercourfe with the natives of the other hemifphere, and induce them to open a traffic with the Englifh.

Omai, who has been mentioned in the preceding voyage, was likewife to be carried back to his native country. It feems he left his friends in London with a mixture of regret and fatisfaction. When he reflected on the kindnesses he had received, he could not refrain from tears: but the pleafing idea of revifiting his original connections, foon made his eyes sparkle with joy.

As the original voyage, from which our hiftorical account is abftracted, is written in the words of Captain Cook, till his lamented death, and afterwards in thofe of Captain King, who published the whole, we have, for many frong reafons, preferred giving the narrative in the fame perfon, with occafional remarks; and we truft our readers will fee the propriety and advantage of our determination in this refpec. Some general defcriptions are furnished by Mr. Anderson, the furgeon of the Refolution, a man of diftinguished abilities; and to whofe talents Captain Cook acknowledges himself much indebted for many interefting parts of his voyage.

Contrary winds, and other circumstances of little confequence, prevented the fhips from clearing the Channel till the 14th of July 1776. On board both veffels were one hundred and ninetytwo perfons, officers included. Nothing material

happened