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 fufficient importance to excite a spirit of investigation. It had long been a favourite scheme with the moft celebrated navigators, to discover a fhorter and more commodious course to the oriental regions, than by the Cape of Good Hope. This had been attempted, as has been seen 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 so much importance to navigation and geography, for the glory of the prefent reign. duft of fuch an enterprife, it was VOL. VII. B was referved For the conevident, that great great skill and abilities were requifite; and though, by the univerfal voice of mankind, Captain Cook was the best qualified, no one could prefume to folicit him on the fubject. The fervices he had already rendered to his country, the labours he had fuftained, and the dangers he had encountered, were fo many and fo various, that it was deemed not reasonable to defire him to engage in freth perils. As an honourable teftimony, however, to his merit and knowledge, it was refolved to atk his advice refpecting the moft proper person to be entrusted with the conduct of this voyage; and to determine this point, fome of the most diftinguished naval characters were invited to meet Captain Cook at the houfe 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 ftarted up, under the impreffion of a noble enthusiasm, and offered his beft fervices to direct the important objects in view. No propofal could have been more grateful. Captain Cook was immediately invefted 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 His inftructions were, to proceed on the Pacific Ocean through that clufter of iflands 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 superadded 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 majefty, 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 hemifphere to the northward of the 52d deg. of northern latitude, the fum 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 islands in the South Seas, where the English had been treated with fo much hofpitality, might be benefited by the voyage, his majefty was gracioufly pleafed to order fome of the moft ufeful Euro B 2 pean |