INTRODUCTION   TO   THE FIRST VOYAGE.

With Lieutenant Cook, in this voyage, embarked Joseph Banks, Esquire, a gentleman possessed of considerable landed property in Lincolnshire. He received the education of a scholar rather to qualify him for the enjoyments than the labours of life; yet an ardent desire to know more of Nature than could be learnt from books determined him, at a very early age, to forego what are generally thought to be the principal advantages of a liberal fortune, and to apply his revenue not in procuring the pleasures of leisure and ease, but in the pursuit of his favourite study, through a series of fatigue and danger, which, in such circumstances, have very seldom been voluntarily incurred, except to gratify the restless and insatiable desires of avarice or ambition.

Upon his leaving the university of Oxford, in the year 1763, he crossed the Atlantic, and visited the coasts of Newfoundland and Labradore. The danger, difficulty, and inconvenience that attend long voyages are very different in idea and experience; Mr. Banks, however, returned, undiscouraged, from his first expedition; and when he found that the Endeavour was equipping for a voyage to the South Seas, in order to observe the Transit of Venus, and afterwards attempt farther discoveries, he determined to embark in the expedition, that he might enrich his native country with a tribute of knowledge from those which have been hitherto unknown, and not without hope of leaving among the rude and uncultivated nations that he might discover, something that would render life of more value, and enrich them, perhaps, in a certain degree, with the knowledge, or at least with the productions, of Europe.

As he was determined to spare no expense in the execution of his plan, he engaged Dr. Solander to accompany him in the voyage. This Gentleman, by birth a Swede, was educated under the celebrated Linnæus, from whom he brought letters of recommendation into England, and his merit being soon known, he obtained an appointment in the British Museum, a public institution, which was then just established; such a companion Mr. Banks considered as an acquisition of no small importance, and, to his great satisfaction, the event abundantly proved that he was not mistaken. He also took with him two draftsmen, one to delineate views and figures, the other to paint such subjects of natural history as might offer; together with a secretary and four servants, two of whom were negroes.

Mr. Banks kept an accurate and circumstantial journal of the voyage, and, soon after I had received that of Captain Cook from the Admiralty, was so obliging as to put it into my hands, with permission to take out of it whatever I thought would improve or embellish the narrative. This was an offer of which I gladly and thankfully accepted: I knew the advantage would be great, for few philosophers have furnished materials for accounts of voyages undertaken to discover new countries. The adventurers in such expeditions have generally looked only upon the great outline of Nature, without attending to the variety of shades within, which give life and beauty to the piece.

The papers of Captain Cook contained a very particular account of all the nautical incidents of the voyage, and a very minute description of the figure and extent of the countries he had visited, with the bearings of the headlands and bays that diversify the coasts, the situation of the harbours in which shipping may obtain refreshments, with the depth of water wherever there were soundings; the latitudes, longitudes, variation of the needle, and such other particulars as lay in his department; and abundantly showed him to be an excellent officer, and skilful navigator. But in the papers which were communicated to me by Mr. Banks, I found a great variety of incidents which had not come under the notice of Captain Cook, with descriptions of countries and people, their productions, manners, customs, religion, policy, and language, much more full and particular than were expected from a Gentleman whose station and office naturally turned his principal attention to other objects; for these particulars, therefore, besides many practical observations, the Public is indebted to Mr. Banks. To Mr. Banks also the Public is indebted for the designs of the engravings which illustrate and adorn the account of this voyage, all of them, except the maps, charts, and views of the coasts as they appear at sea, being copied from his valuable drawings, and some of them from such as were made for the use of the artists at his expense.

As the materials furnished by Mr. Banks were so interesting and copious, there arose an objection against writing an account of this voyage in the person of the Commander, which could have no place with respect to the others; the descriptions and observations of Mr. Banks would be absorbed without any distinction, in a general narrative given under another name: but this objection he generously over-ruled, and it, therefore, became necessary to give some account of the obligations which he has laid upon the Public and myself in this place. It is, indeed, fortunate for mankind, when wealth and science, and a strong inclination to exert the powers of both for purposes of public benefit, unite in the same person; and I cannot but congratulate my country upon the prospect of further pleasure and advantage from the same Gentleman, to whom we are indebted for so considerable a part of this narrative.

AN

ACCOUNT

OF A

VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD,

IN 1768, 1769, 1770, AND 1771.