LIFE   OF   CAPTAIN JAMES COOK.

This celebrated navigator was the son of a day-labourer, and born at Marton, a village in Yorkshire, Nov. 3. 1728. At the age of thirteen he was put to a school, where he learnt writing and arithmetic; after which he was bound apprentice to a shopkeeper at Snaith, but on discovering an inclination for the sea, his master gave up his indentures, and he articled himself for three years to a ship-owner at Whitby. After serving out his time diligently, he entered in 1755 on board the Eagle sixty gun ship; and in 1759 he obtained a warrant as master of the Mercury, in which ship he was present at the taking of Quebec, where he made a complete draught of the channel and river of St. Laurence, which chart was published. Mr. Cook was next appointed to the Northumberland, then employed in the recapture of Newfoundland; and there also he made a survey of the harbour and coasts. At the latter end of 1762 he returned to England, and married a young woman of Barking; but early in the next year he went again to Newfoundland, as surveyor, with Captain Graves, and he afterwards acted in the same capacity under Sir Hugh Palliser. While thus employed, he made an observation of an eclipse of the sun, which he communicated to the Royal Society. It being determined to send out astronomers to observe the transit of Venus in some part of the South Sea, Mr. Cook was selected to command the Endeavour, a ship taken up for that service; and accordingly he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant, May 25. 1768. Our limits will not allow of giving the details of this interesting voyage; and therefore we shall content ourselves with stating, that the transit was observed to great advantage at Otaheite; after which lieutenant Cook explored the neighbouring islands, and then shaped his course for New Zealand, which he circumnavigated, and thus ascertained that it was not a continent. From thence he sailed to New Holland, or, as it is now called, New South Wales, where he anchored in Botany Bay, April 28. 1770, an epoch of great importance in the history of that part of the world. From hence he sailed to New Guinea, and next to Batavia, where the ship being refitted, he returned to Europe, and arrived in the Downs, June 12. 1771. For his services on this occasion, Mr. Cook was promoted to the rank of commander, and an account of his voyage was soon after published by Dr. Hawkesworth. The interest excited hereby induced government to send Captain Cook on another voyage of discovery to the southern hemisphere, and he accordingly sailed with two ships, the Resolution, commanded by himself, and the Adventure, by Captain Furneaux, April 9. 1772. After proceeding as far as 71° 10ʹ of south latitude, amidst mountains of ice, and discovering some new islands, our voyagers returned to England, July 30. 1775. The Resolution in this enterprize lost only one man out of her whole complement, for which Captain Cook was elected a member of the Royal Society, and afterwards the gold medal was voted to him by the same learned body. He was also appointed a post-captain, and promoted to a valuable situation in Greenwich hospital. As the narrative of the former voyage had not given satisfaction, the history of the second was drawn almost wholly from the captain’s journals, and digested by Dr. Douglas, late bishop of Salisbury. But the labours of Cook were not to end here. In July 1776 he sailed again, to decide the long agitated question of a northern passage to the Pacific Ocean. In this voyage he had two ships, the Resolution and the Discovery; but after sailing as high as 74° 44ʹ N. the object was considered impracticable; and on Nov. 26. 1778, the ships arrived at the Sandwich islands. Here at first they were well received, but at length the people of Owhyhee stole one of the boats, to recover which Captain Cook went on shore, with the intention of getting into his possession the person of the king; but in doing this a crowd assembled, and the brave commander fell by a club, after which he was dispatched by a dagger; and his body was carried off in triumph and devoured. This melancholy event occurred in the morning of the 14th February, 1779. Captain Cook left a widow and family; on the former a pension of 200l. a year was settled by the king, and 25l. a-year on each of the children.