SUPPLIES INCREASED.

In another passage he again refers to the anxiety of the Navy Board to see that the quality of the stores was everything that could be wished, and the quantity was increased from one to two and a half years' supply.

On the 22nd April the two sloops were at Longreach to take in their guns and gunners' stores; twelve carriage guns and twelve swivel musketoons for the Resolution, and ten carriage guns and ten swivels for the Adventure. These should have been taken on board at Galleon's Reach, but the Resolution was drawing too much water—seventeen feet. When here Cook showed that he thought she was rather over-weighted with her new upper works, and might prove crank, but:

"as the Gentlemen's apartments were full of heavy baggage and the sloop a good deal lumbered aloft with heavy and some useless articles, which we might soon get rid of or get into the hold after we had consumed some of our provisions, I still entertained hopes that she would bear all her additional works, and suspended giving any other opinion until a full trial had been made of her, foreseeing what would be the consequence in case she did not answer in the manner she was now fitted."

On 29th April, Mr. Banks gave an entertainment on board to Lord Sandwich, the French Ambassador, and other distinguished personages, and Cook notes that the first named had been on board several times, "a laudable tho ' rare thing in a First Lord of the Admiralty."

Cook obtained a few days' leave to make his final arrangements, and the Resolution was ordered to the Downs under the first lieutenant, whilst the Adventure proceeded to Plymouth; both vessels sailing from Longreach on 10th May. The Resolution, contending against adverse winds, made a very slow trip down to the Nore, being four days on the journey, and Mr. Cooper reported to Cook that she was very crank. The latter at once wrote to the Admiralty that he considered it unsafe to proceed any further with her in that condition, and proposed that her poop should be cut down, her masts shortened, and her guns exchanged to four-pounders. The Navy Board, however, decided that she should be restored to her original state as far as it was possible to do so; she was therefore ordered to Sheerness, and her Captain was instructed to join his ship and see the alterations were properly carried out.

Before leaving London Cook, who had heard it was said that he was not satisfied with the vessels chosen for the voyage, wrote to Mr. Stephens on the subject, giving his opinion that the crankness of the Resolution "was owing to the additional works that have been built upon her in order to make large accommodation for the several gentlemen passengers intended to embark in her." He added that the proposed alterations of the Navy Board would "render her as fit to perform the voyage as any ship whatever"; and, referring to the report that he did not approve of the type of ship, he says, "from the knowledge and experience I have had of these sort of vessels, I shall always be of opinion that only such are proper to be sent on Discoveries to very distant parts." On the 21st he again wrote Stephens that the alterations were making satisfactory progress, and that a man had been in the yard who had known the ship before her purchase, and he had "with some warmth asserted that at that time she was not only a stiff ship, but had as many good qualities as any ship ever built in Whitby." In reply to a rumour that the men were afraid to sail in her, he points out that she is moored alongside a wharf, and the men could go ashore whenever they pleased, yet he had not lost a single man.