HIS CHARACTER. 185 



narrative, we shall find that they were the 

 aggressors, — that the islanders acted only on the 

 defensive, and that Cook's fate, however lament- 

 able, was not entirely undeserved. 



John Reinhold Forster, in his preface to a 

 journal of a voyage of discovery to the South 

 Sea, in the years 1776 to 1780, gives an 

 extract from a letter written to him by an 

 Englishman in a responsible situation, in which 

 he says of Cook — *' The Captain's character 

 is not the same now as formerly : his head 

 seems to have been turned.'" Forster gives the 

 same account concerning the change in Cook, 

 when he says — 



" Cook, on his first voyage, had with him 

 Messrs. Banks and Solander, both lovers of art 

 and science. On the second, I and my son 

 were his companions, enjoying daily and fami- 

 liar intercourse with him. In our presence, 

 respect for his own character restrained him; 

 our mode of thinking, our principles and man- 

 ners influenced his, and prevented his treating 

 the poor harmless South Sea Islanders with 

 cruelty. The only instance of undue severity 

 we ever witnessed in his behaviour, was when 



