SIR JOSEPH BANKS. 343 



singularly fortunate, or rather it was perfectly judicious. 

 He had risen gradually from the humble station of an 

 apprentice in a collier of Whitby, till he became mate 

 of a vessel engaged in that trade, fitted beyond all 

 others to make excellent navigators, because it is car- 

 ried on by sailing upon a coast almost without any 

 harbour of refuge, and consequently exposes the mari- 

 ner to constant risks and exercises his unremitting 

 vigilance. When the war of 1756 broke out, (the 

 Seven Years' War,) he had volunteered into the navy, 

 and showed such talents in his profession, that the 

 Admiralty appointed him mate of a sloop, the Mersey, 

 in which he was present at the siege of Quebec, under 

 Wolfe. His skill and gallantry in laying down the 

 river and its soundings, previous to the attack, led to 

 his being employed in making a chart of the St. Law- 

 rence as far as the sea. Though he had never been 

 taught either surveying or drawing, this chart was long 

 the only one in use. He was, in consequence, made 

 master of the Northumberland frigate, and served in 

 that capacity till 1762, employing, however, his spare 

 time in the study of the mathematics, in which he re- 

 ceived most valuable assistance from a person of great 

 science, a pupil of the Bernouillis, Mr. afterwards Major 

 Desbarres ; and in 1764, his patron, Sir Hugh Palliser, 

 whose name has been blackened by the assiduous efforts 

 of political faction, but who for many years was the 

 firm friend and only patron of Cook, being appointed 

 to the Government of Newfoundland, obtained for him 

 the place of marine surveyor of that island and Labra- 

 dor. He held this place for nearly four years, and en- 

 riched hydrographical science by the most valuable 

 charts of those regions. The talents which he had dis- 

 played as a navigator were united to every bodily 

 quality that can fit men for either action, or labour, or 

 suffering an eye sure in estimating directions and dis- 

 tances ; a frame of iron; an entire indifference to fatigue, 

 or privations, or the times of wakefulness or of rest. 



