FIRST 

 VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY 



DISTINGUISHED as this country is, and ever has been, for 

 its able navigators, it acquires no inconsiderable accession 

 of fame from boasting of the name of Cook, whose three 

 principal voyages we are now about to detail in an unbroken 

 series. 



This able and most amiable man was born at Marton, 

 in Cleveland, a village about four miles from Great Ayton, 

 in Yorkshire, on the 27th of October, 1728. His father, 

 who lived in the humble station of a farmer's servant, 

 married a woman in the same sphere of life with himself ; 

 and both were noted in their neighbourhood for their 

 honesty, sobriety, good conduct, and industry, qualities 

 which ever reflect a lustre on the humblest ranks. 



When our navigator was about two years old, his father 

 removed to Great Ayton, and was appointed to superin- 

 tend a considerable farm known by the name of Airyholm, 

 belonging to Thomas Scottowe, Esq. 



f As the father long continued in this trust, the son 

 naturally followed the same employment, as far as his 

 tender years would admit. His early education appears 

 to have been slight ; but at the age of thirteen we find 

 him placed under the tuition of one, Mr. Pullen, who 

 taught school at Ayton, where he learned the rudiments 

 of arithmetic and book-keeping, and is said to have shown 

 a remarkable facility in acquiring the science of numbers. 



About the beginning of the year 1745, when young 

 Cook was seventeen years old, his father bound him 

 apprentice to William Sanderson, for four years, to learn 

 the grocery and haberdashery business, at a place called 

 Snaith, a populous fishing town about ten miles from 

 Whitby, and while here, according to Mr. Sanderson's 

 account, he displayed a maturity of judgment, and a 

 quickness in calculations far beyond his years. But as 

 he evinced a strong partiality for a maritime life (a pre- 

 dilection strengthened by the situation of the place, and 

 the company with which, perhaps, he associated), on some 

 trivial disagreement with his master, he obtained a release 

 from his engagements, after a year and a half's servitude, 

 and determined to follow the bent of his own inclination. 



In July, 1746, he was bound apprentice to Messrs. 

 Walker, of Whitby, for the term of three years, which 



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