m 



EDITOR'S NOTE 



When, at thirteen years of age, James Cook, 

 the son of a Yorkshire agricultural labourer, 

 was apprenticed to a haberdasher of Staithes, 

 it was doubtless considered that he was 

 " made for life." But no account had been 

 taken of the sea whose hoarse murmurings 

 were doubtless heard in the little village shop. 

 Presently its call became persistent to the 

 boy ; the counter became an irksome barrier 

 between him and his desire to respond to its 

 enchantment. A quarrel with his master 

 afforded welcome opportunity to quit the 

 trade, and soon he sailed from Whitby bound 

 apprentice to the sea. 



At twenty-seven came a longing for some- 

 thing more than coasting and Baltic voyages, 

 and he volunteered as able seaman for the 

 Navy. In four years he was promoted master, 

 and after assisting at the capture of Quebec 

 he proved his scientific capabilities by sur- 

 veying and charting the estuary of the St. 

 Lawrence and the shores of Newfound- 

 land. In 1768, with a lieutenancy and the 

 command of the " Endeavour," he took 

 out a scientific party to Tahiti to record the 

 transit of Venus. From that time the Pacific 

 and the South Seas were his special domain, 

 and the story of his voyages and discoveries 

 therein are recorded in this volume. 



On June 25, 1776, Captain Cook sailed 

 away from the Nore on his last tragic vcyage. 

 On St. Valentine's Day, 1 779, he was clubbed 

 to death on the shore of Hawaii. A century 

 afterwards (1874) a monument was raised to 

 mark the spot where this intrepid sailor fell. 



