28 



A USTRALASIA ILL USTRA TED. 



CAPTAIN COOK S PIGEON-HOUSE. 



happened fortunately and opportunely for him ; he had just returned from the important post of 

 Surveyor of Newfoundland and Labrador; he was therefore available, and on the spot. He 

 had brought himself into great notice by his admirable charts, and he was well recommended 

 by ever>- officer under whom he had served. It is indeed most probable that no other officer 

 in the Navy possessed so much scientific knowledge as Cook. To have mastered the whole 

 art of navigation, with the methods and tactics of naval warfare in all its branches, was 

 then considered an education sufficient for the best and most ambitious officer. Yet one 

 doubts whether Cook would have received the appointment had either Wallis or Carteret 



returned in time. Their 

 experience of the Pacific 

 would have outweighed 

 Cook's proved zeal, intelli- 

 gence, and scientific attain- 

 ments. However, Cook 

 was recommended by Mr. 

 Stephens, Secretary to the 

 Admiralty, and no other 

 officer seems to have been 

 considered at all. Certainly 

 the command of an expe- 

 dition, not warlike, from which no glory of the usual kind could be obtained, certain to be 

 long and tedious, and equally certain to be full of dangers and discomforts, was not a post 

 for which back-stairs influence would be employed, or favouritism brought into request." 



In the language of this biographer, "Cook accepted the offer eagerly and instantly. 

 It was indeed an enormous step upwards ; he was taken out of the master's line, from 

 which there was seldom any promotion possible, and placed into the higher branch ; he 

 received the rank of lieutenant." With Sir Hugh Palliser he at once set to work to 

 examine the vessels then for sale in the Thames, and selected as the most suitable for 

 the contemplated mission, a small barque of three hundred and seventy tons burden, 

 which had been built originally for the coal trade in Cook's old sailing-port of Whitby. 

 She was therefore constructed with a view to strength rather than to speed, and calculated 

 to withstand the stress of the severest weather. She was carefully fitted out, armed 

 with ten carriage and twelve swivel guns, provisioned for eighteen months, and commis- 

 sioned for His Majesty's Navy under the name of the Endeavour, commanded by 

 Lieutenant James Cook. 



\\ hile the ship lay at anchor in the Thames, the little party of scientific adventurers 



was making its last preparations for what must have been regarded by most of them as 



a somewhat hazardous enterprise. The President of the Royal Society, afterwards known 



to the history of colonization as Sir Joseph Banks, " a man of large private means, and 



already of considerable scientific reputation," decided to join the expedition. Astronomer 



Charles Green, who had for years occupied the responsible office of first assistant to the 



Astronomer-Royal, was selected to superintend that portion of the proposed observations, 



Dr. Solander, a Swedish botanist and one of the assistants of the British Museum, 



volunteered to accompany the expedition, and aid Banks in making collections of plants 



