4 , AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



tion was ready for sea. Cook was re-appointed to his old ship, the Resolution, with the 

 />/:vwr/T. a vessel of three hundred tons, commanded by Captain Clerke, to act under 

 his orders. For a considerable time Cook concealed from his wife the fact that he again 

 intended to tempt fate and fortune upon the high seas, and his widow was to the end of 

 her life wont to grieve that his acceptance of the command of the expedition had been 

 withheld from her. Cook had in all probability good reason for his conduct, seeing that 

 his youngest child, Hugh, was born just after his father's ship had sailed from Plymouth 

 for the South Pacific Main. On the nth of July, the Resolution and the Discovery weighed 

 anchor and stood out for sea, with that England abaft the beam which the eyes of the 

 greatest of her sailors should never greet again. 



Instead of trying the passage by the Atlantic route, Cook suggested that the expe- 

 dition should proceed south to the Pacific, and thence attempt the enterprise by reaching 

 the high latitudes between Asia and America. It was the continual failure of every 

 expedition that essayed the accomplishment of a North-West Passage that occasioned this 

 change of plans. Hitherto mariners had sought to force their ships through the frozen 

 waters of the North Atlantic, and it was this alteration from the usually-pursued course 

 which lent the expedition an assurance of success. From the Pacific, therefore, the North- 

 \\~est Passage was to be discovered. 



By the close of the year, the Resolution and the Discovery had rounded the Cape, 

 passed Prince Edward Island, so named by Cook, and the Marion and Crozet Groups, 

 and touched at the indescribably desolate shores of Kerguelen Land, which, in 1772, had 

 been discovered by the French navigator whose name it bears. Thence they sailed to 

 Van Diemen's Land, anchoring a few days in Adventure Bay, where they landed and 

 found the natives very friendly. Cook did not in any way map out the coasts, and resumed 

 his voyage under the continued impression that Van Diemen's Land was only the southern 

 point of Xew Holland. On the loth of February, 1777, New Zealand hove in sight, and the 

 day following the expedition made Queen Charlotte's Sound, where the sailors "refreshed" 

 for about a fortnight. On the 25th of February Cook resumed his voyage, and steering 

 northwards discovered a group of islands, which he named after the Earl of Sandwich, 

 but he did not remain long in the waters of this beautiful archipelago. He was, how- 

 ever, so baffled by contrary winds and bad weather that, on reaching the coast of North 

 America and entering Behring Sea, he found the ice already forming and an early 

 winter setting in, which precluded the immediate prospect of accomplishing the object of 

 the expedition, he therefore decided to turn back and employ his time in making a 

 more careful examination of the Sandwich Islands. On his return he discovered the 

 largest and one of the most beautiful of the group, called by .the natives Hawaii, but 

 written in Cook's spelling of the word Oivliycc. 



The South Sea Islanders were notorious thieves, and the natives of Hawaii being 

 no exception to the rule, the navigators were much troubled by the peculations of 

 the visitors to their ships. One night the cutter was stolen, and in the morning Captain 

 Cook went ashore to see the king about it, and as neither information nor satisfaction 

 was to be had, he resolved to seize so important a personage, and to take him on 

 board one of the ships, with a view of keeping him prisoner until the missing cutter 

 was restored. A vast crowd of natives, however, surprised and alarmed at seeing their 



