394 



THE DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA 



Science in 

 the grand 

 style. 



Cook's 

 Instructions 



never found reason to regret his choice. Nearly half 

 a century later, he wrote a letter to a young scientist whose 

 friends were seeking to dissuade him from a voyage to 

 Java, on the ground that the climate was unhealthy. 

 " They seek," wrote he, " to force you to adopt the advice 

 of Sardanapalus, to eat, drink, and propagate ; a serene, 

 quiet, calm, sober way of slumbering away life ! . . . I was 

 about twenty-three when I began my peregrinations . . . 

 you may be assured that if I had listened to a multitude 

 of voices, that were raised to dissuade me from my enter- 

 prise, I should have been now a quiet country gentleman, 

 quite ignorant of a number of matters 1 am now acquainted 

 with, and probably have attained to no higher rank in 

 life than that of country Justice of the Peace." l So 

 wrote, with just self-esteem, the friend of the King, the 

 adviser of statesmen, the President of the Royal Society, 

 and the Father of New South Wales ! 



It is pleasant to think of him as he started on his " grand 

 tour " of the world, radiant in youth, health, and strength, 

 brimming with joy of life, eager to see, to know, and to 

 achieve. His wealth enabled him to do things in the 

 grand style. His " suite " included Dr. Solander, the 

 friend and pupil of Linnaeus, and also three artists, 

 an assistant draughtsman, and four servants, two of 

 whom were negroes ; a very different affair from poor 

 Dampier's voyages. " No people," wrote Mr. John Ellis, 

 F.R.S., to Linnaeus, who showed the keenest interest 

 in the voyage, " no people ever went to sea better fitted 

 out for the purpose of Natural History, nor more elegantly." 

 And he gave a list of scientific apparatus that makes one 

 realize how far Science had travelled since the days of 

 Dampier. " In short," he concludes, " Solander assured 

 me the expedition would cost Mr. Banks io,OOO." 



Unhappily, Cook's " Instructions " have disappeared. 

 We learn their nature from a short description in his 

 Journal, and from what he did. " I was ordered," he 

 writes, " to proceed directly to Otaheite " the gorgeous 

 island which Wallis had discovered and annexed, " and, 

 1 Smith, p. 297. 



