474 THE DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA 



he had used for the prevention and cure of scurvy. The 

 Society awarded to him the Copley gold medal for the best 

 paper contributed during the year. " If Rome," said 

 the President, " decreed the Civic Crown to him who 

 saved the life of a single citizen, what wreaths are due to 

 that man, who, having himself saved many, perpetuates 

 in your Transactions the means by which Britain may 

 now, on the most distant voyages, preserve numbers 

 of her intrepid sons, her manners ? " 



"A pretty In August 1775 Cook, now at the height of fame, was 

 income." a p po i ntec j Fourth .Captain of His Majesty's Royal Hospital 

 for Seamen at Greenwich. His salary was 200 a year, 

 with a residence, fire and light, and one shilling and two- 

 pence a day table-money. And yet, with all this mass 

 of wealth, he was not happy! "The Resolution," he wrote 

 to his old friend, Mr. Walker of Whitby, "was found 

 to answer even beyond my expectation, and is so little 

 injured by the voyage that she will be soon sent out again. 

 But I shall not command her. My fate drives me from 

 one extreme to another ; a few months ago the whole 

 Southern Hemisphere was hardly big enough for me, 

 and now I am going to be confined within the limits of 

 Greenwich Hospital, which are far too small for an active 

 mind like mine. I must confess it is a fine retreat, and 

 a pretty income, but whether I can bring myself to like 

 ease and retirement, time will show." 



The third Time soon showed. In February 1776 he offered to 

 6 ' 6 command the old ship, and his offer was accepted. He was 

 happy as a lover. " I have quitted," he wrote to Mr. Walker, 

 " an easy retirement, for an active, perhaps dangerous, 

 voyage ... I embark on as fair a prospect as I can wish." 

 The second ship, the Discovery, sailed under Clerke, most 

 charming of Cook's men, who had served him both in the 

 Endeavour and in the Resolution. 



Mainly in Cook's third voyage is in the main off the track of our 

 the North. s t orv It was a voyage in the North Pacific. Its object 

 was to find a Northern passage from the Pacific to the 

 Atlantic ; and the chief work accomplished was the dis- 

 covery of the Sandwich Islands a discovery which Cook 



