IN THE KING'S SERVICE 27 



and elicited the notice and esteem of Captain 

 Graves, commanding the Antelope, and Gov- 

 ernor of Newfoundland. 



On October 24th, 1762, the Northumberland 

 returned to Spithead, England's great naval 

 base. James Cook received his discharge. Some 

 v^eeks later he learnt of a letter which Lord 

 Colville, the Northumberland's captain, had 

 written to the Secretary of the Admiralty, in 

 which he spoke of his master's "genius and ca- 

 pacity." Cook was proud and happy. Life, 

 sternly begun and sternly continued, now smiled 

 upon him. 



He was thirty-four, over six feet tall, spare 

 and muscular. The face of the child journeying 

 over the Yorkshire moorland had acquired in 

 the man an expression of surprising determina- 

 tion and energy. His forehead was wide, his 

 eyebrows were bushy, his eye was piercing and 

 commanding. He had personality. 



This personality made the conquest of a 

 charming girl of the middle classes, Elizabeth 

 Batts, whose parents lived in Essex, a few miles 

 east of London. Elizabeth was rosy and fair, as 

 English girls can be. James Cook, who until 

 then had scarcely had leisure for poetical idylls, 

 bowed himself at the sight of this delightful 

 child to the eternal law of love. A month after 



