568 SOUTH SEA ISLANDS. 



north. After the death of captain Cook, the command devolved on 

 captain Clerke, who died at sea, on his return to the southward, on 

 the 22d day of August, 1779. The two ships returned home by the 

 Cape of Good Hope, and on the 5th of October, 1780, anchored at 

 the Nore. 



We cannot conclude this article without inserting the following 

 character of captain Cook, to perpetuate the memory and services of 

 so excellent a navigator. 



" Perhaps no science ever received greater additions from the la- 

 bours ol a single man than geography has done from those of captain 

 Cook. In his first voyage to the South Seas, he discovered the So- 

 ciety Islands; determined the insularity of New Zealand; discovered 

 the straits which separate the two islands, and are called after his 

 name ; and made a complete survey of both. He afterwards ex- 

 plored the eastern coast of New Holland, hitherto unknown, an ex- 

 tent of twenty-seven degrees of latitude, or upwards of two thousand 

 miles. 



" In his second expedition, he resolved the great problem of a 

 southern continent, having traversed that hemisphere between the 

 latitude of forty and seventy degrees, in such a manner as not to leave 

 a possibility of its existence, unless near the pole, and out of the 

 reach of navigation. During this voyage he discovered New Cale- 

 donia, the largest island in the Southern Pacific Ocean, except New 

 Zealand ; the Island of Georgia ; and an unknown coast which he 

 named Sandwich Land, the Thule of the southern hemisphere; and 

 having twice visited the tropical seas, he settled the situations of the 

 old, and made several new discoveries. 



" But the last voyage is distinguished above all the rest, by the 

 extent and importance of its discoveries. Besides several smaller 

 islands in the Southern Pacific, he discovered to the north of the 

 ecminoctial line the group called the Sandwich Islands, which, from 

 their situation and productions, bid fairer for becoming an object of 

 consequence in the system of European navigation than any other 

 discovery in the South Sea. He afterwards explored what had hither- 

 to remained unknown of the western coast of America, from the 

 latitude of forty-three to seventy degrees north, containing an extent 

 of three thousand and five hundred miles ; ascertained the proximi- 

 ty of the tvi o great continents of Asia and America ; passed the 

 straits between them, and surveyed the coast on each side, to such a 

 height of northern latitude, as to demonstrate the impracticability of 

 a passage, in that hemisphere, from the Atlantic into the Pacific 

 Ocean, either by an eastern or a western coast. In short, if we ex- 

 cept the Sea of Amur, and the Japanese archipelago, which still re- 

 main imperfectly known to Europeans, he has completed the hydro- 

 graphy of the habitable globe. 



" The method which he discovered, and so successfully pursued, 

 of preserving the health of seamen, forms a new aera in navigation, 

 and will transmit his name to future ages amongst the friends and 

 benefactors of mankind. 



" Those who are conversant in naval history need not be told at 

 how dear a rate the advantages which have been sought through the 

 medium of long voyages at sea have always been purchased. That 

 dreadful disorder which is peculiar to their service, and whose rava- 

 ges have marked the tracks of discoverers with circumstances almost 

 too shocking to relate, must, without exercising an unwarrantable 



