CH. XIX] 
Cook 
after the Speaker of the House of Commons (Lord 
Grantley). Here spruce was collected to make spruce 
beer, and the men were sent on shore to collect berries, 
for Captain Cook was ever thoughtful for the health of 
his people. A corporal of Marines, John Ledyard, volun- 
teered to go in search of settlers in one of the frail baidor, 
a light wooden-frame boat covered with whale skin, and 
he brought back two Russians whose information was very 
useful to Captain Cook \ 
Captain Cook's expedition returned to the Sandwich 
Islands, where the great navigator was murdered. There 
was to have been a second voyage to the Arctic regions 
in the next navigable season. Captain Clerke succeeded 
to the command, but he was in a dying state. In April, 
1779, the Resolution and Discovery arrived at Petropau- 
lovsky in Kamschatka, where they were most hospitably 
received by the Russian Governor, and in July the ships 
again passed through Bering Strait, and were among the 
ice in lat. 69 0 20' N. But on the 27th further attempts were 
relinquished and it was decided to return to England. 
Captain Clerke died on the 23rd of August. 
The Arctic discoveries of Captain Cook extend on the 
Asiatic side to Cape North, and on the American side 
to Icy Cape. For nearly 50 years the knowledge of the 
polar sea north of America was bounded by Cook's 
Icy Cape, with the mouths of the two rivers Coppermine 
and Mackenzie. 
A gun brig had been fitted out to meet Captain Cook 
in Baffin's Bay, the Lion, commanded by Lieutenant 
Pickersgill, who had served in Cook's second voyage. 
1 Ledyard was one of those remarkable men that Arctic service so 
often produces. He had been befriended by Sir Joseph Banks, who 
encouraged him in his enthusiasm for travel. Having been to Kams- 
chatka by sea, Ledyard resolved to find his way there by land. He 
crossed to Ostend with no more than ten guineas in his pocket, made 
his way to Stockholm, and walked thence, round the Gulf of Bothnia, 
to St Petersburg. There he obtained permission to accompany a party 
with stores to Yakutsk and thence to Okhotsk. But, for some unknown 
reason, he was arrested, hurried back across Siberia, and put across the 
frontier near Konigsberg. Quite destitute, he ventured to draw a small 
cheque on Sir Joseph Banks which enabled him to reach England. The 
African Association had just been formed, and Sir Joseph selected this 
resolute and fearless traveller as the best man to execute the instructions 
of the Association. Ledyard was to make his way from Senaar to the 
Niger. He set out in June 1788, but his career was brought to a prema- 
ture close by fever at Cairo. 
