'XXX 
INTRODUCTION. 
doned; and a voyage for that purpofe, was ordered to be 
undertaken. 
The operations propofed to be purfued, were fo new, fo 
extenfive, and fo various, that the fkill and experience of 
Captain Cook, it was thought, would be requifite to condu6t 
them. Without being liable to any charge of want of zeal 
for the public fervice, he might have pafled the reft of his 
days in the command to which he had been appointed in 
Greenwich Hofpital, there to enjoy the fame he had dearly 
earned in two circumnavigations of the world. But he 
cheerfully relinquifhed this honourable ftation at home; 
and, happy that the Earl of Sandwich had not caft his eye 
upon any other Commander, engaged in the condudt of the 
expedition, the hiftory of which is prefented to the Public 
in thefe Volumes; an expedition that would expofe him to 
the toils and perils of a third circumnavigation, by a track 
hitherto unattempted. Every former navigator round the 
globe had made his paflage home to Europe by the Cape 
of Good Hope ; the arduous talk was now afligned to Cap¬ 
tain Cook, of attempting it, by reaching the high Northern 
latitudes betwen Alia and America. ‘So that the ufual plan 
of difcovery was reverfed; and, inftead of a paflage from 
the Atlantic to the Pacific, one from the latter into the for¬ 
mer was to be tried. For it was wifely forefeen, that what¬ 
ever openings or inlets there might be on the Eaft fide of 
America, which lie in a direction that could give any hopes 
of a paflage, the ultimate fuccefs of it would ftill depend 
upon there being an open fea between the Weft fide of 
that continent, and the extremities of Alia. Captain Cook, 
therefore, was ordered to proceed into the Pacific Ocean, 
through the chain of his new illands in the Southern tropic, 
and having crofted the equator into its Northern Parts, then 
i to 
