The Resolution finally arrived at Spithead on July 29th, 1775, after an absence of three years and eighteen days.
Captain Furneaux had, on leaving New Zealand, sailed straight for Cape Horn, the Cape of Good Hope, and England, arriving just a year before the Resolution.
Cook speaks most warmly of Captain Furneaux; but one cannot help contrasting his action with Cook's. Left, by the separation, his own master, he might have continued exploration, as did Cook. His ship was staunch, his provisions in much the same condition as the Resolution's; but he went straight home. His crew had suffered from scurvy, whereas Cook's had not; but he says not one word of this, nor does he give any reason why he gave up any further thought of the objects of the voyage, except a search for Bouvet's Islands, which he also looked for on his way.
It was the indomitable perseverance that led Cook to act so differently that raised his reputation so far above all other leaders.
Thus ended this very remarkable voyage. Never was a ship's crew exposed to more continual hardships, with so little to keep up interest and excitement, as the people of the Resolution; and yet Cook is able to record, with allowable pride, that only four lives had been lost, and only one by a sickness contracted before leaving England.
Once more the scurvy was defeated; and, without a doubt, owing to the intelligent action and untiring supervision of the captain. He gives a full description of the measures adopted, and while giving full acknowledgment to the anti-scorbutics with which he was supplied, he is of opinion that the general sanitary precautions formed the best prevention. Cleanliness of persons, bedding, clothes, and ship, were continually enforced. All these were foreign to the sailors of the time, and extraordinary it is that it was a man born in the lower rank of life, and brought up in a collier, who had the sense to perceive that in these lay the surest preventatives against this paralysing scourge.
Cook was promoted to captain--a proud position for the collier boy--and elected a Fellow of the Royal Society; perhaps even a greater distinction for a man of his bringing up. He contributed papers on his methods of preventing scurvy, and on the tides of the Pacific.
He also employed himself in publishing the account of his recent voyage, the only one which he himself edited.
He was not, however, long at rest. The Admiralty wished to send an expedition to explore the north-western coasts of North America, and to examine the Polar Sea from the Bering Straits side, with a view of the discovery of a north-west passage. Cook seems to have volunteered for the command without being actually asked, and, needless to say, was at once accepted.
In February he once more received his commission to command the Resolution, this time accompanied by the Discovery, a vessel very similar to the Adventure, his consort during the last voyage. Clerke, a master's mate in the Endeavour, and second lieutenant in the Resolution, was appointed as commander to the Discovery. He, like Cook, was fated not to return from this third journey to the great Pacific.