Such were the outlines of Captain Cook’s character; but its most distinguishing feature was that unremitting perseverance in the pursuit of his object, which was not only superior to the opposition of dangers, and the pressure of hardships, but even exempt from the want of ordinary relaxation. During the long and tedious voyages in which he was engaged, his eagerness and activity were never in the least abated. No incidental temptation could detain him for a moment; even those intervals of recreation, which sometimes unavoidably occurred, and were looked for by us with a longing, that persons who have experienced the fatigues of service will readily excuse, were submitted to by him with a certain impatience, whenever they could not be employed in making further provision for the more effectual prosecution of his designs.
It is not necessary, here, to enumerate the instances in which these qualities were displayed, during the great and important enterprizes in which he was engaged. I shall content myself with stating the result of those services, under the two principal heads to which they may be referred, those of geography and navigation, placing each in a separate and distinct point of view.
Perhaps no science ever received greater additions from the labour of a single man, than geography has done from those of Captain Cook. In his first voyage to the South Seas, he discovered the Society 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 afterward explored the eastern coast of New Holland, hitherto unknown; an extent of twenty-seven degrees of latitude, or upward of two thousand miles.
In his second expedition, he resolved the great problem of a southern continent; having traversed that hemisphere between the latitudes of 40° and 70°, 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 Caledonia, the largest island in the Southern Pacific, 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 voyage we are now relating 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 equinoctial 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 afterward explored what had hitherto remained unknown of the western coast of America, from the latitude of 43° to 70° north, containing an extent of three thousand five hundred miles; ascertained the proximity of the two 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 course. In short, if we except the sea of Amur, and the Japanese Archipelago, which still remain imperfectly known to Europeans, he has completed the hydrography of the habitable globe.
As a navigator, his services were not perhaps less splendid; certainly not less important and meritorious. The method which he discovered, and so successfully pursued of preserving the health of seamen, forms a new æra 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 this service, and whose ravages have marked the tracks of discoverers with circumstances almost too shocking to relate, must, without exercising an unwarrantable tyranny over the lives of our seamen, have proved an insuperable obstacle to the prosecution of such enterprizes. It was reserved for Captain Cook to show the world, by repeated trials, that voyages might be protracted to the unusual length of three or even four years, in unknown regions, and under every change and rigour of climate, not only without affecting the health, but even without diminishing the probability of life in the smallest degree. The method he pursued has been fully explained by himself in a paper which was read before the Royal Society, in the year 1776[[8]]; and whatever improvements the experience of the present voyage has suggested, are mentioned in their proper places.
With respect to his professional abilities, I shall leave them to the judgment of those who are best acquainted with the nature of the services in which he was engaged. They will readily acknowledge, that to have conducted three expeditions of so much danger and difficulty, of so unusual a length, and in such a variety of situation, with uniform and invariable success, must have required not only a thorough and accurate knowledge of his business, but a powerful and comprehensive genius, fruitful in resources, and equally ready in the application of whatever the higher and inferior calls of the service required.
Having given the most faithful account I have been able to collect, both from my own observation, and the relations of others, of the death of my ever-honoured friend, and also of his character and services; I shall now leave his memory to the gratitude and admiration of posterity; accepting, with a melancholy satisfaction, the honour, which the loss of him hath procured me, of seeing my name joined with his; and of testifying that affection and respect for his memory, which, whilst he lived, it was no less my inclination, than my constant study, to show him.