Cook appears not to have exercised his usual judgement in estimating the population of this island. After stating the number of war-canoes at seventeen hundred and twenty, and able men to man them, at sixty-eight thousand eight hundred, he comes to the conclusion that the population must consist of two hundred and four thousand souls; and reflecting on the vast swarms which everywhere appeared, 'I was convinced,' he says, 'that this estimate was not much, if at all, too great.'
The words within brackets are in the original despatch.
He was born in the Isle of Man, his father being Deemster of Man, and Seneschal to the Duke of Athol.