Third voyage.
On the 12th of July, 1776, Captain Cook undertook his third and last voyage; the object, on this occasion, being to explore the northern portions of the Pacific Ocean, and to ascertain, if possible, whether there was any water communication between the North Pacific and the North Atlantic. In this voyage he himself sailed in his old ship the Resolution, and had associated with him the Discovery, under Captain Clerke, an engraving of which we are enabled to give on the [following page], from a drawing by E. W. Cooke, R.A., F.R.S.
THE “DISCOVERY,” CAPTAIN COOK’S SHIP.—E. W. COOKE, R.A.
Friendly, Fiji, Sandwich, and other islands.
His murder.
After calling at the Cape of Good Hope, he proceeded east, and passing the islands first seen by Marion and Kerguelen, finally reached Adventure Bay, at the south end of Van Diemen’s Land, on January 26th, 1777. Thence he proceeded to New Zealand, and thence again for the winter to the Friendly Islands, taking advantage of the nearly three months he spent in that part of the Pacific to examine more closely Amsterdam Island (or Tongataboo), and the Fiji Islands. Thence he went on to Otaheite, where he left a horse and mare and other live stock he had brought from England on purpose. Turning from Otaheite to the north, Cook discovered, in latitude 21°, north, five islands, to which he gave the name of the Sandwich Islands; and thence pressing onward he fell in with New Albion in 44° 33´ north, and King George’s or Nootka Sound in the island now known as that of Vancouver. Pursuing his northern course, he surveyed a considerable portion of the American coast, doubled the projecting headland of Alaska, and passing through Behring’s Straits, anchored on the inhospitable coast of the Tchshudkis: the most northern point he was able to reach, being in 70° 44´, where his farther progress was completely barred by a wall of solid ice. Returning thence again to the south, with the view of wintering in the Sandwich Islands, he proceeded thither, and discovered Owhyhee, the largest of this group, which he had not seen when passing by these islands a few months before. At a southern bay of this island he remained for some time, his visit being highly appreciated by the great mass of the natives. Disputes, however, occasionally arose from the punishments necessarily inflicted on them to check their love of appropriating whatever articles they could carry away; and in one of these, for an offence which could not be overlooked, as they had stolen the Discovery’s cutter, Captain Cook, on landing with a party of marines to carry into effect his orders, unfortunately perished in the scuffle, on December 26th, 1779.
Progress of the North American colonies.
Previous to most of these important discoveries, and during the earlier portion of the eighteenth century, while England was distracted by war, and the nations of Europe were rivalling, by force of arms, to obtain an ascendency over each other, her American colonies[208] were, by peaceful and undisturbed pursuits, laying the foundation of that prosperity which enabled them, before the close of the century, to demand and obtain their severance from the mother-country, and their social and political independence. So early as 1729 the city of Philadelphia in the province of Pennsylvania owned vessels amounting to six thousand tons, employed in a lucrative trade with the West Indies, and had also in that year received no less than six thousand two hundred and eight emigrants from Great Britain. New York, as well as Pennsylvania, carried on a large trade in grain and provisions with Spain and Portugal, besides sending considerable quantities of furs and peltry, obtained from the native Indians, to England. Massachusetts had already one hundred and twenty thousand inhabitants, employing forty thousand tons of shipping in their foreign and coasting trades, or close upon six hundred vessels of one sort and another, one-half of which traded to Europe; while the American fisheries were already so valuable and extensive that two hundred and fifty thousand quintals of dried fish were annually exported to Spain, Portugal, and the Mediterranean.[209]
New England then supplied the largest and finest masts in the world. The exportation of rice from Carolina, which in 1733 amounted to thirty-six thousand five hundred and eighty-four barrels, besides considerable quantities of pitch, turpentine, lumber, provisions, and Indian corn, had in 1740 increased to ninety-one thousand one hundred and ten barrels. Georgia, established in 1732 by a society of gentlemen, headed by General Oglethorpe, with the view of producing silk, the worm having been brought from Piedmont, was paving the way for the growth of rice, indigo, and other products suited to her soil and warm climate.[210]