I.

Introduction

Cook, James (1728-1779), British naval officer, cartographer, and explorer, famous for his three great voyages of exploration in the Pacific Ocean and North American coastal waters.

Cook, popularly called Captain Cook, was born in Marton-in-Cleveland, England, the son of a farm labourer. At the age of 18 he was apprenticed to a firm of shipwrights at Whitby, and taught himself mathematics and astronomy. In 1755, with England on the verge of war with France (Seven Years’ War), Cook enlisted in the British Royal Navy. His skills as a seaman and navigator brought him to the attention of Sir Hugh Palliser. Cook's charts of the St Lawrence River helped the British victory at Quebec in September 1759, and when Palliser became Governor of Newfoundland, Cook was employed to carry out coastal surveys of the North Atlantic coastal waters off Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. In July 1766, in command of the Grenville, he observed the solar eclipse off the coast of Newfoundland. His observations were considered sufficiently important to be published by the Royal Society of London in 1768.