Home › C › Cook (JAMES a British navigator born)

Cook (JAMES a British navigator born)

JAMES, a British navigator; born in Yorkshire, in 1728, of parents not above the rank of peasantry. He rank of peasantry. was at first apprenticed to a shopto a shopkeeper, but became a sailor. In 1755 he entered the royal navy, and four years later as sailing-master of the "Mercury" surveyed the St. Lawrence river and the coast of Newfoundland. Some observations on a solar eclipse , communicated to the Royal Society, brought him into notice, and he was appointed commander of a scientific expedition to the Pacific.

During this expedition he successively visited Tahiti, New Zealand, and discovered New South Wales. In 1772 Captain Cook, now raised to the rank of COOKE a commander in the navy, commanded a second expedition to the Pacific and Southern oceans. In 1776 he again set out on an expedition to ascertain the possibility of a N. W. passage. On this voyage he explored the W. coast of 0 C CAPTAIN JAMES COOK North America, and discovered the Sandwich Islands, on one of which, Hawaii, he was killed by the natives, Feb. 14, 1779.