His surveying work on the St. Lawrence at the siege of Quebec was so
carried out that the Admiralty saw in him one of the most promising
officers in the service; and Sir Hugh Palliser, one of the first men to
"discover" Cook, was from this time, his best friend, giving him, in 1764,
an appointment as marine surveyor of Newfoundland, where Palliser was
governor. Cook was then a good seaman and a clever navigator, but there is
no doubt his special talents were by this particular service afforded an
opportunity for full development, and so he became the best scientific man
in the navy. In 1769 it was determined to send an expedition to the
Pacific to observe the transit of Venus. Cook had just returned from
Newfoundland, and he was appointed to the command.
Seventy years had elapsed since Dampier's voyage in the _Roebuck_.
Meanwhile what had the English done in the way of South Sea exploration?
What was the navy like at this time, a year before Nelson, a youngster of
twelve, first went to sea?
There are books enough in print to reply to these questions; but with how
much more interest could they be answered if the [Sidenote: 1769]
newspaper press, with its interviewers and its photo-reproductions, had
been then what it is now. To put life into the skeleton histories, to give
us sea life as it was and sailors as they were, we have to trust mostly
to the novelists, who, except in rare instances, draw untrustworthy
exaggerations.
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