se to that
taken by the _Dolphin_, made many discoveries, including Pitcairn Island;
the Sandwich Group; and several islands in the neighbourhood of New
Guinea, New Ireland and the Admiralty Islands. The _Swallow_ reached
England six months after Cook sailed. The _Dolphin's_ return so long
before her consort alarmed the Admiralty for the safety of the _Swallow_,
and Carteret on his way home, falling in with the French scientific
expedition under Bougainville, who himself had been exploring in the
Pacific, was informed that two vessels had been sent out to search for him
and his men, who, it was thought, might be cast away in the Straits of
Magellan.

Dampier's voyage was made solely for discovery purposes; Anson, who forty
years later went into the South Seas and so near to Australia as the
Philippines, had gone out to fight; Byron, Wallis, and Carteret, who
immediately preceded Cook, had sailed to discover and chart new countries;
but Cook, who made the greatest discovery and did more important charting
than all of them put together, sailed in the _Endeavour_ for the purpose
of making certain astronomical observations, and exploration was only a
secondary object of the voyage. Wallis' return determined the spot where
the observations could best be carried out; and, on his advice, Cook was
ordered to make for Port Royal, in Tahiti.

One incident in the matter of Cook's appointment should be noted in this
connection. The command of the expedition was at first intended for
Dalrymple, the celebrated geographer and then chief hydrographer to the
Admiralty. The precedent of Halley's command of the _Paramour_ in 1698 had
taught a lesson of the danger of giving the command of a ship to a
landsman, and Sir Edward (afterwards Lord) Hawke, First Lord of the
Admiralty in 1768, said, to his everlasting credit, that he would sooner
cut off his right hand than sign a commission for any person who had not
been bred a seaman. Dalrymple, there is little doubt, never forgave Cook
for taking his place, and later on showed his resentment by an unfair
statement which will be presently alluded to.

The _Endeavour_ was what was then known as a "cat-built" ship, of 368 tons
burden, a description of vessel then much used in [Sidenote: 1768]
the Baltic and coal trade, having large carrying capacity, with small
draught. A pencil sketch by Buchan (one of the artists who accompanied
Cook) of her hull, lying at Deptford, shows the short,