ied for this species of enterprise. The earliest habits of his
life, the course of his services, and the constant application of
his mind, all conspired to fit him for it, and gave him a degree of
professional knowledge, which can fall to the lot of very few.

The constitution of his body was robust, inured to labour, and capable
of undergoing the severest hardships. His stomach bore, without
difficulty, the coarsest and most ungrateful food. Indeed, temperance
in him was scarcely a virtue; so great was the indifference with which
be submitted to every kind of self-denial. The qualities of his mind
were of the same hardy, vigorous kind with those of his body. His
understanding was strong and perspicuous. His judgment, in whatever
related to the services he was engaged in, quick and sure. His designs
were bold and manly; and both in the conception, and in the mode of
execution, bore evident marks of a great original genius. His courage
was cool and determined, and accompanied with an admirable presence of
mind in the moment of danger. His manners were plain and unaffected.
His temper might, perhaps, have been justly blamed, as subject to
hastiness and passion, had not these been disarmed by a disposition
the most benevolent and humane.

Such were the outlines of Captain Cook's character; but its most
distinguishing feature was, that unremitting perseverance in the
pursuit of his object, which was not only superior to the opposition
of dangers, and the pressure of hardships, but even exempt from the
want of ordinary relaxation. During the long and tedious voyages in
which he was engaged, his eagerness and activity were never in the
least abated. No incidental temptation could detain him for a moment;
even those intervals of recreation, which sometimes unavoidably
occurred, and were looked for by us with a longing, that persons, who
have experienced the fatigues of service, will readily excuse, were
submitted to by him with a certain impatience, whenever they could
not be employed in making further provision for the more effectual
prosecution of his designs.

It is not necessary here to enumerate the instances in which these
qualities were displayed, during the great and important enterprises
in which he was engaged. I shall content myself with stating the
result of those services, under the two principal heads to which they
maybe referred, those of geography and navigation, placing each in a
separate and distinct point