Primary tabs
Transcription
[Page 2]
the N E. so he followed it as close as possible, not doubting but that he had found the wished for passage. But being arrived (it was in August) in Latit. 70°.41'. Longit 198°, he was so suddenly beset by the Ice, that he ran risk of being hemmed in & forced to Shore by it. However with some trouble he got clear, & finding all round to the North the Sea walled in by the Ice, and many reasons to convince him of the existence of some continent lying towards the Pole, which furnishes & fixes the Ice, He went on to the West, so by what chance he could have on the side of Siberia, the coast of which he made in Lat 68°.55'. Longit. 180½° from Greenwich. Finding there no more passage than the other way he returned to the Streights remarking by the way, that both Continents present these quarters a low & bare Country, & that the Sea between them and north of the Streight is not deep. On his return C. Cook lay at the Harbour of Unalashka, [Unalaska] which island he places in 53°.55' Lat. & 192°.30' Longit. Thus more Southerly & Westerly than any Russian map of account. There he delivered the Letter which has been received from Cn. Cook's hand, to a Russian crew, which he met on the same Island. It is dated in October 1778. He mentions at the close of it, that he lost during his whole absence, only the Surgeon of the Resolution, & two men, one belonging to the Discovery having being drowned, the other died of a Dropsy. He also exposes his intention of returning during Winter to Sandwich Island, not to remain unactive during a long wintering in Kamtshalka [Kamchatka], & his proposed return to the north for another tryal next year.
Thus far the celebrated Capn. Cook's Letter. Another Letter from Capt. Clarke came along with it from Kamtshalka [Kamchatka] & continues the account. Capt. Cook found his supposition of more Islands lying to the East of Sandwich I. to be true. He discovered several more, the names & Number I cannot recollect, but all very luxuriant and populous, & the inhabitants of the same nation wt. the people of Otaheitee [Otaheite]. In one of these Islands called by the Inhabitants O-why-he, he anchored in a Bay & stay'd two months in that harbour which bear the name of Cara-ca-cossa. The people received him very sociably and used to pay him a kind of worship more fit for a Divinity than man. His crew was plentifully supplied with Hogs, yams, plantains,