In 1769 some discoveries of importance were made in the South Seas by a French mercantile adventurer. Two ships were fitted out in Bengal by MM. Law and Chevalier, for a trading voyage to Peru, and were placed under the command of M. de Surville. While he was preparing to embark, news arrived in India that the English had discovered in the South Sea, 700 leagues from Peru, and in lat. 27° S., an island exceedingly rich, and inhabited by Jews. This story gained credit, being congenial to the avaricious cravings of mankind; and even those who suspected fiction in the mention of Jews were still willing to believe that the newly discovered country was eminently rich. Surville, touching at the Bashee Islands, carried off three of the natives to supply the deficiencies of his crew; thus furnishing a conspicuous example of that overbearing violence which has almost universally forced weak and uncivilised nations to regard Europeans as their natural enemies. In running to the south-east from New Guinea he discovered land, to which he gave the name of the Land of the Arsacides, and which was, in fact, a part of that long chain of islands that had already been seen by Bougainville, who gave the name of Louisiade to the portion which he had examined. Surville, in his intercourse with the natives, found them to be of a fierce, intractable, and treacherous disposition, and chose to designate them Arsacides, a name which he supposed to be equivalent to the word assassins.

The first important discovery made by Cook was effected by the circumnavigation of New Zealand. When Tasman described that country, he supposed it to be a part of the great Terra Australis Incognita, extending probably across the southern Pacific Ocean; but Cook's voyage at once overturned this theory. An opinion, however, which has long existed, cannot be at once dispelled, although utterly groundless, and many still continued to believe in the existence of a southern continent, although Cook's discoveries had cut off the connection between their theory and the facts which hitherto had been adduced in its support: but to set the question of a southern continent completely at rest, another expedition was necessary, and the English government, having now made the advancement of science the object of national exertions, resolved to continue their laudable researches. The king was partial to the scheme; and the earl of Sandwich, who was at the head of the admiralty, possessed a mind sufficiently liberal and comprehensive to second effectively the wishes of his sovereign.

Captain Cook was named at once as the fittest person to command the new expedition. Two ships, the Resolution and the Adventure, the former of 462 the latter of 336 tons burden, were fitted out for the voyage; and, that no opportunities might be lost to science from the want of persons capable of observing nature under every aspect, astronomers and naturalists of eminent ability were engaged to accompany the expedition; Messrs. Wales and Bayley proceeding in the former, Reinhold Forster and his son in the latter capacity.

There is nothing that exemplifies more forcibly how little the active genius of man is deterred from the pursuit of interest by considerations of distance or of dangers; and, on the other hand, how little all the advantages of proximity conduce to enquiry, when the motives of interest are removed, than the fact that European nations were tolerably well acquainted with the intricate northwestern coast of the New World, while they still had but a very obscure and imperfect knowledge of the eastern coasts of Asia. The examination of those coasts. indeed, was chiefly to be expected from the Russians, who had not, however, as yet attained that share of nautical experience and skill which is requisite in a navigator who attempts to examine unknown shores. Yet the sovereigns of Russia were not indifferent to their interests, nor blind to the advantages that might result to their vast empire by the careful examination of its boundaries, and by obtaining a knowledge of the countries adjoining it to the south, particularly near the sea shore.

Mr. Joseph Billings, an officer who had sailed with captain Cook in his last voyage, was induced to engage in the Russian service, and was appointed by Catherine II. to descend the Kolyma, and to examine the northern coast of Siberia, from that river to East Cape. Two light vessels being built at the Kolyma, captain Billings embarked in the spring of 1787, as soon as the ice broke up.

The interests of science and the acquisition of geographical knowledge entered largely into the motives of the circumnavigations above related. But the first expedition of importance, fitted out wholly for scientific objects, was that intrusted to the command of the celebrated captain James Cook. This great navigator was born of humble parents: his father was an agricultural labourer, whose steady conduct was at length rewarded by his employer with the situation of hind or under steward. As he had nine children, and his means were slender, he was unable to assist materially their individual exertions to procure a livelihood. James, when thirteen years of age, was apprenticed to a shopkeeper at Straiths, a fishing town not far from Whitby; but the predilection of young Cook for the sea was soon manifested with that strength of inclination which is sure to accompany peculiar talents. He engaged himself for seven years with the owners of some ships employed in the coal trade; and, when the period of his engagement was expired, he was promoted by his employers to the rank of mate of one of their vessels. The coal trade of England, being chiefly carried on near a singularly dangerous coast, where unceasing vigilance is required on the part of the seamen, constitutes the best school of practical mariners in the world. Cook, who obeyed his own inclinations when he turned sailor, profited, no doubt, in the highest degree, from the opportunities which his coasting voyages afforded him of becoming acquainted with the practical part of navigation.