ung man, and, I
hope, will prove worthy of any services that may be in your way to
confer upon him.

"The two clerks of the two ships, Mr. W. Dewar and Mr. Greg
Santham, have, I believe, been very honest servants in their
stations, and having by Captain Cook's (and very soon by my death)
lost those to whom they looked up to for protection, are, I fear,
destitute of friends. If it should be in your power to render them
any services, I flatter myself they will be worthy of such
attention.

"If I should recollect anything more to say to you, I will
trouble my friend Mr. King with it, who is so kind as to be my
amanuensis on this occasion. He is my very dear and particular
friend, and I will make no apology in recommending him to a share
in your friends ship [sic: friendship], as I am perfectly assured
of his being
deserving of it, as in that also of the worthy doctors.

"Now, my dear and honoured friend, I must bid you a final adieu.
May you enjoy many happy years in this world, and in the end
attain that fame your indefatigable industry so richly deserves.
These are most sincerely the warmest and sincerest wishes of your
devoted, affectionate, and departing servant,

"CHARLES CLERKE."

It will take nothing from the fame of Cook to call his connection with the
discovery of Australia an accident. He himself says that, having
circumnavigated New Zealand, "we intended to return home by the Cape of
Good Hope or by Cape Horn to determine the question of a southern
continent," but the season of the year was against this course, and "we
ultimately resolved to return by the East Indies. With this in view, we
resolved to steer west till we should fall in with the coast of New
Holland, and then follow that coast to the north till we should arrive at
its northern extremity."

Having adopted this course and having reached the coast, Cook made the
very best use of his time, and surveyed it as probably no other man then
living would have done, but that he did so is unquestionably due to the
fact that the season did not admit of the old regulation pursuit of
explorers--the search for the solution of the southern continent problem.

CHAPTER IV. [Sidenote: 1779]

ARTHUR PHILLIP, FOUNDER AND FIRST GOVERNOR OF NEW SOUTH WALES.

Captain Cook's "discovery" of New Holland was turned to no accoun