On this Captain Graves was again appointed Governor of Newfoundland. As
the island was of great importance to England, he obtained from the
Government, with some difficulty, an establishment for the survey of its
coasts, and offered the direction of it to Cook, who, notwithstanding
his recent marriage, accepted the offer. In the following year, 1764,
Sir Hugh Palliser being appointed Governor of Newfoundland and Labrador,
Cook was made Marine Surveyor of the Province, the Grenville schooner
being placed under his command. The charts made by Cook enlightened the
Government as to the value of Newfoundland, and induced them, when
drawing up articles of peace with France, to insist on arrangements
which secured to Great Britain the advantages which its coasts afford.
Not content, however, with merely surveying the shore, Cook penetrated
into the interior of the country, and discovered several lakes hitherto
unknown.

On August 5 an eclipse of the sun occurred, an observation of which was
taken by Cook from one of the Burgeo Islands, near the south-west end of
Newfoundland. The paper that he wrote on it was published in the
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. This fact alone proves
that he must already have become a good mathematician and astronomer.
The last time he went to Newfoundland as marine surveyor was in 1767.

We have now briefly traced the career of James Cook from his childhood
to the period when he had established his character as an able seaman, a
scientific navigator, and a good officer. He was soon to have an
opportunity of proving to his country and to the world in general the
very high degree in which he possessed these qualities, and which
enabled him to accomplish an undertaking which has proved of inestimable
benefit to millions of the human race. By his means, discovery was made
of fertile lands of vast extent, previously trodden only by the feet of
wandering savages; and numberless tribes, sunk in the grossest idolatry
and human degradation, were made known to the Christian world. And
Christians, roused at length to a sense of their responsibility, began
to devise means, under the blessing of God, for teaching these, their
ignorant brethren of the human family, the knowledge of the only true
God, and the way of eternal life.

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Note 1. In the biographies of Cook the name of the vessel in which he
first went