e; and consequently Lieutenant
Cook was directed to hold himself in readiness to take command of the
proposed expedition. Sir Hugh Palliser was requested to select a fit
ship for the purpose, and with Cook's assistance he fixed on a barque of
three hundred and seventy tons, to which the name of the Endeavour was
given. She mounted ten carriage and ten swivel guns; her crew, besides
the commander, consisted of eighty-four persons, and she was provisioned
for eighteen months.

The well-known Sir Joseph Banks, then Mr Banks, one of the chief
promoters of the expedition, volunteered to accompany it. On leaving
Oxford he had visited the coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador, to obtain
information on scientific subjects. Although he suffered no small
amount of hardship on that occasion, he returned home with unabated zeal
in the cause he had adopted, and ready again to leave all the advantages
which his position afforded him, for the discomfort and dangers of a
long voyage in unknown seas. Mr Banks was, however, more than a
philosopher--he was a large-hearted philanthropist, and he was animated
with the hope of diffusing some of the advantages of civilisation and
Christianity among the people who might be discovered. He engaged, as
naturalist to the expedition, the services of Dr Solander, a Swede by
birth, educated under Linnaeus, from whom he had brought letters of
introduction to England. Mr Banks also, at his own charge, took out a
secretary and two artists--one to make drawings from subjects of natural
history, the other to take sketches of scenery and the portraits of the
natives who might be met with. He had likewise four personal
attendants, two of whom were negroes.

The Government, on its part, appointed Mr Charles Green, who had long
been assistant to Dr Bradley at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, to
assist Lieutenant Cook in the astronomical department of the expedition;
and in every respect the persons engaged in this celebrated expedition
were well fitted to attain the objects contemplated.

While these preparations were going forward, Captain Wallis returned
from his voyage round the world. He expressed his opinion that a
harbour in an island he had discovered, and called King George's Island,
since well-known as Otaheite or Tahiti, was a fit spot for observing the
transit of Venus. That island was accordingly to be the first
destination of the Endeavour. After having accomplished the primary
objec