vy--"having," as he
himself said, "a mind to try his fortune that way." In the year 1755 he
entered the King's service on board the _Eagle_, a sixty-gun ship,
commanded by Sir Hugh Palliser. This officer was one of Cook's warmest
friends through life.

In the navy the young sailor displayed the same steady, thorough-going
character that had won him advancement in the coasting trade. The
secret of his good fortune (if secret it may be called) was his untiring
perseverance and energy in the pursuit of one object at one time. His
attention was never divided. He seemed to have the power of giving his
whole soul to the work in hand, whatever that might be, without
troubling himself about the future. Whatever his hand found to do he
did it with all his might. The consequence was that he became a
first-rate man. His superiors soon found that out. He did not require
to boast or push himself forward. His _work_ spoke for him, and the
result was that he was promoted from the forecastle to the quarter-deck,
and became a master on board the _Mercury_ when he was about thirty
years of age.

About this time he went with the fleet to the Gulf of Saint Lawrence,
and took part in the war then raging between the British and French in
Canada. Winter in that region is long and bitterly cold. The gulfs and
rivers there are at that season covered with thick ice; ships cannot
move about, and war cannot be carried on. Thus the fleet was for a long
period inactive. Cook took advantage of this leisure time to study
mathematics and astronomy, and, although he little thought it, was thus
fitting himself for the great work of discovery which he afterwards
undertook with signal success.

In this expedition to Canada Cook distinguished himself greatly--
especially in his surveys of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, and in piloting
the fleet safely through the dangerous shoals and rocks of that inland
sea. So careful and correct was he in all that he did, that men in
power and in high places began to take special notice of him; and,
finally, when, in the year 1767, an expedition of importance was about
to be sent to the southern seas for scientific purposes, Cook was chosen
to command it.

This was indeed a high honour, for the success of that expedition
depended on the man who should be placed at its head. In order to mark
the importance of the command, and at the same time invest the commander
with proper authority, Cook was promoted