ith great kindness, and had entered into a league of
friendship with their visitors: they therefore thought it their duty to
ratify this treaty formally. These two ships could have been none other
than the Resolution and Discovery, though evidently the Tschutski thought
they were Russian.

DEATH OF CLERKE.

Leaving on 13th June, the Asiatic coast was followed up, and 1st July
they were off the Gulf of Anadyr, where fogs and ice began seriously to
interfere with their progress, so they abandoned the Asiatic for the
American side, but with no better luck. They reached the latitude of 70
degrees 33 minutes North, about five leagues short of the point reached
the previous year, and at length, realising further efforts were useless
and resulting in serious damage to the ships from continual contact with
the loose ice, Clerke determined to return to Awatska Bay and refit and
then return to England. On 22nd August, the day before they reached the
Bay, Captain Clerke, who had long been suffering from serious ill health,
died, and was buried under a tree a little to the north of the post of
St. Peter and St. Paul; the crews of both ships and the Russian garrison
taking part in the funeral ceremony, and the Russian priest reading the
service at the grave. Clerke had been all three voyages with Cook, and
was only thirty-eight years of age.

Gore now took command of the Resolution, Burney, Rickman, and Lanyon
being his lieutenants, whilst King was the new Captain of the Discovery,
and Williamson and Hervey his lieutenants; Bayley going with Gore in
charge of the astronomical observations. On 9th October they left Awatska
and were off Cape Nambu, Japan, on the 26th, but were driven off the
coast by bad weather, and anchored in Macao Roads on 1st December. Here,
after considerable delay, stores were obtained from Canton, and the
seaman managed to dispose of most of the furs they had obtained in the
north. King estimates that the two ships received, in money and goods, as
much as 2000 pounds for the skins, and says that the men were so anxious
to return for more that they were almost in a state of mutiny.

On 11th April the ships reached the Cape, where the officers were
cordially received by Governor Plattenberg, who expressed the deepest
regret to hear of the loss of Cook, and requested that he should be sent
a portrait of the Captain to place in a blank space he pointed out
between two portraits of De Ruyter and Van Tromp--a gra