This enterprise proved fatal to its principal conductors— Captains Cook and Clerke, as we have seen, never returned. Captain King, with a constitution broken by climate and fatigue, lived indeed to publish the voyage which will immortalize his name; but he soon after fell a martyr to what he had undergone in the service of his country. He died at Nice, whither he had retired for the mild salubrity of the air, in the autumn of 1784; and though cut off in the bloom of life, left a name covered with honour and remembered with regret. He was the fourth son of the Dean of Raphoe in Ireland, but of an English family. Having come to a conclusion of the voyages in which the genius and talents of that great navigator Captain Cook are so pre-eminently displayed, we cannot omit the opportunity of gratifying a propensity which our readers must naturally feel of being made acquainted with what family he left behind him, and how the dispensations of Providence may have disposed of them; but in doing this, sorry are we to say, that we impose on ourselves a very painful duty, for we are unfortunately compelled to relate a tale of woe, melancholy and distressing in the extreme. When he set out on his last voyage, Captain Cook's family consisted of his wife and three sons, the second of whom was lost on board the "Thunderer" man of war, about six months after the unfortunate death of his father. The eldest son, who was appointed master and commander of the "Spitfire" sloop of war, while she lay off Poole waiting for hands, in attempting to get on board, was driven to sea in a boat during the night in a heavy gale of wind, and he and every person in the boat perished. But what considerably aggravates this misfortune is, as was afterwards disclosed by one of the sailors on board the vessel, that in their distress they were met by a revenue cutter, the hands of which threw them a rope, and lay to till they could bale their boat, or the fury of the wind should cease. But the master of the cutter, who was then in bed, was no sooner made acquainted with these circumstances, and that it was a king's boat, than, with an oath, he ordered his men immediately to set them adrift, and in that situation they were left to be overwhelmed by a tempestuous sea His body was afterwards found, and conveyed to Spithead on board his own vessel, whence it was conveyed to Cambridge, and buried by the side of the youngest brother, who had suddenly died of a fever, and whose funeral he had attended only about six weeks before. Thus was a tender mother prematurely deprived of her husband and children, and left to mourn their untimely fates, which had so powerful an effect upon her mind as to reduce Mrs. Cook to a mere shadow of what she was formerly. One thing yet remains to be done,--a public monument to Captain Cook, and one worthy of his great achievements, the benefits he has rendered to mankind, and the lustre shed by his name on the navy of England, some noble lighthouse in the pathway of ships of all nations, which may lead them safely to their respective havens; or, if this cannot be, at least a statue in Trafalgar Square, where Dr. Jenner and Sir Charles Napier are most grievously out of place, occupying, as they do, the site of statues of Collingwood, Hardy, St. Vincent, Howe, Duncan, etc. The only memorial to Cook at present is at Cambridge, and is as follows:— Inscription on the Tablet near the Communion Table in the church of St. Andrew's the Great, Cambridge IN MEMORY OF CAPTAIN JAMES COOK, OF THE ROYAL NAVY. One of the most celebrated Navigators that this or former ages can boast, In the Pacific Ocean, on the 14th day of February 1779, Of Mr. NATHANIEL COOK, who was lost with the Thunderer man-of-war, Captain Boyle Walsingham, in a most dreadful hurricane in October 1780, aged 16 years. Of Mr. HUGH Cook, of Christ's College, Cambridge, who died on the 21st December 1793; aged 17 years. Of JAMES COOK, Esq., Commander in the Royal Navy, who lost his life on the 25th January 1794, in going from Poole to the Spitfire sloop-of-war; which he commanded; in the 31st year of his age. Of ELIZABETH Cook, who died April 9th, 1771; aged 4 years. All children of the first-mentioned Captain James Cook, by Elizabeth Cook, who survived her husband 56 years, and departed this life 13th May 1835, at her residence, Clapham, Surrey, in the 94th year of her age. Her remains are deposited with those of her sons, James and Hugh, in the middle aisle of this church. Inscription on the Slab in the floor of the middle aisle of the same church Mr. HUGH COOK, Died 21st December 1793: Aged 17 years JAMES COOK, Esq., Died 25th January 1794; Aged 31 years. ELIZABETH COOK, their Mother, Obit. 13th May 1835; E ROBINSON CRUSOE BY DANIEL DEFOE Containing 8 Full-page Illustrations in Colour from Pictures Crown 8vo. Price 3/6 Cloth Gilt Reduced Specimen in Black and White of one of the Coloured Illustrations. Then, to see how like a king I dined too, all alone, attended by my servants! Poll, as if he had been my favourite, was the only person permitted to talk to me; my dog, which was now grown very old and crazy, . . . . sat always at my right hand; and two cats, one on one side the table, and one on the other, |