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 gracious compliment.  Sailing from Simon’s Bay on 9th May, the trades were picked up on the 14th, and on 13th June the line was crossed in longitude 26 degrees 16 minutes West.  The coast of Ireland was sighted on 12th August, and an attempt was made to get into Galway Bay, but strong southerly winds drove them to the north, and at length, rounding the north of Scotland, they put into Stromness, whence Captain King was despatched overland to the Admiralty.  The ships arrived off the Nore on 4th October, after an absence of “four years, two months, and twenty-two days.”

King meets king.

On 14th February 1781, the second anniversary of Cook’s death, King, accompanied by Mr. Banks, was presented to His Majesty, who was pleased to accept the Journals of the Resolution and Discovery kept during this eventful voyage.

CHAPTER 19.  APPRECIATION AND CHARACTER.

Of course as nothing had been heard of the expedition for a considerable time, a certain amount of anxiety was felt, which at length found vent in paragraphs in the public press, and on 11th January 1780 the London Gazette contained the following: 

“Captain Clerke of His Majesty’s Sloop the Resolution, in a letter to Mr. Stephens, dated the 8th of June 1779, in the harbour of St. Peter and St. Paul, Kampschatka, which was received yesterday, gives the melancholy account of the celebrated Captain Cook, late Commander of that Sloop, with four of his private Marines having been killed on the 14th of February last at the island of Owhyhe, one of a Group of new-discovered Islands in the 22nd degree of North Latitude, in an affray with a numerous and tumultuous Body of the Natives.”