Mrs. Cook’s letter.

The Royal Society was naturally amongst the first to recognise the great worth of its late Fellow, and the loss the Society had suffered from his death.  It had already granted him one of its highest honours in the form of the Copley Gold Medal for his successful contest with the scurvy, and it now decided to mark its appreciation by striking a special gold medal in his honour.  This was forwarded by Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society, to Mrs. Cook, and acknowledged by her in the following touching letter: 

Mile End,

16th August 1784.

Sir,

I received your exceeding kind letter of the 12th instant, and want words to express in any adequate degree my feelings on the very singular honour which you, Sir, and the honourable and learned Society over which you so worthily preside, have been pleased to confer on my late husband, and through him on me and his children who are left to lament the loss of him, and to be the receivers of those most noble marks of approbations which, if Providence had been pleased to permit him to receive, would have rendered me very happy indeed.

Be assured, Sir, that however unequal I may be to the task of expressing it, I feel as I ought the high honour which the Royal Society has been pleased to do me.  My greatest pleasure now remaining is in my sons, who, I hope, will ever strive to copy after so good an example, and, animated by the honours bestowed on their Father’s memory, be ambitious of attaining by their own merits your notice and approbation.  Let me entreat you to add to the many acts of friendship which I have already received at your hands, that of expressing my gratitude and thanks to that learned body in such a manner as may be acceptable to them.

I am, Sir, etc., etc.,

Elizabeth Cook.

The medal actually presented to Mrs. Cook is now in the British Museum.

Deaths of the sons.

It is greatly to be regretted that so little can be ascertained about Cook’s private life that would be of service in forming an intimate knowledge of his character, but this is accounted for by the fact that after he had joined the Navy his time was so fully occupied by that service that he had but little opportunity to form private friendships such as fall to the lot of most men.  The intimacies that he did form were mostly connected very closely with his naval duties, and his opportunities of correspondence were necessarily limited by absence from all ordinary means of communication.  For a man of his marked celebrity it is very curious that there should be such a dearth of anecdote that it is difficult to find anything that is unconnected with his profession.  Of his own family relations there is also little known, as Mrs. Cook, probably esteeming the few letters she had from him as too sacred to be seen by any other