in His Majesty’s Navy was a very different person from one of her master’s apprentices, and must be received with all the marks of respect due to his rank.  She promised obedience, but, alas, when the time came her memory fled, and opening wide her arms, she exclaimed:  “O honey James!  How glad I is to see thee!” A welcome, probably, more dear to Cook than any other could have been, and a proof of the affectionate regard he could inspire.

In February he was back in London, and Dr. Burney says in his Memoirs: 

“I had the honour of receiving the illustrious Captain Cook to dine with me in Queen’s Square [Bloomsbury] previously to his second voyage round the world.  Observing upon a table, Bougainville’s Voyage Autour du Monde, he turned it over, and made some curious remarks on the illiberal conduct of that circumnavigator towards himself when they met and crossed each other; which made me desirous to know, in examining the chart of M. de Bougainville, the several tracks of the two navigators, and exactly where they had crossed or approached each other.

“Captain Cook instantly took a pencil from his pocket book and said he would trace the route; which he did in so clear and scientific a manner that I would not take fifty pounds for my book.  The pencil marks, having been fixed by skim milk, will always be visible.”

This volume is now in the British Museum, and the pencil marks on the chart are as distinct as on the day they were made.

The alterations to the ship were completed early in February, and on the 6th she was hauled out of dock, and rigging, ballasting, and storing commenced.  Cook says: 

“Every department seemed to vie with the other in equiping these two ships, every standing rule and order in the Navy was dispensed with, every alteration, every necessary and useful article, was granted as soon as asked for.”

Supplies increased.

In another passage he again refers to the anxiety of the Navy Board to see that the quality of the stores was everything that could be wished, and the quantity was increased from one to two and a half years’ supply.

On the 22nd April the two sloops were at Longreach to take in their guns and gunners’ stores; twelve carriage guns and twelve swivel musketoons for the Resolution, and ten carriage guns and ten swivels for the Adventure.  These should have been taken on board at Galleon’s Reach, but the Resolution was drawing too much water—­seventeen feet.  When here Cook showed that he thought she was rather over-weighted with her new upper works, and might prove crank, but: 

“as the Gentlemen’s apartments were full of heavy baggage and the sloop a good deal lumbered aloft with heavy and some useless articles, which we might soon get rid of or get into the hold after we had consumed some of our provisions, I still entertained hopes that she would bear all her additional works, and suspended giving any other opinion until a full trial had been made of her, foreseeing what would be the consequence in case she did not answer in the manner she was now fitted.”