By command of their lordships,

PH.  STEPHENS.

* * * * *

Besides ordering Captain Cook to sail on this important voyage, government, in earnest about the object of it, adopted a measure, which, while it could not but have a powerful operation on the crews of the Resolution and Discovery, by adding the motives of interest to the obligations of duty, at the same time encouraged all his majesty’s subjects to engage in attempts toward the proposed discovery.  By the act of parliament, passed in 1745,[34] a reward of twenty thousand pounds had been held out.  But it had been held out only to the ships belonging to any of his majesty’s subjects, exclusive of his majesty’s own ships.  The act had a still more capital defect.  It held out this reward only to such ships as should discover a passage through Hudson’s Bay; and, as we shall soon take occasion to explain, it was, by this time, pretty certain that no such passage existed within those limits.  Effectual care was taken to remedy both these defects by passing a new law; which, after reciting the provisions of the former, proceeds as follows:—­“And whereas many advantages, both to commerce and science, may be also expected from the discovery of any northern passage for vessels by sea, between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, be it enacted, That if any ship belonging to any of his majesty’s subjects, or to his majesty, shall find out, and sail through, any passage by sea between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, in any direction, or parallel of the northern hemisphere, to the northward of the 52 deg. of northern latitude, the owners of such ships, if belonging to any of his majesty’s subjects, or the commander, officers, and seamen of such ship belonging to his majesty, shall receive, as a reward for such discovery, the sum of twenty thousand pounds.

[Footnote 34:  See the Statutes at Large, 18 George II. chap. 17.]

“And whereas ships employed, both in the Spitzbergen Seas, and in Davis’s Straits, have frequent opportunities of approaching the North Pole, though they have not time, during the course of one summer, to penetrate into the Pacific Ocean; and whereas such approaches may greatly tend to the discovery of a communication between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, as well as be attended with many advantages to commerce and science, &c. be it enacted, That if any ship shall approach to within 1 deg. of the North Pole, the owner, &c. or commander, &c. so approaching, shall receive, as a reward for such first approach, the sum of five thousand pounds."[35]

[Footnote 35:  See the Statutes at Large, 1776, 16 George III. chap. 6.]