James Cook

James Cook (Captain James Cook) (1728–1779) British naval officer in the Atlantic and Pacific

James Cook was born in Marton-in-Cleveland, an agricultural village in Yorkshire, England, where his parents were farm workers. At the age of 16, he was apprenticed to a dry goods merchant in the fishing village of Staithes. About two years later,rift gold Cook moved to Whitby, the English seaport on Yorkshire’s North Sea coast, where he began his seafaring career as shipwright and later as a ship’s boy on the Freelove, which carried coal down the coast from Whitby to London. Over the next few years, Cook studied mathematics and astronomy on his own and developed his skills as a navigator. In 1755, at the beginning of the Seven Years War between England and France, Cook enlisted in the Royal Navy as an able-bodied seaman, serving on the HMS Eagle under Sir Hugh Palliser. Palliser recognized Cook’s talent for navigation and seamanship and helped to advance his naval career.

In 1759, Cook undertook a detailed navigational survey of the St. Lawrence River and its estuary. His charts were invaluable in the British landing and victory at Quebec that September. Cook’s expertise as a navigator and hydrographer became well known in 1760, with the publication of his New Chart of the River St. Lawrence. After Great Britain gained control of Canada in 1760, Palliser was appointed governor of Newfoundland, and Cook continued to conduct coastal surveys of Newfoundland. He charted the northern approach to the Gulf of St. Lawrence through the Strait of Belle Isle,rift gold as well as the southern route through Cabot Strait. In spring 1764, Cook was given his first Royal Navy command, the schooner Grenville. Two years later, in July 1766, he took the Grenville to the Newfoundland coast to observe a solar eclipse. In 1768, the findings of this expedition were published by the ROYAL SOCIETY.