Captain James Cook
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Within a year of his return, Cook was once more the captain of the Resolution. The goal of this third voyage was to find out whether there was a north-east passage from the Pacific to the Atlantic. So Cook sailed to the Pacific, visiting Van Diemen's Land, New Zealand, Tahiti, and the Friendly Islands. Then he set course for North America. The Sandwich Islands were discovered in February, and the mainland of America sighted in March 1778. All summer they explored the coast from Oregon northwards, through the Bering Strait, right up to Icy Cape. The crew endured storms and hardship without complaint; but there was no sign of an ice-free north-east passage, and Captain Cook decided to return to Hawaii in the Sandwich Islands.

Then came the end. One of the cutters from the Resolution was stolen, and Captain Cook put ashore with armed men to get it back. Natives crowded the beach, armed and excited. Stones were thrown and there was some firing. Cook turned, and as he did so, he was stabbed in the back and speared. He fell dead into the water. Thus died Captain Cook at the age of fifty-one.

His great perseverance and courage, his calmness and common sense in danger, and his singleness of purpose, have, with his tremendous achievements, marked him as one of the greatest of explorers. Patient and methodical where other explorers had been hasty and disorganized, in the end he gave to the world a valuable treasure: a comprehensive map of the Pacific.