The first expeditions that were sent forth, after the conclusion of the
war, were those of Byron, Wallis, and Carteret. In the instructions to
the first of these commanders it is said, 'there is reason to believe
that lands and islands of great extent, hitherto unvisited by any
European power, may be found in the Atlantic Ocean, between the Cape of
Good Hope and the Magellanic Strait, within the latitudes convenient for
navigation, and in climates adapted to the produce of commodities useful
in commerce.' It could not require much knowledge or consideration to be
assured that, between the Cape and the Strait, climates producing
commodities useful in commerce, with the exception of whales and seals,
were likely to be found. The fact was that, among the real objects of
this and other subsequent voyages, there was one which had engaged the
attention of certain philosophers, from the time of the Spanish
navigator, Quiros: this able navigator had maintained that a _Terra
Australis incognita_ must necessarily exist, somewhere in the high
latitudes of the southern hemisphere, to counterbalance the great
masses of land in those of the northern one, and thus maintain a just
equipoise of the globe.

While these expeditions were in progress, the Royal Society, in 1768,
addressed an application to the king, praying him to appoint a ship of
war to convey to the South Seas Mr. Alexander Dalrymple (who had adopted
the opinion of Quiros), and certain others, for the main purpose,
however, of observing the transit of Venus over the sun's disc, which
was to happen in the year 1769. By the king's command, a bark of three
hundred and seventy tons was taken up by the Admiralty to perform this
service, but, as Mr. Dalrymple was a civilian, he could not be entrusted
with the command of the ship, and on that account declined going in her.

The command was therefore conferred on Lieutenant James Cook, an officer