engaged his majesty's patronage; and two voyages round the world had
been undertaken before Mr. Cook set out on his first command. The
conductors of these voyages were the Captains Byron, Wallis, and
Carteret,[4] by whom several discoveries were made, which contributed,
in no small degree, to increase the knowledge of geography and
navigation. Nevertheless, as the purpose for which they were sent out
appears to have had a principal reference to a particular object in
the South Atlantic, the direct track they were obliged to hold, on
their way homeward by the East Indies, prevented them from doing so
much as might otherwise have been expected towards giving the world a
complete view of that immense expanse of ocean, which the South
Pacific comprehends.

[Footnote 4: The Captains Wallis and Carteret went out together
upon the same expedition; but the vessels they commanded having
accidentally parted company, they proceeded and returned by a
different route. Hence their voyages are distinctly related by Dr.
Hawkesworth.]

Before Captain Wallis and Captain Carteret had returned to Great
Britain, another voyage was resolved upon, for which the improvement
of astronomical science afforded the immediate occasion. It having
been calculated by astronomers, that a transit of Venus over the Sun's
disk would happen in 1769, it was judged that the best place for
observing it would be in some part of the South Sea, either at the
Marquesas, or at one of those islands which Tasman had called
Amsterdam; Rotterdam, and Middleburg, and which are now better known
under the appellation of the Friendly Islands. This being a matter of
eminent consequence in astronomy, and which excited the attention of
foreign nations as well as of our own, the affair was taken up by the