excepting a daughter, who married a fisherman at Redcar. The first
rudiments of young Cook's education were received by him at Marton,
where he was taught to read by dame Walker, the schoolmistress of the
village. When he was eight years of age, his father, in consequence of
the character he had obtained for industry, frugality, and skill in
husbandry, had a little promotion bestowed upon him, which was that of
being appointed head-servant, or hind,[2] to a farm belonging to the
late Thomas Skottow, Esq. called Airy Holme, near Great Ayton. To this
place, therefore, he removed with his family;[3] and his son James, at
Mr. Skottow's expense, was put to a day-school in Ayton, where he was
instructed in writing, and in a few of the first rules of arithmetic.

[Footnote 1: The mud house in which Captain Cook drew his first
breath is pulled down, and no vestiges of it are now remaining.]

[Footnote 2: This is the name which, in that part of the country,
is given to the head-servant, or bailiff, of a farm.]

[Footnote 3: Mr. Cook, senior, spent the close of his life with
his daughter, at Redcar, and is supposed to have been about
eighty-five years of age when he died.]

Before he was thirteen years of age, he was bound an apprentice to Mr.
William Sanderson, a haberdasher, or shopkeeper, at Straiths, a
considerable fishing town, about ten miles north of Whitby. This
employment, however, was very unsuitable to young Cook's disposition.
The sea was the object of his inclination; and his passion for it
could not avoid being strengthened by the situation of the town in
which he was placed, and the manner of life of the persons with whom
he must frequently converse. Some disagreement having happened between