Kamtchatka, they again passed through Bering Strait, and sought in vain
for a passage either to the north-east or north-west, being everywhere
baffled by dense masses of ice. Captain Clerke at last abandoned the
struggle, and repassed Bering Strait on his way south on August 1st.

On August 22nd Captain Clerke died.

This officer had accompanied Captain Cook in all his voyages, and had
also circumnavigated the globe in the Dolphin with Captain Byron before.
No man had seen more of the Pacific, and he proved himself, during his
short period of command, a worthy successor of Cook.

Captain Gore, who had been with Cook on his First Voyage, now succeeded,
King being put as Commander into the Discovery, and the two ships made
the best of their way home, via Macao and the Straits of Sunda, arriving
at the Nore on October 4th, 1780, after an absence of four years and two
months. During the whole of this voyage not the slightest symptom of
scurvy appeared in either ship, so completely were Cook's precautions
successful.

Cook had six children. Three died young. Of the others, all boys, the
eldest, James, entered the Navy, and lived to be a Commander, when, in
1794, he was drowned. The second, Nathaniel, also in the Navy, was lost
in a hurricane in 1780. The third died when at Cambridge. They none of
them lived to be married, and no descendant of the great navigator has
perpetuated his race.

Of Cook's private life during his brief intervals at home we know
nothing. A man rising from the ranks, and of his reserved character,
would have but few friends, when he had such short time to make them in