His first Plan for the purpose was that of embarking in a vessel which was then preparing to sail, on a Voyage of Commercial Adventure, to Nootka Sound, on the Western Coast of America; and with this view he expended in sea stores, the greatest part of the money which his chief benefactor Sir Joseph Banks (whose generous conduct the Writer of this Narrative has often heard him acknowledge) had liberally supplied. But the scheme being frustrated by the rapacity of a Custom-house Officer, who had seized and detained the vessel for reasons which on legal inquiry proved to be frivolous, he determined to travel over land to Kamschatka, from whence to the Western coast of America the passage is extremely short. With no more than ten guineas in his purse, which was all that he had left, he crossed the British Channel to Ostend, and by the way of Denmark and the Sound, proceeded to the capital of Sweden, from whence, as it was Winter, he attempted to traverse the Gulph of Bothnia on the ice, in order to reach Kamschatka by the shortest way; but finding, when he came to the middle of the sea, that the water was not frozen, he returned to Stockholm, and taking his course Northward, walked into the Arctic Circle; and passing round the head of the Gulph, descended on its Eastern side to Petersburgh. There, he was soon noticed as an extraordinary man.—Without stockings, or shoes, and in too much poverty to provide himself with either, he received and accepted an invitation to dine with the Portugueze Ambassador. To this invitation it was probably owing that he was able to obtain the sum of twenty guineas for a bill on Sir Joseph Banks, which he confessed he had no authority to draw, but which, in consideration of the business that he had undertaken, and of the progress that he had made, Sir Joseph, he believed, would not be unwilling to pay. To the Ambassador’s interest it might also be owing that he obtained permission to accompany a detachment of Stores which the Empress had ordered to be sent to Yakutz, for the use of Mr. Billings, an Englishman, at that time in her service. Thus accommodated, he travelled Eastward through Siberia, six thousand miles, to Yakutz, where he was kindly received by Mr. Billings, whom he remembered on board Captain Cook’s ship, in the situation of the Astronomer’s Servant, but to whom the Empress had now entrusted her schemes of Northern discovery. From Yakutz he proceeded to Oczakow, on the coast of the Kamschatka sea, from whence he meant to have passed over to that peninsula, and to have embarked on the Eastern side in one of the Russian vessels that trade to the Western shores of America; but finding that the navigation was completely obstructed by the ice, he returned again to Yakutz, in order to wait for the conclusion of the Winter.