He was received in England with high applause, posted, and made a Captain of Greenwich Hospital. On this occasion he published his own Journal, illustrated by maps and engravings; and the composition, unpretending, but clear and manly, does honour to one whose education had been so rude. Being elected Fellow of the Royal Society, he contributed two papers to their Transactions, published in vol. lxvi., one relating to the tides in the South Seas, the other containing an account of the methods which he had taken to preserve the health of his ship’s crew. The ravages of scurvy are now so much checked, that few know from experience how dreadfully earlier navigators suffered from that disease. It is one of Cook’s peculiar merits, that he attended to the health of his seamen with such eminent success, that during this long and painful voyage, not one man died of scurvy. Four only died, out of a hundred and twelve persons on board the Resolution, and of these but one was carried off by disease. That this was, in a great degree, the merit of the Captain, is proved by the Adventure having suffered much more, though fitted out exactly in the same way. Sailors usually dislike changes in their mode of life; and it required judgment and perseverance to induce them to adopt a healthy regimen. Cook, however, succeeded in reconciling them to his innovations; of the utility of which they were perfectly convinced, long before the end of the voyage. The means which he used will be found fully detailed in his paper, which was honoured by the Society with the gold medal: those on which he chiefly relied were a large supply of antiscorbutic stores, as malt, sour krout, and portable broth; the enforcement of a vegetable diet, whenever vegetables could be procured; and great care not to expose the crew unnecessarily to the weather, and to keep their persons, their clothes, and their berths, clean, dry, and well aired. Cook was justly proud of his success in this respect, and he closed the account of his second voyage with words which show the humanity and modesty of his temper. “Whatever may be the public judgment about other matters, it is with real satisfaction, and without claiming any other merit but that of attention to my duty, that I can conclude this account with an observation, which facts enable me to make, that our having discovered the possibility of preserving health among a numerous ship’s company for such a length of time, in such varieties of climate, and amid such continued hardships and fatigues, will make this voyage remarkable, in the opinion of every benevolent person, when the disputes about the southern continent shall have ceased to engage the attention and to divide the judgment of philosophers.”