Captain Cook’s expedition returned to the Sandwich Islands, where the great navigator was murdered. There was to have been a second voyage to the Arctic regions in the next navigable season. Captain Clerke succeeded to the command, but he was in a dying state. In April, 1779, the _Resolution_ and _Discovery_ arrived at Petropaulovsky in Kamschatka, where they were most hospitably received by the Russian Governor, and in July the ships again passed through Bering Strait, and were among the ice in lat. 69° 20′ N. But on the 27th further attempts were relinquished and it was decided to return to England. Captain Clerke died on the 23rd of August. The Arctic discoveries of Captain Cook extend on the Asiatic side to Cape North, and on the American side to Icy Cape. For nearly 50 years the knowledge of the polar sea north of America was bounded by Cook’s Icy Cape, with the mouths of the two rivers Coppermine and Mackenzie. A gun brig had been fitted out to meet Captain Cook in Baffin’s Bay, the _Lion_, commanded by Lieutenant Pickersgill, who had served in Cook’s second voyage. But he never got north of 68° 14′, though he fixed several positions in Davis Strait. He left the Scilly Islands June 20th, 1776, with instructions to protect the whalers from any attacks from colonial rebels, as well as to meet Captain Cook’s expedition[102]. In the following year the _Lion_ was sent north again, under Lieutenant Young, but did still less. Our Government then had a far clearer perception of their duties as regards discovery than is the case now. By Acts George II cap. 17 (1745) and George III cap. 6 (1776) £5000 were offered for reaching 89° N. and £20,000 for making the North-West Passage. In 1818 a further attempt to stimulate discovery was made by offering proportionate rewards for reaching high latitudes from 83° to 89°. But it was due to the persistent representations of a private geographer that the Government itself was induced to take action. The Hon. Daines Barrington--brother of the excellent Dr Shute Barrington, Bishop of Durham, and friend of Gilbert White of Selborne--was born in 1727, and after leaving Oxford became a barrister, and eventually a Bencher of the Inner Temple and Recorder of Bristol. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the Society of Antiquaries, and the author of a translation of King Alfred’s work on Orosius. He was deeply interested in northern voyages, and collected many accounts of ships reaching high latitudes from English and Dutch whaling captains. He published the information he had collected in his _Possibility of approaching the North Pole asserted_[103], and at the same time made strong representations to the Royal Society on the scientific importance of a northern voyage. At last he induced that body to make an appeal to the Government, and Lord Sandwich, then First Lord of the Admiralty, resolved that an expedition should be fitted out and despatched.