In the Record Office, London, there are no fewer than ten logs of Cook's voyage; three of these are anonymous, but six of them are signed by the ship's officers, and one, from circumstantial evidence, is no doubt by Green, the astronomer. The signed logs are by Hicks, Cook's first lieutenant; Forwood, the gunner; and Pickersgill, Clerke, Wilkinson, and Bootie, mates. Hicks, as we have seen, died on the passage home; Forwood, after the _Endeavour's_ return, is not heard of again. Pickersgill was promoted to be master on the death of that officer (Robert Molineux) in April, 1771. He had previously served as a midshipman under Wallis in 1766-1788, and he served again under Cook in the _Resolution_ as third lieutenant. On the return of Cook from his second voyage, Pickersgill was appointed commander of the _Lion_, and sent to survey Baffin's Bay, but he was relieved of the command early in 1777, and then we lose sight of him. Wilkinson also had served under Wallis, but he died soon after the return of the _Endeavour_, and Bootie died on the way home. The best-known of these log-writers is Charles Clerke. Though only a youngster, he had seen much service. When the Seven Years' War in 1756 broke out, he was, at fifteen years of age, serving on a man-of-war. He was on the _Bellona_ in her celebrated engagement with the _Courageux_, off Vigo, in 1761, and he accompanied Byron in the _Dolphin_, afterwards serving in America, where it is probable Cook first met him. Consequent on the many deaths, Clerke was made third lieutenant of the _Endeavour_ after the ship left Batavia, and Cook, referring to his appointment, wrote to the Admiralty that Clerke was a young man well worthy of the step. He again served with Cook as second lieutenant of the _Resolution_, and in Cook's third voyage he was captain of the _Discovery_ and second in command of the expedition. When Cook was killed on February 14th, 1779, he took charge, but only survived his superior until the 22nd of August. He died off the Kamschatka coast, and was buried at the harbour of St. Peter and St. Paul. His shipmates erected a board with an inscription upon it over his grave; and La Pérouse, when in 1787 he visited the spot, caused the board to be replaced by a copper plate, on which the inscription was re-engraved. In a volume of the _New South Wales Records_ is printed for the first time a batch of letters from Clerke to Sir Joseph Banks, and these documents so well depict poor Clerke's cheery disposition, notwithstanding that he was suffering from a fear of the King's Bench, and, what was more serious, the sad disease which ended in his death, that we may be pardoned for reproducing extracts from them. The first was written just before Clerke sailed with Cook on that fatal third voyage as commander of the _Discovery_:--