The Mission

Among Captain James Cook's companions there were several notable individuals.  Joseph Banks was a wealthy Lincolnshire squire; he had committed himself to a personal outlay of £10,000 in connection with his side of the expedition.  Daniel Solander, a Swede, was on the staff of the British Museum; he had been a student under Linnæus, the eminent botanist.  Charles Green was assistant to the Astronomer-Royal at Greenwich Observatory. The artist Sydney Parkinson (d. 1771) also joined the party.


Isaac Smith, one of the seamen, was a half-cousin to Mrs. Cook (he later rose to the rank of admiral).  The midshipman Magra belonged to a rich and loyal New York family (he would later become British Consul at Tangier).  Gore, Clerke, Molineux, Pickersgill and Wilkinson had been round the world in the Dolphin.  Clerke had served in the war against France from its outbreak in 1756.  He was in the mizzen top of the Bellona when Courageux shot away her mast and it was carried overboard.  Several other personal servants and two greyhounds made up the retinue. Also aboard was a goat that already had circumnavigated the world with Wallis.