When the Voyage appeared it came recommended by the accuracy and excellence of its charts, and by a great variety of engravings, from the curious and beautiful drawings of Mr.Hodges.This work was followed by the publication of the original astronomical observations, which had been made by Mr.Wales in the Resolution, and by Mr.Bayley in the Adventure.

It was at the expense of the commissioners of longitude that these observations were made, and it was by their order that they were printed.

The book of Mr.Wales and Mr.Bayley displays, in the strongest light, the scientific use and value of Captain Cook's voyage.
Some of the circumstances which have now been mentioned have designedly been brought forward more early in point of time than should otherwise have been done, in order to prevent any interruption in the course of the subsequent narrative.
Though Captain Cook was expected to, sit down in repose, after his toils and labours, the design of farther discoveries was not laid aside.

The illusion, indeed of a _Terra Australis incognita_, to any purposes of commerce, colonization, and utility, had been dispelled: but there was another grand question which remained to be determined; and that was the practicability of a northern passage to the Pacific Ocean.
It had long been a favourite object with navigators, and particularly with the English, to discover a shorter, a more commodious, and a more profitable course of sailing to Japan and China, and, indeed, to the East Indies in general, than by making the tedious circuit of the Cape of Good Hope.

To find a western passage round North America had been attempted by several bold adventurers, from Frobisher's first voyage, in 1576, to those of James and of Fox, in 1631.