At the same time, it was agreed that on his return to England, he should be restored to his situation at Greenwich; and, if no vacancy occurred during the interval, the officer who succeeded him was to resign in his favour.
The command and the direction of the enterprise being thus happily settled, it became an object of great importance to determine what might be the best course that could be given to the voyage.

All former navigators round the globe had returned to Europe by the Cape of Good Hope.

But to Captain Cook the arduous task was now assigned, of attempting it by reaching the high northern latitudes between Asia and America; and the adoption of this resolution was, I believe, the result of his own reflections upon the subject.

The usual plan, therefore, of discovery was reversed; so that instead of a passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, one from the latter into the former was to be tried.

Whatever openings or inlets there might be on the east side of America, that lie in a direction which could afford any hopes of a passage, it was wisely foreseen, that the ultimate success of the expedition would depend upon there being an open sea between the west side of that continent and the extremities of Asia.
Accordingly Captain Cook was ordered to proceed into the Pacific Ocean, through the chain of the new islands which had been visited by him in the southern tropic.