Chart of Sandwich Islands, showing
"Owhyee"
A Voyage
to the Pacific Ocean: … for Making Discoveries in the Northern
Hemisphere…in His Majesty’s Ships the Resolution and
Discovery, in the Years 1776-1780.
Second edition. London: H.
Hughs, 1785.
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Disappointed,
and with winter upon them, Cook decided to spend it in the Hawaiian
Islands so that the expedition would be refreshed and would
"be
in a condition to return to the North, in farther search of a
passage, the ensuing summer."
It was
upon their return from the north that they happened upon the last
two islands.
"At
day-break, next morning, land was seen… We made sail, and
stood for it… In the evening, we discovered another island
to windward, which the natives call Owhyhee [Hawaii]. The name
of that, off which we had been for some days, we were also told,
is Mowee [Maui]."
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The voyage account is finished by Captain James King, who described
how a conflict with the people of Hawaii caused the shooting
of a high ranking official of the island, and resulted in the
death of James Cook. King wrote a lengthy and respectful description
of the people of the islands, and of the land, which augmented
those written by Cook of the other islands. After Cook’s
death, Captains Charles Clerke and James King made another attempt
at the Bering Strait that summer as Cook had planned; a noble
effort which claimed Clerke’s life, but they made no further
north.
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