In May, 1768, Captain James Cook sailed down the Thames from Deptford Yard, in the ship Endeavour, and anchored in Plymouth Sound, preparatory to a voyage to Otaheite in the South Seas, in order to observe the transit of Venus, and after that to prosecute discoveries in the southern hemisphere. This voyage was one of a series instituted by George III., and executed under the commands of Commodore Byron, and Captains Wallis, Carteret, and Cook, in the ships Dolphin, Swallow, and Endeavour. As the explorations of the commanders preceding Cook were on the coasts of South America and in the Pacific, not extending to Australia or New Zealand, they concern us no further than as they paved the way for the Australian discoveries.

Captain Cook was now not only to make a more extensive research amongst the islands of the various groups of the South Sea, but he was directed to follow out the discoveries by Tasman, regarding New Zealand, called by Tasman Staaten Land, and Van Diemen's Land, in order to ascertain whether they constituted portions of the great, and still vaguely known Australian continent.

In order to render effective the discoveries in natural history, Captain Cook was accompanied by Joseph, afterwards Sir Joseph Banks, a gentleman of property in Lincolnshire, but who was zealously devoted to scientific pursuits, especially of botany. Mr. Banks had already made a voyage to Newfoundland and Labrador, in 1763, where he had suffered considerable hardships in pursuit of his favourite science, but this did not deter him from engaging in the then formidable enterprise of a visit to the antipodes.