The second voyage of James Cook, from 1772 to 1775, commissioned by the British government with advice from the Royal Society,[1] was designed to circumnavigate the globe as far south as possible to finally determine whether there was any great southern landmass, or Terra Australis.

[2] After a delay brought about by the botanist Joseph Banks' unreasonable demands, the ships Resolution and Adventure were fitted for the voyage and set sail for the Antarctic in July 1772.

Cook undertook a series of vast sweeps across the Pacific, finally proving there was no Terra Australis in temperate latitudes by sailing over most of its predicted locations.

Cook proved the Terra Australis Incognita to be a myth[5] and predicted that an Antarctic land would be found beyond the ice barrier.

Resolution began her career as the 462 ton North Sea collier Marquis of Granby, launched at Whitby in 1770, purchased by the Royal Navy in 1771 for £4,151, and converted to naval specifications for a cost of £6,565.

The Board of Longitude had asked Kendall to copy and develop John Harrison's fourth model of a clock (H4) useful for navigation at sea.

The crews had fishing gear (supplied by Onesimus Ustonson)[17] and a water purification system designed by Charles Irving was carried for distilling sea-water or purifying foul fresh-water.

However, in sea trials the ship was found to be top-heavy, and under Admiralty instructions the offending structures were removed in a second refit at Sheerness, at a further cost of £882 3s 0d.

Resolution carried a crew of 112; as senior lieutenants Robert Cooper and Charles Clerke and among the midshipmen George Vancouver and James Burney.

The Resolution anchored in Table Bay on 30 October with the crew all in good health because of Cook's imposition of a strict dietary and cleanliness regime.

Shortly after leaving they experienced severe cold weather and early on 23 November 1772 the crew were issued with fearnaught jackets and trousers at the expense of the government.

Furneaux made the earliest British chart of this shore, but as he did not enter Bass Strait he assumed Tasmania to be part of mainland Australia.

[22] From June to October the two ships explored the southern Pacific, reaching Tahiti on 15 August, where Omai of Ra'iatea embarked on Adventure.

In New Zealand Furneaux lost some of his men during an encounter with Māori, and eventually sailed back to Britain, setting out for home on 22 December 1773 via Cape Horn, arriving in England on 14 July 1774.

[24] On this occasion, Cook wrote: I who had ambition not only to go farther than anyone had been before, but as far as it was possible for man to go, was not sorry in meeting with this interruption...The vessel was then launched north to complete a huge arc in the Pacific Ocean, reaching latitudes just below the Equator then New Guinea.

[29] Another accomplishment of the second voyage was the successful employment of the Larcum Kendall K1 chronometer, which enabled Cook to calculate his longitudinal position with much greater accuracy.

Cook's log was full of praise for the watch which he used to make charts of the southern Pacific Ocean that were so remarkably accurate that copies of them were still in use in the mid-20th century.

[31] His fame now extended beyond the Admiralty and he was also made a Fellow of the Royal Society and awarded the Copley Gold Medal, painted by Nathaniel Dance-Holland, dined with James Boswell and described in the House of Lords as "the first navigator in Europe".

To avoid the ban, Forster's son Georg wrote a report instead, titled A Voyage Round the World, which was published in 1777, six weeks before Cook's account appeared.

[33] Some of the botanical results of the voyage were published by the Forsters as Characteres generum plantarum in 1776, with earlier 1775 copies given to King George III and to Carl Linnaeus.

[34] Cook's accounts of the large seal and whale populations helped influence further exploration of the Southern Ocean from sealers in search of the mammals' valued skins.