A map of the coast of Japan from the French edition of Captain Cook’s ‘A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean’.

Captain James Cook made three major voyages to the Pacific. The first voyage, with HMS Endeavour, from 1768–1771, was ostensibly made to observe the Transit of Venus, but also to search for the mythical Great Southern Continent supposed to lie somewhere between New Holland and South America. Cook became the first European to set foot on New Zealand, and named the land New South Wales. During the second voyage, with HMS Resolution and Adventure, from 1772–1775, Cook made the first crossing of the Antarctic Circle. In his third and final voyage, with HMS Resolution and Discovery, from 1776–1780, Cook became the first European to discover Hawaii and showed that there was no navigable northern passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific. He died during a skirmish with natives in Hawaii.

Cook’s journals were published after each voyage. This map is from the 1785 French translation of the journals of his third voyage, ‘A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean’, first published in 1784.