Crewing the Expedition and Erroneous Science. Guest Author: Hampton Sides. The mission involved two ships: the Resolution and the Discovery. Key officers included Charles Clerke, who commanded the Discovery while suffering from tuberculosis, and James Kin

Crewing the Expedition and Erroneous Science. Guest Author: Hampton Sides. The mission involved two ships: the Resolution and the Discovery. Key officers included Charles Clerke, who commanded the Discovery while suffering from tuberculosis, and James King, a talented astronomer whom Cook mentored. Also on board were John Gore, an American-born veteran, and William Bligh, a brilliant but "insufferable" navigator who learned his craft directly from Cook. The voyage was partly motivated by the "open sea" theory of Daines Barrington, which falsely suggested that seawater could not freeze and that a path to the Northwest Passage would be ice-free if sailors stayed away from land. This wrongheaded science fueled the British Empire's obsession with finding a shorter route to Asia. 2
1784