Better conceiv'd than describ'd : the life and times of Captain James King (1750-84), Captain Cook's friend and colleague /Steve Ragnall.

A biography of Captain James King (1750-1784). Born in Clitheroe, King joined the Royal Navy in 1762 at the age of 12 benefiting from the patronage of an uncle, William Norton. Promoted to lieutenant in 1771, King went on to join Captain James Cook as second lieutenant on Cook's third and final voyage in the Resolution in 1776, sharing the astronomical duties on board with Cook. Following Cook's death in Hawaii in 1779, King continued serving in the Resolution under Cook's successor Captain Charles Clerke, but following Clerke's death on the voyage King was appointed to the command of the Discovery, the Resolution's consort ship. Returning to England in 1780, King began writing the third volume of the official account of Cook's voyage before being appointed captain of, first, the Crocodile and then the Resistance. Suffering from tuberculosis, King returned to England once more in 1783 to complete the account of Cook's voyage for publication before his death in Nice the following year. King was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in recognition of his astronomical observations on the Resolution, and King Island in British Columbia was named in his honour. Appendices include details of King's will, a list of ships in which he served and extracts from his family tree.